Fate of Downtown Civic Center to be Determined at Tuesday's Novato City Council Meeting

Tuesday night’s Novato City Council meeting likely will provide a long-awaited answer to a question lingering for more than six years: Will city hall and all its employees find a new home in the Old Town area?

After 30 years of city leaders pondering the idea of a new Civic Center complex, the council is expected to vote on a during its 6:30 p.m. meeting at Novato City Hall. The estimated time for that agenda item to be addressed is 9 p.m.

According to a staff report, City Manager Michael Frank is expected to recommend that the council move forward with plans to build a new office on an existing parking lot on Machin Avenue that would include covered parking on the street level and offices on two floors above. If the council gives its OK, the city staff is hoping to receive further approval to solicit architectural proposals and work on approving a deal for a project manager.

“I’ve been very much looking forward (to this vote) because we are so pressed for time to be able to make a fiscally sound decision,” said Councilwoman Denise Athas. “It’s been a long time coming. There have been a lot of discussions and the city staff has done a great job bringing things forward in terms of us going over the possibilities on 20 different sites and narrowing it down, then strongly looking at negotiations on 75 Rowland and finally settling on downtown.

“This has been something that’s been very important to me ever since I first decided to be a candidate for council because I’ve wanted to make a decision for the benefit of the downtown area and for all of Novato.”

The city has been pressed for time because of a scheduled lease hike for the 75 Rowland space in 2013. Staff has been recommending that the council move quickly on a decision so the city doesn’t get stuck with the huge lease increase.

Following a recent downsizing, the city leases 21,582 square feet of space at 75 Rowland for $625,000 a year. Prior to the downsizing, the city leased about 3,000 more square feet, but staff layoffs set to happen at the end of June have resulted in less space needed.

City staff has recommended that it’s more financially responsible to own an office building than to lease, but options for 20 existing commercial buildings or open parcels for sale have not revealed a no-brainer choice for the council to approve.

On March 23, to fund the new offices and yielded $14.5 million from the sale. Ron Gerber, head of the Novato Redevelopment Agency, said $12 million of that can go toward administrative offices and the remaining money could be used for other redevelopment projects at the City Council’s discretion.

“The market was very favorably predisposed to Novato’s bonds,” Gerber said, “and I think that goes to show the solid aspects of Novato on the investment front, especially because of properties at Hamilton. … We didn’t know that they would be this favorably received.”

Constructing a new building in Old Town is expected to cost in the neighborhood of $12 million to $16 million, according to city staff.

Most of the city’s staff — other than police, maintenance crews and some parks and rec employees — have worked out of a leased building at 75 Rowland Way ever since 2005 when the old red church at 901 Sherman Ave. and a complex of city-owned bungalows nearby were all red-tagged by the fire marshal and deemed unsafe.

The church underwent a $6 million renovation in 2008 and has been reopened as the Novato City Council chambers and a rentable events hall, but no staff members work there on a regular basis.

In April 2010, the council directed city staff to explore possibility of building either 75 Rowland or 88 Rowland, which are owned by the Barker Pacific Group. Haggling didn’t pan out, so the council directed staff to start plotting for a new building on Machin Avenue, adjacent to the shuttered Community House and across Machin from the Novato Police Department.