The mayor announced that city hall is about to receive a transformative makeover during his annual address to the city recently.
It is a makeover that has been long overdue.
The city hall structure itself is entirely out of tune with modern necessities regarding usage and light, meeting places and community accessibility.
Everett City Hall is ugly inside and outside.
For decades since being built, it has represented a bit of a time warp. It was built square and dull, without any sense of aesthetic, history, or of the future, the way kids used to build with Erector sets.
The announcement made last week and the drawings provided by city hall depicting the new and improved structure – at least outside – and what it is going to look like, are a vast improvement over what exists today.
What is that?
It is a city hall that looks like something out of the 1960’s, the rough equivalent of what a 1968 Chevy Impala would look like to all of us driving down Broadway today.
City hall’s look and feel, with the blue exterior and its undifferentiated dull and boring sameness, is almost hopelessly outdated.
What is the plan?
The drawings reveal additions to the exterior with larger windows allowing for more light and space facing to Broadway and for additional revisions made to the exterior which will give the structure a more modern countenance with extensions to the facade here and there improving the general architectural aesthetic.
These plans for remaking city hall should be discussed by the city council and residents.
After all, city hall is the peoples’ palace and should look like the kind of place residents here can be proud of.
A group of architects should be called together to give their best ideas of how the structure might be made to stand as an example of the great success the city is now experiencing.
Redoing city hall isn’t just about steel and glass.
It is about remaking the structure to appeal to the city’s multi-cultural mix of residents.
The way city hall looks needs to stand for soaring hope, for openness, for equality, for economic strength and social success.
City hall is more than just another building to be redone and modernized.
City hall must evoke the elements of great sculpture and design. If this can happen, the remake of city hall will be a great success.