Over the past 25 years the City of North Bend says it has explored various options for replacing the existing 70+ year old City Hall building, which suffers from deteriorating conditions, inefficiencies and safety issues. Recently, the City Council authorized two architectural firms to prepare preliminary designs for an affordable city hall that reflects the city’s vision statement of preserving North Bend’s natural beauty, small town scale and rural character.
When a new City Hall is built, it will be relocated from its current spot on Main Ave to just east of the historic downtown area – on its Municipal Campus site where the North Bend Fire Station and Public Works Building are located. The city purchased the Municipal Campus site in the 1990’s after a lengthy public process identified the location as the best spot for a future new city hall.
According to a city press release, by relocating and building a new city hall, it will be able to consolidate city departments and administrative offices that are currently housed in three different locations. The new structure will also offer a more customer-service oriented environment with adequate parking, technology-driven meeting facilities, up-to-date security and safety features and one-stop services for bill paying, applying for permits, or conducting other city business.
Time to Unveil Design Plans to Community
At a Town Hall Meeting on Tuesday, October 25, 2016 at 6PM at Mt Si Senior Center (411 Main Ave. S.,) citizens can meet the architects, view their City Hall design drawings and provide feedback. The architects will then make their official presentation to the City Council at 7PM – and each will describe in detail the various aspects of their plans.
Citizen comments and concerns will also be accepted at City Hall located at 211 Main Ave North on November 7th or November 9th from 9AM to 11AM or November 8th from 5PM to 7PM.
Citizens are encouraged to stop by in person and let city staff know what you think about these designs and also what you believe are some of the most important factors to consider as they proceed with a City Hall (e.g. customer convenience; affordability and no new taxes; the building should represent the citizens vision of small town scale, rural character, natural beauty; and/or public spaces for citizens to use when business is not being conducted, etc.).
The City of North Bend says it hopes community members will attend the Town Hall Meeting and subsequent City Council Work Study on October 25th or stop by City Hall to view the designs and provide feedback. All input will be provided to the City Council in order to help them in their decision making process regarding a new City Hall.
Comments
I seriously doubt that the City of North Bend wants the publics input!
Could/should Northbend and Snoqualmie merge into one city? The valley really is a whole and possibly could be better served as a single entity.