City open houses will talk more of co-location with Linn; Linn residents rate co-location with city fifth of five options

Residents who turn out at City Hall's open houses on Tuesday and Wednesday will be able to look at the options for returning city offices to the flood-damaged Veterans Memorial Building on May's Island, building a new city hall or a mix of other ideas.

One on the other ideas is to “co-locate” a new city hall in a building or on a campus of buildings with Linn County.

On Monday, the Linn County Supervisors released the results of their own open house process.

Of five options for Linn County's administrative offices, co-location with the city finished in fifth place. Twenty-three percent of open-house participants thought co-location an outstanding or good choice. Meanwhile, 32 percent said the same of expanding and renovating the county's own Administrative Office Building; 36 percent said the same for renovating the county's temporary space at Westdale Mall; 36 percent said the same of renovating the Econofoods site on 51

^st

Street NE; and 26 percent sided with repairing the AOB.

In early 2009, the supervisors and the school district both told the city of Cedar Rapids they did not want to co-locate administration buildings with the city. The city asked again in the last two months as they were digesting the fact that a new City Hall would cost $50 million or more.

The school district already told the city anew that it does not want to co-locate administration buildings.