Frank wrote:Not very impressive to be knocking down a building that's hardly 30 years old. What happens to city hall?
I don't think its the build quality of the building itself that is the problem. With maintenance the building could carry on functioning as it is now. I think it relates to the fact that requirements have changed over time in terms of: IT infrastructure; energy efficiency and carbon emissions; accessibility; desk space versus meeting rooms. I don't know whether those sorts of issues are big enough to warrant a major refurbishment/new build.
And it can be expensive to undertake major internal refurbishments, especially for large buildings. Do you do it all in one go, in which case you need to find a lot of temporary office space? Could be tricky to find one site big enough, and disruptive if people are across multiple sites. Do you do it on a rolling basis, in which case, it probably costs more, and remaining workers get disrupted by noise?
And I'm not sure how many staff are based in City Hall? (Its hard to find info on this stuff!). But isn't a lot of it now basically function rooms that they hire out to conferences, events, weddings, groups, etc?