Malden (Massachusetts) City Hall is going condo. In fact, it might very well become the nation’s first mixed-use City Hall.
As a major bonus, he redevelopment will undo an old planning mistake, which should help revitalize the downtown are and make it more transit-oriented.
City offices will move into sleek new apartments, and retail shops will be their neighbors, in a $100 million downtown redevelopment.
Malden will buy 42,000 square feet of office space inside the massive development planned by Jefferson Apartment Group of Virginia for the current site of City Hall and the police station.
The city agreed to sell the buildings and 2.2 acres of land to Jefferson for $9.8 million. The developer plans to raze the buildings, reopen Pleasant Street, and build two six-story buildings.
The city plans to buy the office condo in the building on the north side of the street.
The project would fulfill the city’s longtime goal of reconnecting Malden Square to the Malden Center MBTA Orange Line Station. It will do this by reopening Pleasant Street to traffic for the first time since the early 1970s.
The current City Hall — a red-brick, fortress-like structure that was built to anchor a pedestrian mall that opened in the 1970s — forces traffic to go around Malden Square to reach the T station or continue on Pleasant Street toward Medford.
Image credit: CBT Architects
Watch Mayor Gary Christenson‘s 2016 State of the City Address (city hall starts at 1:44).