Rathdrum prepares for new City Hall

Plans are underway for a new Rathdrum City Hall.

City Council members voted Wednesday to allow Mayor Vic Holmes to sign a contract with Architects West to begin the first two phases of developing plans for a new building.

“The current city facilities are very sub-par, if you don’t mind my saying so,” said Marcus Valentine, the principal architect from Architects West. “From a code standpoint, from accessibility …”

Rathdrum City Hall is now located in the city's downtown area and has some shortcomings typical of buildings its age, Valentine added, like security and accessibility.

A new facility will consolidate city services and better serve the community, as well as improve the health and well-being of city staff, the contract said.

The proposed roughly 30-acre site for a new city hall campus is on Lancaster Avenue, nearly across the street from Kootenai Technical Education Campus.

“We purchased the property seven years ago, and it was always intended to have city facilities on the property,” said city engineer Kevin Jump.

The building will be designed in a way that makes expansion easy, allowing the City Hall to grow with time and adapt to the future.

“This is meant to be the people’s City Hall and we want it to reflect what they want,” said city attorney Emily Smith.

The contract only authorizes Architects West to gather public input, to develop design programming and to establish site parameters that will limit the ultimate design.

Concept development is included but a full set of plans will not be included in this contract, and will be the next step in the process, which is projected to span years.

The first two phases will seek to establish things like budget, site limits, what amenities to include and most importantly what the community wants to see. The cost will be nearly $286,000, including the site engineering.

Phase one is about “getting the information out that this project is happening, and encouraging as much participation from the community as possible, through as many means as possible,” Valentine said.

Public outreach and engagement should last until August or September, when Architects West will report findings to the council.

Phase two will be the site analysis and preliminary design programming including things like look and layout, but not plans.

City staff can use the site reports and analysis to apply for grants, before or during the design phase.

“There are grants that we’re becoming eligible for that we want to apply for,” Smith said. “In order to apply for grants and begin any development, we need to first obtain a design and cost estimates for the project.”

Engaging in a contract with Architects West is one step in the long-term goal of providing a city campus to the Rathdrum community.

“It is our goal, with creating the design for this project, that we make it the ‘people’s city campus’ and obtain sufficient public input on what the public would like to see and enjoy before finalizing a design,” Smith said in a memo.

The future phases for plans will likely be done in collaboration with the City Council, and will likely seek input from the public as concepts and perspectives are produced. Construction plans would be part of a subsequent contract.

Architects West will be working with J.U.B. Engineering for site analysis and engineering reports.

*This article has been updated with a correction. Design concepts will be part of the contract, but plans are not included.