The transformation of downtown Huntsville is happening, gradually, as the city’s new city hall reaches higher into the sky.

After $80 million and two years of construction, it will be seven floors high and among the tallest buildings in the Rocket City. For now, though, that second year is just getting started so the city’s transitioning into the new building across the street from the Madison County Courthouse won’t be complete until the summer of 2024.

But that transformation, it’s still happening without the need for occupied offices or completed construction.

“This is a legacy project,” said Ricky Wilkinson, the head of the city’s general services department that’s overseeing the work by Turner Construction. “It’s been amazing, just seeing it come out (of the ground). I’ll tell you what impressed me the most was coming in off (Interstate) 565 and you look downtown and, all of a sudden, you can see the frame of the building coming up. It kind of adds to the skyline.”

For all the feel-goods, though, it’s a project steeped in practicality and – perhaps more than anything – urgent need.

The city’s administrative offices are housed in the slender, eight-story building across Fountain Circle from the new city hall. The current office building is approaching 60 years in age and has perhaps more wrinkles than a structure of its age should have. That building will be taken down once the move into the new city hall is complete and the site will be added to adjacent Big Spring Park.

The city – Alabama’s largest as of 2021 with an estimated population of more than 220,000 people — has also outgrown the space. As a result, city offices are scattered throughout – which can make life frustrating or, at best, inefficient for citizens who need to interact with certain offices.

It will be a “one-stop shop,” Wilkinson said, echoing descriptions by other city leaders in describing the project.

“We’ll make things much more efficient,” Wilkinson said. “You don’t have to worry about showing up at this building and then them telling you’ve actually got to go down the street.”

The new city hall will bring more than 350 city employees together in one place, Wilkinson said, and allow the city to eliminate leases at various spots around the city. Those leases amounted to about $365,000 annually.

The construction itself is nearing a milestone. Wilkinson said a topping-out celebration is being planned for some time in May. The façade is going in place on the first two floors as well as the exterior glass and framing. Concrete work is ongoing on the seventh (top) floor.

Wilkinson said construction is “on schedule” with completion expected in the spring of 2023. Moving in will take several weeks after that.

“It won’t be a weekend move,” he said.

It’s a construction project so there are always “hiccups,” Wilkinson said. In this case, crew demolishing the city hall parking deck – the site of the new city hall – encountered more rock than expected. But that provided benefits in construction, too.

“That was great for the foundation,” Wilkinson said. “It took time, obviously, to chip out the rock. But we did not have to drill caissons, knowing that the bedrock was that close.”

Work has not yet started on the 568-space parking deck that will accompany the new city hall. It will also be seven levels — though won’t be as tall as the city hall building — and will include public parking.