Westland’s City Hall Project was recently named a 2016 Public Works Project of the Year by the American Public Works Association (APWA). The project is being honored with APWA’s Project of the Year award in the Structures category at a cost between $5 - $25 million. This award honors agencies that include public structure preservation/rehabilitation, municipal buildings, and parks.
For 2016, the team of winners includes the City of Westland, MI. as the managing agency; McCarthy & Smith, Inc., as the primary contractor; and OHM Advisors as the primary consultant, who will be presented with the award during APWA’s 2016 PWX Conference Awards Ceremony in Minneapolis, MN during August 28-31, 2016.
The APWA Public Works Projects of the Year awards are presented annually to promote excellence in the management and administration of public works projects, recognizing the alliance between the managing agency, contractor, consultant and their cooperative achievements. This year, APWA selected projects in five categories in the Small Cities/Rural Communities area: Disaster/Emergency, Environment, Historical Restoration, Structures, and Transportation.
In 2013, the City of Westland purchased the 64,000-square-foot former Circuit City/Cost Plus warehouse on Warren Road for $1.6 million. The facility had been vacant for over 10 years, in the middle of the city’s shop and dine district. The city spent $10.1 million, using tax revenues generated by the city’s Tax Increment Finance Authority (TIFA), to transform the structure into a 64,000-square-foot City Hall. Relocating municipal operations, including those not housed at the former city hall, to the new Warren Road site provided a convenient “one-stop shop” for residents and businesses that creates operational efficiencies with administrative offices housed in the same facility.
The retrofit is a modern, energy-efficient facility that captures the contemporary, environmentally sustainable city hall styles of today. The new facility has become a one-stop shop for residents and businesses to conduct all of their business under one convenient roof. It also houses a state-of-the-art banquet facility, and the new location is giving a much-needed economic boost to the city’s shop and dine district, enticing private investors into this emergent sector.
The redevelopment of this former retail site incorporates the latest in green technology including energy-efficient lighting, lights that extinguish themselves, auto flush toilets and sinks, making use of the technology infrastructure that was installed to service the former Circuit City.
The new City Hall has set the bar for public facilities with its environmental sensitivity, use of green technology, incorporation of flexible use rooms and eye-pleasing, practical amenities. City Hall is a reflection of how an abandoned building may be cost-effectively renovated into an attractive, functional public amenity while boosting local economic development. Over the past year, more than $100 million in new investments has taken place in the City of Westland. The Westland City Hall is a significant architectural highlight anchoring the city’s shop and dine district and a functional public-use facility that will well serve the city’s 84,000 residents and businesses for many decades to come.
For more information on the APWA 2016 Projects of the Year, please contact APWA Media Relations and Communications Manager, Laura Bynum, [email protected], or call 202.218.6736.
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