HERMISTON — The Hermiston City Council approved a contract for construction of a new city hall on Monday, Feb. 8.

The bid was awarded to Griffin Construction, of The Dalles, for $8.66 million. The contractor was the low bidder of five bids, and came in under estimates by city engineers.

The cost includes construction of the new city hall building, as well as replacement of two blocks of aging water and sewer lines near city hall for $237,000, and another $278,000 for the parking lot across Northeast Second Street. City Manager Byron Smith said the parking lot will be reconfigured to add 14 spaces, repaved and given increased lighting.

Smith said planning for a new city hall began shortly after he was hired in late 2013, but a fire in December 2019 that burned up the old city hall’s HVAC system and caused smoke damage to the inside of the building sped up the timelines.

“This moved the discussion forward, probably a couple of years,” he said.

The new building that Griffin Construction will construct after demolishing the old city hall will be three stories, with more than twice as much square footage as the current building. It will allow the city to move the employees located in the old Carnegie Library into city hall. The municipal court will also move into the building, freeing up space in the overcrowded police station, and Umatilla County will have office space there.

In exchange for 15 years of use of office space in the new city hall, the Umatilla County Board of Commissioners has agreed to contribute $3 million toward the cost of the new city hall, generated from enterprise zone funds that new industrial projects in Hermiston agree to pay instead of property taxes. The city will also use its own share of enterprise zone funds — including $500,000 a year from Lamb Weston’s 2019 expansion — to pay off the debt on the new building.

“With those two sources we are able to make the bond payments. There will be no additional property taxes. That type of project would require an election, and that is why there has not been an election on the subject,” Smith said.

In addition to the expense of the new city hall, the city has already spent about $1 million to renovating the little-used basement of the Hermiston Public Library. The basement will serve as a temporary city hall until the new city hall is built, after which the library will be able to use it to expand its collection of books.

During the Monday’s meeting, Assistant City Manager Mark Morgan told councilors that the city had been approached by CGI Communications about a partnership to bring decorative banners downtown.

The banners would be attached to the new black light posts spread throughout the downtown area, and would include the words “Downtown Hermiston” with imagery, such as the city’s watermelon logo or historic photos. Across the bottom 30% of the banner would be the name of a Hermiston business.

Morgan said CGI Communications would provide the banners, installation, maintenance and annual replacement of the banners at no cost to the city in exchange for keeping the revenue generated by selling sponsorship of the banners to local businesses. The city would retain full artistic control of the banners, including being able to dictate a matching font for business names on the banners.

The city previously entered into a similar partnership with CGI Communications, when the company produced videos about Hermiston featured on the city’s website in exchange for selling advertising to local businesses for the beginning of the videos. Morgan said the videos have 48 local sponsors.

Overall, councilors said they supported the idea and would like to see Morgan come back in the future with answers to their questions about cost and implementation, as well as options for banner designs.