For some years, the City of Santa Clara has been kicking around the idea of relocating City Hall. Some have proposed moving it back to a redeveloped downtown. The latest idea is to move it to the Northside of the city — away from central Santa Clara — and selling the valuable parcels on Civic Center Drive to developers eager to build new projects.
Folks, we’ve been down this road.
We heard this same story when the city’s historic city hall was demolished along with the rest of downtown in 1960. City Hall was then rebuilt at its present location. But despite decades of development, redevelopment and modernizing plans; and charts, graphs, blueprints and spending on consultants, Santa Clara’s downtown has … well … remained pretty much the same since the 1990s. Franklin Mall was built on the empty lot.
Now, a lot has happened in our city over that time. The Northside has exploded, prospered and become highly developed. There was a notion a decade ago to create a new urban hub on the Northside across from Levi’s Stadium. However, all that has sprung up there so far is weeds.
In this century, Santa Clara has filled in and filled up and has little property available for further expansion, limiting the options to build, rebuild or relocate City Hall.
There are good reasons for City Hall staying put. The location is central and accessible. The city owns the land, the buildings and facilities. While these are half a century old, the land is prime for a rebuild.
So, just a thought: Could we continue to use the current sprawling city hall while building new, multistory buildings on the site and moving city departments in stages? This is what Sunnyvale did, and built a civic center in several phases that is a showpiece, while remaining at the center of that city.
By building up instead of moving out, Santa Clara preserves some of the most valuable real estate in the city. In addition to executive offices, new multistory buildings would provide space for parking, a state-of-the-art permit center, business offices and a new comfortable and inviting Council Chambers.
Giving up such a prime piece of property for redevelopment may look attractive in the short run. But once it’s sold to developers, we can never get it back.
Remember, much of the old downtown was sold off based on the same kind of thinking, and a few years ago, Santa Clara paid one of the owners of downtown property $1 million to simply consider returning a right-of-way to the city. Once City Hall is sold off to developers, it would never be the center of Santa Clara again.
Previous Milestones:
Milestones – Super Bowl Insights – Opinion
Milestones – With Gratitude – Opinion
Milestones – The Other Santa Clara Way – Opinion
Another alternative would be to lease the property to developers on a lease 50 to 100 years, move Prometheous out of the Downtown area so we can open Main Street and get that portion of the grid back. They could trade the university (block A) for the fire station which is is falling apart and plop city hall at that corner of (Benton & Lafayette). University has wanted that corner of the fire station for a long time now. Bet they would be willing to do that. I bet then developers would show up in hoards to rebuild Downtown knowing the city is seriously committed to to make right the wrong done back in 1964.
Ps. Remember the money they used to buy those city lands where city hall now sits, rightfully belongs to the Downtown. It was redevelopment money that was used to acquire and rebuild their present city hall. Any trade or sale to move the old city hall should be reinvested in rebuilding Downtown or in the least keep 4 acres to move Prometheous to so Main Street can be reopened
If they move City Hall, will it be affected by street closures the next time there’s a big event at Levi’s Stadium?
If they move it, City Hall will be affected. So it means more holidays for workers or more overtime pay for those that need to work. Win Win for spiking pensions of the City Hall denizens while the Street Department and other lower paid employees still can get to their jobs in their Walsh Avenue buildings. So Overtime for Thee (in City Hall) but not for the Street Department and others.