The Downtown Commission gave their stamp of approval yesterday to the city’s new eight-story office building and a 700-car parking garage on North Front Street downtown. The office building had first been presented to the commission in November of last year, while the garage had been reviewed initially in February. Both buildings are part of a long-planned unified city campus that will now start to take shape in the two blocks north of City Hall.
Dave Bush, the city’s assistant director of finance and management, said that the next step is to get building permits and to get City Council to sign off on the plan in June or July. If all goes according to schedule, he said, groundbreaking could happen as soon as September 1st.
The new building will hold the departments of development, public service and building and zoning services. Many of those employees are currently housed in the Beacon Building at 50 West Gay Street, which the city has indicated could be sold after the new city campus is completed.
Bush said that there are no plans for retail on the first level of the new garage, although the city is “giving very serious consideration to biking-related amenities.”
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Renderings via SchooleyCaldwell Associates / DesignGroup.
