Maitland City Council have made the decision to build a new council administration building in the civic centre area of Maitland.
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I agree the present building that was built to a price in the 1980s was always only a short term fix for an ever expanding city and expanding council workforce.
Council have engaged consultants to do the preliminary work for council’s consideration.
This was first floated 10, maybe 15 years ago and consultants were hired to come back to council with a number of designs in sketch form for council’s consideration.
Council owns the land for the proposed building and council will probably consider whether they want to build or have a developer build and some form of lease arrangement that most large businesses do in this age.
By doing this it would save council having to outlay a large sum of money up front to provide this new building.
I just hope council will not sell our city short by building another “building to a price”.
What we need is a building that will serve Maitland for the next 100 years.
My roughly pencilled in comments indicate a true civic centre that will cater for council local community needs; new Council Administration Centre; new library; Performing Arts Centre; new restaurant to cater for events at the Town Hall and Performing Arts Centre and general public during the week.
I have a view that differs somewhat to some in council on car parking who consider one floor of car parking would be sufficient.
There needs to be adequate parking for employees and customers.
I have suggested that there should be two floors of car parking under the new building.
There is a need to have working space in the new building above flood level as well as all material like records and library books and so on (1955 flood level shown in photo of town hall)
With a new building council will be in a position to market the existing library building and existing administration building, certainly look at options available.
An option council does have, if you are building for a future 100 years, you need to build now and lease out surplus space of the building until such time that space will be required in the future.
