Site work and new construction of a municipal facility in Covington, Kentucky. Completed plans call for the construction of a municipal facility; and for site work for a municipal facility.

As of January 2 2025 this is in construction. A design team unveiled the first renderings of Covington’s proposed new city hall building at a board of commissioners meeting Oct. 24. The city recently selected Cincinnati-based Elevar Design Group and Lexington, Ky.-based Brandstetter Carroll to design the building after a public input process that has lasted years. Initial bidding documents called for a two-story, 35,000-square-foot building on 1.15 acres at 620 Scott Street. The current design shows a three-story, 42,000-square-foot building with a basement for city archives. The building has been upscaled in the design process, Covington Mayor Joe Meyer confirmed to the Business Courier. “As part of the discovery process, the architects spent a lot of time dealing with individual department heads and getting a much more granular understanding of the space needs of city government,” Meyer explained. Meyer said the taller design reflects a desire for the building to fit the denser development pattern going toward Madison Avenue. He also said it allows for more parking and green space that could be developed later to accommodate future growth. Kim Patton, president of Elevar, echoed the point in presenting the designs to Covington’s commissioners Oct. 24. He said the building is designed with 15-20% excess capacity for future growth. He also noted the city could, in the longer term, expand into an adjacent office building or build a new tower on the parking lot. “We think we’ve build in 70 years of growth into the space,” he said. Meyer noted “longevity” was the watchword emerging from multiple public input sessions. “The city of Covington government has been in six different halls since 1970,” he said. “One of the things I’ve been harping on is, our cities will be here 500 years from now. So when we talk about some of these important central public spaces, we need to think not in terms of decades, but centuries.” The building cost and construction timeline are not yet available. Meyer said the project must go through the city’s budgeting process. Patton described the design as “traditional,” drawing on the civic language of the city’s post office and public library. He said the current design calls for an exterior cladding of textured limestone. There's also a plaza entrance with a central art installation and a mural wall harkening to Covington’s character as somewhat “quirky,” Patton said. Green space and a parking lot to the north could be programmed with public events, Patton added. Meyer praised the design’s integration of new and old. “We want something that represents the circumstances and values of Covington today and the historic values of the past but that’s also very future-oriented,” he said. “We want it to say to future generations important things about the people that are here, now, making these decisions. Our future is a function of our preservation of the past, and I think that’s why Covington is such a desirable place these days.” _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ As of February 7, 2023, a design team has been awarded. Construction is expected to start in early 2024 with completion in early 2025. *The previous solicitation is listed below for reference. Covington is looking for an architectural firm to design a new City Hall. The City issued a request for qualifications (RFQ) on Sept. 1 for a "qualified, competent, knowledgeable, and experienced architectural firm" to design a new City Hall that will be a vibrant and open space, accessible to community residents - and that would end local government's "nomadic existence" of the last five decades. "I want this to be a building that the community can really be proud of," said Mayor Joe Meyer. "I want it to represent this generation's aspirations for future generations." Over the last 50 years, the City has had five City Hall locations. The current location at 20 W. Pike St. was intended as a temporary measure when it was selected 10 years ago to allow old offices to be redeveloped into what is now Hotel Covington. Ten years later, the 20 W. Pike location remains home to City government, even though the building's inadequacies are increasingly apparent, and it's too small to meet current and emerging needs. A new City Hall will be built on property that the City purchased at 620-622 Scott St. In 2019, the City completed extensive public engagement to determine what the community would like to see in a new City Hall, creating a task force of residents and workers in Covington to think conceptually about the function and purpose of the building. Meyer, who set the process in motion, said at the time that he wanted Covington to think big. "The opportunity to build a new City Hall is pretty rare," Meyer said at the time. "The temporary home on Pike Street is our fifth since the 1960s. It's time to take the long-term view - planning not for the next decade but maybe for the next century. As Americans, we tend to take the short-term view, but this City is going to be here for 500 years, or as long as the river we're built on. Requests for a copy of the RFQ, or questions about the RFQ, can be sent to Lindy Jenkins at LJenkins@covingtonky.gov. The method of Contractor Selection has not been Determined at this time.