WOODS CROSS—A new Woods Cross City Hall and update to Hogan Park is in the design phase with a potential move in date of 2028. The city has contracted with Hogan Construction and Method Studio Architecture with a preliminary cost of $33 million for both city hall and the park.

“We’ve set that high but we anticipate it will be lower,” said City Administrator Bryce Haderlie. “The question is ‘how is the city going to pay for this?’ Recognizing the expense we’re selling the old post office and the old public works building.”

That will generate a little over $3 million, he said. “We have what is called a RAP tax, some of that money could go toward bond payments. We’re looking at other revenue sources but part of that we’ll also be asking the citizens to support a property tax increase.”

Haderlie said when he got there in 2021, the city council had already been working on some revisions to Hogan Park. “There were some schematic drawings of how they wanted to do a new pavilion and things. Then we realized that city hall was needing attention so we decided to pause on Hogan Park and started working on forming a committee.”

Mayor (Ryan) Westergard wanted to bring a group of citizens together that have a vested interest, said Haderlie. “So we started meeting with that group to share with them the conditions of the building and let them walk through it and see it.”

Haderlie said the city put out an RFP (request for proposal) to solicit companies, both architects and contractors that would team up in what’s called the CMGC (Construction Management, General Contractor) to do a needs assessment.

“It means you have the architect and the construction company working together from the very beginning,” he said. “We did a needs assessment where we evaluated each department and what those future needs were going to be as the city grows. With that needs assessment the architects worked with the contractor to put together a list of rooms that we would need.”

The original city hall building was built more than 60 years ago, Haderlie said. “It has undergone at least two additions over its lifespan, the most recent more than 20 years ago.”

“I think the building will be hardened,” said Mike Hogan of Hogan Construction. “It will be built to withstand earthquakes and other natural disasters.”

The reason for that is that it needs to operate as an emergency operations center or an EOC, said Curtis Poole, director of community development. “As it stands right now, if we had an earthquake it’s likely this building wouldn’t survive. So we wouldn’t be able to operate that center and have the ability to coordinate resources and response of emergency personnel.” 

“Plus the police department will be housed in that stronger, better built and service building,” said Hogan.

“So there’s our challenge,” Haderlie said. “Eighteen million to reinforce the building and not make it any larger or take our new building for around $12 million – $13 million and have it seismically reinforced and then enlarge areas like the community room and future police department areas and other spaces so that we can accommodate the growth we anticipate over the next 50 years.”

Hogan said they would stay in the current building while the new one is being built. “Then this building would become a parking lot for the new building.”

“There are more and more of these types of buildings so that we don’t have to interrupt our services,” said Haderlie. 

So far the plans have been well received by the public, Haderlie said. “Residents have suggested a water feature. Not necessarily a splash pad but some type of flowing water where kids can come and play and cool down. Also, a great lawn where citizens can have activities and things.”

The city will have an open house during the Memorial Day celebration where citizens will be able to come and they’ll have a booth where people can see the information, he said. “We will have the Truth in Taxation process that’s moving concurrently with this and so we will be soliciting input from the public and they’ll have an opportunity to speak to it.”

The police department area needs more space too, said Haderlie. “You bring in witnesses or people to interview and there’s not sufficient space for that. So the new building would include interview rooms and a fenced area that would have a gate so when the police come in with suspects or people, that would give security to make sure they can’t run or things like that.”

Haderlie said the city wants this to be a community place to come and recreate and to have life events like birthday parties and receptions and those kinds of things.”

If everything goes as planned the goal would be to start some of the excavation late fall or winter, he said. “We’d start concrete in the early spring and hopefully we’ll be moving into the building sometime in early 2028.”

It will be a place where families can come and celebrate life, said Haderlie. “It’s just all these opportunities for your kids, your senior citizens to come and celebrate life in this location and we want to make it work and accommodate all those experiences.”