It’s been over 15 years since the Mobile City Council first started discussing renovating the Mobile Civic Center, which is around 58 years old. Now, those discussions are becoming more serious.
Populous Architects, a consulting firm based in Boston, unveiled their proposals for overhauling the civic center to the council Tuesday during a meeting of the Committee of the Whole. This meeting was the first step in identifying a way forward for the city council.
“The [two concepts] are great, they’re forward-thinking,” Councilman William Carroll said after the meeting. “It will give us the opportunity, if we move forward with them, to put our civic center back into position where it is a truly revenue-generating facility for the city.”
The council has a few options, according to Council Vice Chairperson Gina Gregory: The council can opt for one of two plans that Populous proposed, it can leave the buildings as is and renovate or it can tear the complex down entirely to make way for a new development.
Jim DeLapp, the city’s Executive Director of Public Works, said in the meeting that the next step would be to consult with community stakeholders and hold more public meetings. On Thursday, the Mobile City Planning Commission tabled re-zoning the civic center site for two weeks.