Cottage Grove City Hall unveiled to public

• Flag raising

Members of the Law Enforcement Memorial Guard present the colors before raising the flag for the first time at Cottage Grove's new City Hall and public safety facility on Saturday, Oct. 20. Bulletin photo by Jon Avise
• City Hall exterior

Cottage Grove officials christened the new $15.1 million City Hall with a ceremony an public open house Saturday that city officials say drew more than 1,000 visitors. City operations will make the move to the building this weekend and open for business there Oct. 29. Bulletin photo by Jon Avise
• Lobby

City Hall’s bright main lobby — jammed with residents, city employees and elected officials at Saturday’s open house — is framed by floor-to-ceiling windows at either end. From there, residents can access the City Council Chambers, general government help or the Public Safety Department. Bulletin photo by Jon Avise
• Council chambers

A group of Cottage Grove residents take a peek at the building’s glassed-in City Council Chambers. Bulletin photo by Jon Avise

Talk about it

Capping two decades of discussion and 10 years of planning, the city of Cottage Grove on Saturday marked the grand opening of its new City Hall and public safety building.

The city’s operations won’t formally call the new digs home until Monday, Oct. 29, but City Council members past and present, municipal employees, local officials and several hundred Cottage Grove residents gathered on a warm, sunny autumn afternoon to celebrate the completion of the $15.1 million facility.

The new City Hall, financed with the city’s fund reserves — and, officials have stressed, without raising property taxes — is “a very beautiful — but most important — functional and enduring facility,” Cottage Grove Mayor Myron Bailey told the hundreds of attendees at Saturday’s event.

The 67,000-square-foot, two-level building at 12800 Ravine Parkway includes integrated office space for the city’s administration, finance and community development departments that officials say will be more efficient than the cramped, more-than 40-year-old building on 80th Street.

But, most importantly, city leaders say, the building will serve as a more modern base for the Cottage Grove Public Safety Department that will bring police, fire and EMS administration under one roof. It also will include increased interview and investigation space, a detention area that meets current codes, improved evidence storage and a lower-level garage with enough space to keep all of the department’s vehicles out of the elements.

“This building is basically a rambler with a tuck-under garage,” joked City Administrator Ryan Schroeder, standing beneath the building’s angular awning that juts out from the lobby area toward the facility’s parking lot.

The new City Hall, though strongly criticized by some as unnecessary or too expensive, will save the city money in the long run, officials say. High-efficiency heating and cooling systems and lighting systems, a rooftop irrigation system that collects rainwater for watering the city government campus and an overall emphasis on sustainability will bolster those benefits, Schroeder said.

“There’s an awful lot happening behind the walls of this building that will pay dividends for years to come,” he said.

Visitors to the building enter a bright, central lobby lit naturally by floor-to-ceiling windows; from there a general government reception desk, public safety reception area and a glassed-in Council chambers are steps away. A small amphitheater with stone seating is built into a hill at the rear of the building and a veterans’ memorial — to be dedicated in a separate ceremony on Nov. 11 — sits near the front entrance to City Hall.

“This is a place,” Bailey said, “for you to use, enjoy and call your own.”

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