City Hall may soon be on the move

High school area weighed as site

The windows and skylights are shot, as is the roof. And the building itself, a brick behemoth capping one end of Pleasant Street, is just plain too big for Malden's City Hall staff.

Officials have talked for years of abandoning the more than 100,000-square-foot Government Center, which was built some 40 years ago and costs the city about half a million dollars annually in utilities.

Discussions recently ramped up after a meeting and a looming deadline for state funding. On the table are several proposals, including plans that would move City Hall out of downtown to a spot at Malden High School.

That idea, which includes renovating or adding to the high school campus, is favored by Mayor Richard C. Howard, said Paul Condon, Ward 2 city councilor and chairman of the City Hall Relocation Committee.

Condon said proponents of pairing the City Hall move with a high school renovation have two goals: "The objective is to give our kids a better high school, updated science labs, and improved technology and also to open up our [Pleasant Street] square area to try to help the business community down there."

Linking the two projects also helps with funding, Condon said. The city is in line to receive money from the Massachusetts School Building Authority, which would reimburse 90 percent of the high school's renovation, as well as any mixed-use buildings on campus such as a relocated City Hall.

To get the school money, officials need to finalize their plans by July 1, 2009, said council president Gary Christenson, who is worried about making the deadline. He'd like to see the high school renovated regardless of where City Hall moves.

"I think some of the councilors are skeptical about a mixed use - residents and students - so we are still evaluating that proposal," Christenson said. "But I think what we have to do now is make a decision on the high school . . . my order would be to take up the high school question first, and then decide City Hall second."

Condon said he'd prefer to see City Hall remain somewhere downtown, rather than moved to a high school campus.

For instance, he said, City Hall could be relocated to a small city-owned parcel just north of the current Government Center, which could be demolished. Or City Hall could be placed atop the Police Station.

"We could build a much more modest City Hall in the vicinity of 40,000 to 45,000 square feet," he said, "but it all comes down to dollars."

Condon said he expects city officials to move forward with plans within the next few weeks. Doing so, he said, would require the council to vote whether to go after a $77 million bond needed to fund the projects.

"The council is going to have to decide," Condon said. "And, you know, we all have the same objective: to have a better high school and to open up Malden Square."

Erin Ailworth can be reached at eailworth@globe.com.