Council opts to combine City Hall sites

North Las Vegas officials met on Wednesday to decide whether to build a new City Hall on its existing site at Civic Center Drive and Lake Mead Boulevard or on land at the nearby Silver Nugget.

Instead, the City Council chose the best of both worlds.

Council members voted unanimously to move forward with a third option, recommended by the project's architect and manager, that would combine both sites.

"We looked at combining both sites simultaneously," FBA architect Bob Lauden said, adding that the option would provide "real event space for concerts and festivals."

The city needs to build a new City Hall to house a staff expected to more than double to 840 workers within the next two decades. The existing 80,000-square-foot building is at capacity, and the city already rents 35,000 square feet of additional space.

The third option gives the city about 20 acres to work with. The new City Hall facility will be 170,000 square feet.

The project, which also will include a new police command center, is budgeted at $156 million.

A new City Hall would be positioned on the northern part of the Silver Nugget site, Lauden said.

"Some sort of pedestrian link between the existing and new city hall campuses" will be developed, Lauden said.

"It's the first step in developing the whole area into a civic plaza," he said.

The city decided in 2005 that it wanted to keep City Hall downtown instead of relocating it to the rapidly growing northern section of the city.

North Las Vegas is the fastest-growing large city in the United States, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Designers will gather neighborhood comments on the project, and hope to begin design work by Oct. 31.