City Hall Options Final Report
 

CBRE has presented their final report on the options for London's aging city hall.

The results:

Option 1 - Base Case (maintain status quo; city offices are scattered in buildings throughout the core)

Option 2 - Expand City Hall

Option 3 (recommended option) - Build new city hall.

Link to the report:
http://www.london.ca/Reference_Documents/PDFs/Options_CityHall_Feb2011report.pdf

Thoughts?

Building a new city hall is going to be the best option in the long run, in my opinion. Renovating now means either renovating again later, or building a new city hall anyways later.

The big question is where to put it. One area I favour is the vacant lot on Queens Ave across from the courthouse. Another area I would be in favour of would be the former Smuggler's Alley site.

Good. I hate our city hall.

It's so bleak and uninviting. I absolutely adore Kitchener's as it is just the opposite. Hope the designs for a new city hall reflect some of Kitchener's strengths.

will any other entity want to buy the vomit that is the current city hall? Tim best, maybe? He might join up with CTP trio and open a "don't pay! Fight the dui charge" office.

A new buildings would mean a big new office building in the core. Based on the current City Hall at 12 stories I would guess something about 20 stories and that would be awesome. However the city does need to come up with additional 50 million dollars for that route.

I bet the City could find a buyer for the old hall in Farhi.

Best location?? I'd love to see something that makes use of either the Thames or again, Victoria park. Though dunno where near Vic. park would be best.

Theres's a parking lot at Queens and Talbot. Build here and it will overlook the forks if it's high enough.

Or they can build where the 'Wick burned down. :haha:

I think this option would make the most sense, they need to build a new City Hall.
There is no point renovating, then having to do so again in 10 years or build a new building then as Manny suggested.

This would allow them to slowly get rid of the leased land over the next few years all while building a new facility that is capable of accommodating all current and foreseeable future needs.

I'm not saying I disagree with the conclusion that over the long term a new City Hall is the best thing for the city. However in the short term 50 million is a lot of money for the city to come up with given the current environment of budget cuts and zero tax increases. There is the borrowing route but that has its own costs as well, even with the low rates municipalities can borrow at we would be talking about millions in interest over the life the loans.

I hope it works but I just don't think its as simple as this is the best thing for the long term so lets do it.

I do agree it's not just a simple solution saying okay lets do it and build a new building. However that said what are the costs of leasing extra space that they would save? What are the costs of the currently building as is plus the renovation fee's? Also once it's renovated would it be suitable for all employee's?

I think regardless of what route they go they need to eliminate the current leased properties.

I remember we discussed this issue on this forum a while back and I think what we said then will be as true today.

Firstly the city leases twice as much office space for it's employees off site then it presently has at the current Dufferin location. At the average cost per sq foot for leasing, that is MILLIONS a year (That being said they are pumping much needed money into office space that would otherwise be vacant)

I believe we all discussed another route with a new city hall in that it would need to be a joint venture with a private sector company. Sharing the cost of the construction creating not only municipal government space but also commercial space aswell. (Not that we need that, if the city were to pull out of their leases the cities leased percentages would drop even lower then they already are)

IF However the loan repayment/interest payments are lower then the cost to lease I think the city would be foolish not to persue that option.

And as for future use for the present city hall, I think a refit for loft condos would be pretty much perfect

Exploring the 50 year history of London City Hall.


https://london.ca/CityHall50

^some cool shots there. Even Colonel Sanders.

Interesting and cool vid. I never knew there was an observation deck.

I'm not sure if the observation deck is open to the public on a daily basis anymore (pre-Covid anyway) but it is a great place to go when they have it open to see the Christmas lights in the park.

I remember as a pre-teen 40 years ago, I had an afternoon London Free Press paper route for a summer. Every 2 weeks, I would do my collections, walk downtown to the Free Press office to pay my bill, and then walk up to city hall. I would go up to the 12th floor, where the cafeteria was, buy lunch (egg salad sandwich, coke and a cookie lol) and walk around the observation deck.

Report released on City Hall space savings due to WFH measures during COVID.



https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/keeping-some-workers-at-home-could-cut-citys-office-space-by-20

Maybe this will let them stay in the current city hall longer without renting extra spaces

Gives serious pause to the build a new City Hall agenda that was being floated around pre Covid. I'm a little surprised it was only 20% and would have thought the number should be higher. 30-40% range seems about right for the mix of city office worker job types.

I bet it doesn't slow down the "new city hall" agenda at all. It's still a crappy building and even if 40% of city staff worked from home, they are still scattered in various locations around the city. I'm also not convinced that work from home is going to remain at a high level as Covid gets smaller in the rear view mirror. Especially in government work where the "underworked, overpaid" view of a lot of the general public is still pretty strong. People going to a workplace in the private sector aren't going to keep accepting government workers "staying home and slacking off" as I hear many say. Hell, I deliver to government offices and hear that from their own co-workers who have to come in lol.

Telework arrangements in most government offices were already common pre pandemic and only accelerated. Telework is here to stay and we may have seen the peak office space leasing volume in our lifetimes. In fact companies that don't offer telework arrangements will find they can't hire the best employees as they will migrate to the organizations that have telework arrangements. This trend is not reversing in the professional office worker class. The benefits to employers is obvious and in order to compete they will market themselves as telework friendly or suffer the consequences.