As Evanston moves its city hall operations out of the Lorraine Morton Civic Center and into temporary offices at 909 Davis Street, where it has a 15-year-lease, the City Council is considering a motion to permanently depart from the outdated Civic Center. The building would need $50 million worth of work, according to a city official.
The city is in the midst of moving its offices to the Davis Street location by April 1, and the City Council during its February meetings began exploring options for a future city hall after the temporary location’s 15-year timeframe.
Lara Biggs, Evanston’s capital planning and engineering bureau chief, supplied the $50 million figure at the Feb. 24 City Council meeting, saying that would be needed to make the Morton Civic Center, at 2100 Ridge, ADA compliant and functional. The Council is set to vote at its March 10 meeting on a motion that the city not return to the Morton Civic Center.
At the Feb. 10 Evanston City Council meeting, City Councilmember Jonathan Nieuwsma (4th) set that departure plan into motion.
Previously, Biggs had presented a 20-year cost breakdown, as follows, on four options the city has been considering.
- If the city were to stay at 2100 Ridge, it would cost $89.1 million over the next 20 years.
- If the city were to lease 909 Davis for 20 years, meaning the city’s existing lease would be extended for five years, it would cost the city $47.8 million. The cost is nearly $2.5 million per year.
- Biggs said the city’s staff is also conducting an analysis of renovating Evanston’s main library at 1703 Orrington Avenue to determine the feasibility of having the library and the city share the building. The cost to do so is still being determined, she said.
- A fourth option could be for the city to move its operations to a few floors at a proposed development for 900 Clark Street. Biggs said the total cost for 20 years would be close to $70 million, but that the city will continue to negotiate a better price with the developer.
Nieuwsma introduced a motion Feb. 10 for the City Council to vote through a special order of business for the city’s offices to permanently leave the Civic Center.
“I think we have the information we need to conclude that it just doesn’t make sense to move back into this building,” after the city’s 15-year lease at 909 Davis is up, Nieuwsma said. “It’s too big, it’s not functional for a Civic Center — it’s too expensive, and any one of these three reasons, you know, in and of themselves, would probably be enough to conclude that it doesn’t make sense — but combined together it’s certainly a very strong argument that it just doesn’t make sense to be in this building.”
“Is there an actual reason to do that?” asked 6th Ward Councilmember Tom Suffredin. “Or do you just want to get this over with? Which is fine, that’s an actual reason, too.”
“I don’t think its necessary to prolong this conversation anymore than it needs to be,” responded Nieuwsma.
Suffredin pressed on, implying that the Council should provide more notice to Evanston residents so that they can give their opinions. “Do you not want to hear their opinions? Are you tired of hearing their opinions? Do you want to just make a decision because you’re done listening?” Suffredin asked.
Suffredin continued, “Why would we feed into the perception that this is a council that has its own agenda and done deals by putting this on the agenda for the next meeting as a special order of business — when the same result could be achieved by allowing people some input into this?”
“(It’s) a decision that I think we’ve been putting off for 20 years,” Nieuwsma said, and invited Suffredin to make an amendment to his motion if he wished. “It’s in the best interest of the community and the taxpayers of Evanston that we make the decision final and move forward from here and acknowledge what we’ve seen coming for a while.”
City Councilmember Bobby Burns disagreed with Suffredin’s assessment that the city was trying to do its business without getting public input, and brought up previous community meetings and surveys the city has conducted on the same subject.
“These meetings are publicized, obviously. We have a free and active media… everything is getting pushed out,” Burns said. “People are aware that this is happening. We’ve been talking about this for months, maybe even well over a year at this point… I disagree with this idea that this hasn’t been transparent. It’s been incredibly transparent.”
“We need clear direction. We’re supposed to be providing leadership. Not political rhetoric. We have to make a decision,” Burns added.
1st Ward City Councilmember Clare Kelly said the council should hold off on making a decision to leave the building until the council has more information on the repairs needed for the Civic Center.
“We don’t need a gut rehab,” Kelly said, after mentioning that she has had construction firms take tours of the building. “The estimates that I got back were closer to $35 million. So, I think what we need really are accurate numbers that reflect only what really needs to be done in this building before we can make a truly informed assessment.”
Biggs said there was more to fixing the building than what Kelly’s estimate might have entailed. “I don’t believe that a firm that walks through the public spaces of the building and spends a day thinking about it is getting to the same level of quality as a firm that we hired as a city to actually do this work,” she said.
Kelly remained skeptical. “This whole process started out with a complete lack of transparency. The train left the station with a big Open Meetings act violation,” she said.
Biss gave a stern warning after the council voted.
“I think we have a procurement code for a good reason… the reason why government procurement law is so detailed is specifically because elected officials steering contracts toward their preferred contractors is a really serious danger zone, and I just would implore everybody up here to watch themselves and not engage in that activity…. That’s where unethical behavior really occurs,” Biss said.
After further debate, City Councilmember Juan Geracaris (9th) gave his opinion on the matter.
“I do feel there is a lot of value in hearing from our constituents… Councilmember Nieuwsma, would you be open to amending this schedule?” Geracaris.
With Geracaris’ suggestion, Nieuwsma’s original motion was amended to allow for the city council to discuss moving out of the Civic Center, but not take official action on it at the recent meeting. The schedule, as it stands, will allow for city council members to vote on the matter on March 10.
