Evanston council directs staff to pursue downtown site, removes city hall return from options

Evanston’s City Council voted 8–1 on March 10 to direct the city manager to pursue a permanent downtown site for City Hall and to begin planning non‑municipal uses or adaptive reuse for the Civic Center property at 2100 Ridge Avenue.

The motion, moved by Council Member Jonathan Newsom and seconded by Council Member Nussma, removes renovating the existing Civic Center from the list of options being actively pursued and sends staff and the city’s consultant work to the city’s “putting assets to work” initiative to evaluate alternatives, Council Member Newsom said before the vote. “This building is not suitable for its current use,” he told colleagues.

City Engineer Laura Biggs outlined staff estimates for key options. Renovating 2100 Ridge into usable municipal space carried the highest estimated capital cost, while several downtown alternatives — a multi‑floor fit‑out inside the main library, a planned unit development at 900 Clark Street, or building new downtown (the planned unit development option was priced by the developer at about $43.1 million in capital cost) — fall in a lower and similar range. Consolidating into the library, for example, would add…