From David Volz
Fort Lauderdale is getting closer to a new City Hall.
During a recent meeting, the Commission approved an interim agreement for a new City Hall. The decision follows an extensive review process that included public engagement, independent evaluations and negotiations. The agreement also incorporates revisions requested by the City Commission during the review process to strengthen the project before it advances to the next phase.
As part of that review, the City Commission directed City staff to evaluate whether purchasing and renovating an existing office building would provide better long-term value than constructing a new City Hall. Based on that analysis, the majority of the City Commission concluded that a purpose-built City Hall represents the best long-term value for taxpayers.
Under the interim agreement, FTL City Hall Partners will continue design, engineering and preconstruction work while refining the project with the City.
Over the next 100 days, the project team will finalize the building’s design direction with the City, with additional design and pre-construction milestones to follow before any final development agreement is brought back to the City Commission for consideration.
“I am very pleased the city will be building a new City Hall. During the last several months, we were able to decrease the cost by more than $50 million for the building construction and make this effort for city taxpayers,” said commissioner Steve Glassman.
