Council received plans for a new city hall

Twenty-five years ago this week, Portland was considering a new headquarters.

The Nov. 21, 2000, edition of The Commercial Review featured a story about a proposal to construct a new Portland City Hall.

Engineering firm Hannum, Wagle and Cline presented plans to Portland City Council for a city hall that would bring together city offices with the police and fire departments. The project was estimated at $4 million, with the city to enter a 20-year lease with payments of about $200,000 annually.

“You could be in it sometime next year if you move forward now,” said Cory Whitesell of Hannum, Wagle and Cline, estimating eight to nine months for construction. 

“We can really fast track it, since we do everything,” he added of his company’s design-build program. “We can move as aggressively as the city wants to.”

No location was identified for the proposed facility.

A local committee had been exploring location options, along with ideas for the design.

“There’s a handful of sites that meet your needs,” he said. “A goal of the steering committee was to find something in the downtown area, but it wasn’t easy.”

Whitesell said the project would be most cost-effective if the new facility was constructed on donated land with an open lot. In order to keep operations downtown, he estimated an additional $600,000 to purchase a site, demolish an existing structure and raise the base so that it would be out of the floodplain.

The next step in the process would have been to host a public hearing, but nothing was scheduled during the council meeting.

The city hall project never came to fruition. Instead, a new fire station with city council chambers was constructed in 2003. City hall remains at 321 N. Meridian St. and houses city offices and the police department.