When will Tacoma’s Old City Hall open for business? Here’s an update on landmark’s rehab

Old City Hall is now aiming to open its first phase later this year.

That’s according to the latest update from developer Eli Moreno, who is leading the efforts at the helm of his Tacoma-based Surge Co.

The site’s initial opening date has moved around as work has intensified shoring up the historic landmark, which was added to the National Register in 1974.

Pre-pandemic, Moreno had even envisioned a grand opening to ring in New Year’s Eve 2021.

“The idea is that bell upstairs, in that tower that hasn’t rung for many decades, will ring once again on New Year’s Eve (2021),” Moreno told The News Tribune in late 2019 when his plan was selected by the city to bring Old City Hall back to life.

Today, the bells are gone from their clock tower perch, and the redevelopment team continues working to get the project’s first phase finished. That has included extensive work on both the interior and exterior, from refreshing the clock faces to bringing new rooftop HVAC equipment for heating/cooling.

Moreno told The News Tribune last week in response to questions, “We are scheduled to open the first phase of the building (three floors) by the fourth quarter of this year, consisting of restaurant, retail, office and coworking space.”

The rest of the space (apartments, retail/commercial space and event space), according to project plans, is to open the following year.

Moreno added that “there has been a lot of interest” in leasing tenant and parking spaces.

In September 2023, The News Tribune reported that an LLC led by Moreno purchased the nearby Spark Park garage , 745 Commerce St., for just over $3 million.

“It has been very helpful to have acquired the secured parking garage near Old City Hall, so that we can offer it to potential tenants at a discounted rate,” he noted.

200 trucks of concrete and clock tower work

Moreno and Aimee Kwon, senior interior designer with Surge, offered details of work at the historic site, 625 Commerce St., which dates back to the 1890s.

In an email, they explained that the “steel reinforcement/seismic bracing is a massive undertaking.”

They wrote that the “existing floors/rafters have to be cut away to create a clear path from ground to roof for the steel network to be interlaced with the building.”

They added, “Each beam and corresponding attachments are manually lifted, pulled, hosted & carried into place.”

Recently during that work, the outside temperature was “topping out at 96 degrees,” they noted.

As for the progress made, “Three shear walls of reinforcement (concrete & rebar) are complete, running from the basement through the fifth floor to the roof.”

To date, about 200 trucks of concrete have been delivered to the site. By Kwon and Moreno’s calculations, “the concrete used so far is more than half of an Olympic-sized pool, and we are not done with reinforcing the clock tower.”

As for the clock tower, “We are building a tower within a tower,” according to Moreno and Kwon.

The interior perimeter of the walls is being reinforced with rebar and concrete from the base to the tower roof, while, “Each floor within is removed and replaced with a reinforced slab floor,” they noted.

“Much of the original floor joist wood has been kept for future use. We are currently on the fifth floor of the building within the tower,” they added.

Two of the clock faces have been refinished by workers rappelling to each from the tower’s top edge, to remove rust and to repaint.

“The remaining two faces will get their ‘facelift’ over the next 2 months while the weather is good,” Moreno and Kwon added.

In June, HVAC equipment was brought in and installed on the roof. The crane used to lift the 20,000 pounds of equipment was transported by two tractor trailer rigs.

According to their update, “The job had to be done after the Link light rail closed for the night because the big crane had to reach from the lower public parking lot at McMenamins to pick up at the sidewalk next to OCH and then lift up to the roof.”

Bell donation

Surge representatives told The News Tribune last summer that the bells and chime mechanism were removed and would be “safely stored” until a new home for them was found.

The redevelopment team first made public that the bells were “seismically unsafe and put the structural integrity of our landmark at risk” in a March 2023 online project update.

According to Moreno and Kwon’s emailed update last week to The News Tribune, “We donated the largest bell at 2,000 pounds to Metro Parks.”

Stacia Glenn, public information officer for Metro Parks, said Friday in response to questions that the bell was received earlier this year.

Records show it was originally donated to the the city in the early 1900s by Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Wallace, in memory of their late daughter, Mildred, who died of illness, Glenn said via email.

Hugh Wallace, among other roles, would go on to serve as U.S. ambassador to France from 1919 to 1921.

The Tacoma couple were also “supporters of the Park District, donating $10,000 in 1929 for the development of a playfield at Point Defiance Park,” Glenn noted.

The bronze bell for now “is in storage while we develop a plan to display it,” Glenn wrote. “That planning is expected to take place in the next biennial of capital improvements.”

Meanwhile at Old City Hall, the redevelopment team hopes to bring back the sound, at least digitally, of the bell’s chimes, fashioned after the Westminster Chimes of London’s Big Ben.

As for the other bells, Moreno told The News Tribune that those remain in storage for now.

“We will probably display them at the building once the renovation is completed,” he added.