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Costs Go Up For New Eugene City Hall

Rowell Brokaw Architects

The price of Eugene’s new city hall keeps climbing. It’s almost $7 million over the original estimated budget and it hasn’t yet been built. The City Council got an updateon the design at Monday’s work session.

The price-tag of a new city hall has grown to more than $24 million. It cost more to demolish the old city hall than originally projected. Other related costs have gone up. And city staff report the estimated cost of the building itself has increased to about $15 million. City Councilor Betty Taylor complained about the lengthy process:
Taylor: “Apparently, the more time we take, the more the cost goes up.”
Councilors discussed paying $1 million for a seismic upgrade. Councilor Chris Pryor pointed out that it’s smart to build to last.
Pryor: “It’s an accountable use of public money to not build a building with an intention that it would fall down when an earthquake comes. I don’t think we would want to do that.”
City staff said the seismic upgrade can come from the city’s risk fund. They suggested other sources, including fundraising, to pay for the other building costs. The council asked for more information on other funding.
 

Rachael McDonald is KLCC’s host for All Things Considered on weekday afternoons. She also is the editor of the KLCC Extra, the daily digital newspaper. Rachael has a BA in English from the University of Oregon. She started out in public radio as a newsroom volunteer at KLCC in 2000.
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