HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Not only will rebuilding a new city hall and tearing down the old one change the skyline of Huntsville, it'll also change how those who work for the city, serve those who live in the city.
The City of Huntsville hosted a ceremonial groundbreaking Monday to celebrate construction of its new $90 million municipal complex. The seven-story building and parking garage is being built on a 1.8 acre site across the street from the present City Hall on Fountain Circle.
Council Member of District 5, John Meredith said, "This new city hall is going to be around for many, many decades. it is the future for city services. It's going to improve our ability to serve citizens by putting it all under one roof. they're not going to have to go from building to building anymore."
Kathy Martin, a Huntsville City Engineer, said, "What we do is we work a lot with the public with developers, consultants and contractors, as well as the general public and so signatures are often obtained on plans and plaques as well as just general information about long term projects. And so this will give us an opportunity and again, it's not just engineering department, we've got building inspection, natural resources, as well as the fire marshal's office and ema in our building. So, just to have daily collaboration will be extremely efficient on how we operate every day."
Once the new city hall opens, the current municipal building will be demolished. Mayor Battle says he is recommending to city council that the site become part of Big Spring Park.
Mayor Battle added, "As our population grows in the downtown area. you know, we've had numerous developments come around the downtown area numerous apartment developments as a population growth we've seen more and more use of our parks and so as we've seen more use of those parks. what we're going to end up doing is we're going to add to add property as our as our parks grow and our population grow our parks need to grow also."