I’m still thinking about City Hall.

It has been a week and I have a few more thoughts to share on City Hall. I must start with the caveat that I am neither an architect nor an engineer.  But I am someone who has been chosen (at least for now) by the people of Paducah to look out for both the city’s finances and its character. And I’m starting to think that tearing down the old City Hall building and starting fresh is not necessarily the way to go.

If we instead chose to renovate the old building, we would have the unique opportunity to make some changes that would put parts of it to better use. Take for example the way we could use the spaces in the building that are underutilized now. What about moving the staff of Parks and Recreation to the basement offices and closing the old Parks and Rec building?  Yes, the Senior Citizen Program would have to find a new home, maybe (as a first thought) the Convention Center. The old building is terrifically inefficient, energy-wise.  Could it be sold and have those savings redeployed in the City Hall? Could E911 and IT Department be moved into City Hall and those buildings disposed of? That could also create some savings.

That’s just one thought, but there really are lots of changes we could make to the City Hall we have now that would allow it to be just as useful as new building.

Another thought of mine is the aesthetics of the building. I’ve talked to people who love how it looks and people who hate how it looks, and we’ll never get a consensus there. But know this—there will never be another built like it. It was intended to make a statement about Paducah, and it has been part of the fabric of Paducah’s history since 1964. Shiny new things sound exciting, but that’s because nobody wants to think about the fact that when you bulldoze a piece of history you can never get it back.

I’m especially concerned now because of the RFQ (“Request For Qualifications,” which is where we advertise for hiring an architect) that the City has had out, and the accompanying timeline. This timeline calls for us to have an architect chosen in only slightly more than six weeks, and the design for the new building completed in January of next year. Are we that sure that we want a new City Hall in the first place? Where’s a comparison of the costs of building vs. renovating? We still do not know. Don’t we need a better—smarter—idea of what we need to do before we rush off and choose who we want to do it?

I know I am an impatient person who is going to slow down on this because this is an opportunity to really get it right for all of us. So, I’m still thinking about all this and you should too. Let me know what you think.

To build anew or renovate the old, that is the question

I’ve been getting quite a lot of advice lately on what to do with city hall.  It is well meaning and obviously from the heart.  I get that.  I, regardless of what the advisors might think, am truly conflicted about which way I will lean in the final tally.

Having said all this, I think I might try to explain what is on my mind concerning city hall.  I had the great pleasure of meeting University of Tennessee’s James Mason several weeks ago in the basement of city hall.  I joined Bill Black in the city workshop.  Mr. Mason is quite the structural engineer, and I truly mean that.  He is worth a Google.  I came away from that hour thinking this guy is the quarterback throwing a “Hail Mary” pass in the final seconds of a very important football game. Ha, you didn’t think I knew about sports.  Last Tuesday, I had the repeated pleasure of listening to two of his talks on how we might save city hall.  Well, as to the roof canopy and earthquake stabilization anyway.  Tuesday night was his final talk to the commission.  You can watch it on the city’s website; it is really quite informative.

I did not say much that night, but I will now.  It would seem that we really have two options.  Yes, I know many will say that there is only one, save the city hall.  At the risk of being vilified by friends and others alike, I would say we have two courses of action.

Bacon, Farmer, Workman, the Paducah engineering firm, could be instructed to incorporate the Mason Plan with their own findings to come up with a revised plan.  By the way, one of the most intriguing parts of James Mason’s plan is that the city hall stays “in business” during the roof canopy repair and the earthquake remediation repair.  Additionally, these two critical parts are not interdependent on one another.  One could be done with the other done at a later date, funding wise.

The other idea is to right-size the city hall if it is to be a new building.  And here’s the thing, our city hall is some 60,000 sq. ft. in total while the basement takes up an astonishingly, half of it.  Sounds to me like we have been using, in the main, some 30,000 sq. ft. for our people to work in, not the 50,000 sq. ft. that has been bandied about.  Understand I’m no architect or engineer, but there must be a kernel of significance somewhere. Hopkinsville has such a 30,000 sq. ft. structure, and we could well learn from them the costs, advantages and disadvantages of their experience without going through the process of hiring an architect and all that entails to get this data for us. And this could be a real game changer, a smaller, truly efficient city hall.

So, there you have it.  Until we get a more accurate handle on the cost to redo an irreplaceable icon versus the cost of a plainer, more administrative type city hall building I will be hard pressed to decide.  I could use your forbearance on this point.  Don’t tell me that the existence of Paducah rests on this renovation of city hall, and if I don’t vote to save it then all our talk about historic this and UNESCO that is meaningless.  I am working hard on this one, I promise.  I can hardly get away from it.  Patience.