T-R FILE PHOTO The Marshalltown city council voted unanimously to move forward on a contract with FEH Design to examine the future of the city hall building at 24 N. Center St., pictured, during Monday night’s meeting.

After previously discussing the matter back in July of 2025, the Marshalltown city council weighed options for the future of the century-old city hall building at 24 N. Center St. and potentially moving the eight employees currently housed inside of it into the adjacent Carnegie structure to the north and west.

City Administrator Carol Webb said she reached out to two architectural firms for evaluations, and FEH Design provided a proposal in an amount not to exceed $26,000 to develop conceptual designs for potential updates to the Carnegie building. It would be paid for through a combination of funds allocated for a previous HVAC study and Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) dollars.

Councilor Greg Nichols expressed his support for the evaluation in hopes that it would save the city dollars in the long term, and new Councilor Sue Cahill asked for clarification on how many employees currently work at the old building. Councilor Jeff Schneider indicated that he was OK proceeding with the study and had “a lot of heartburn” about the issue since the council previously discussed shuttering the old city hall.

“I just don’t see how we’re going to do that and not still have a huge cost of maintaining city hall because I don’t think anybody’s gonna buy it. It’s too intertwined with other facilities, and so we need to look into what it takes to get city hall back in a state where it’s comfortable and safe to work in,” he said. “We’re gonna definitely need to assess what city hall will cost us if we do move everybody over here still. I just don’t think that problem’s going away.”

Webb suggested that a clause could be added about what it would take to decommission the building or get it into a state where it could be sold. New Councilor Marco Yepez-Gomez expressed his support for a decommissioning plan and pointed to the city’s master plan calling for more green spaces if it were to be demolished.

Mayor Mike Ladehoff also offered his support for the study to put “hard numbers” in front of the council, and Schneider motioned to direct staff on proceeding with the assessment with the addition of a decommissioning/reuse plan.

The only public comment came from Lonnie Hogeland, who referenced the decision to renovate the courthouse as opposed to demolishing it after the 2018 tornado and urged the council to think “long and hard” before getting rid of it.

“Try hard to keep it,” he said.

Schneider’s motion ultimately passed by a unanimous 7-0 tally.

——

Contact Robert Maharry

at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or

rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.