The city of Mobile is moving forward with the Mobile Civic Center, both on construction of a new office building and on renovations of the civic center itself.

Earlier this month, the city’s Architectural Review Board (ARB) approved an office building for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on the civic center property.

A previous design for the office building had been approved by the ARB last year, but after the city’s Board of Zoning Adjustment (BZA) denied several zoning variances for the building, the engineers for the corps, FD Stonewater, had to re-configure the design to meet the criteria. Initially, the company filed an administrative appeal of the ruling in Mobile County Circuit Court but did not go through with it.

“The original site plan was being done as the zoning was being done, so they did the plan according to what they thought the site was going to be,” Jim DeLapp, the city’s executive director of public works and a former colonel in the corps of engineers, said. “The zoning ended up being different, so they had to go back to modify the plan to meet the zoning.”

The city’s plans are to have a design contract for the civic center itself approved by the Mobile City Council in the next 30 days. The city is moving forward with a plan designed by Populous Architects, a consulting firm, to shift the footprint of the building to the east, preserving the arena and the theater but demolishing the Expo Hall, DeLapp said. The city is hoping for a design that will flesh that proposal out.