Burlingame to decide on new City Hall

“It’s something we have been looking at since 2023. The current City Hall is an old building, it’s outdated, it’s not sufficient for the size of staff, it’s got all sorts of deferred maintenance issues,” Mayor Peter Stevenson said.

The current City Hall, located at 501 Primrose Road, is completely insufficient for a growing city and has seismic issues, asbestos and HVAC problems, City Manager Lisa Goldman emphasized. The cost to fix those problems alone would total around at least $35 million over the next 10 years, she said, making continuing maintenance at the existing building no longer tenable long term.

“We are bursting at the seams,” she said. “We also don’t have enough conference room space, meeting rooms, for staff, for council and for the public.”

While the city originally explored building a new City Hall from the ground up, that proved to be extremely expensive, with price estimates ranging from $73 to $87 million, according to the staff report. Adding on leasable space for potential tenants could up those costs by another $100 million, the staff report said.

Other potential sites with existing buildings that were considered for purchase included 220 Park Road, 1430 Chapin Ave. and 555 Airport Blvd.

By contrast, the 1440 Chapin Ave. building already has existing tenants. If the City Council chooses to go forward with the agreement, the city will get six months of free rent before paying $168,414 a month in rent to the existing landlord. But when the building is officially purchased, Burlingame could make up to $1,656,000 in revenue a year from building tenants, according to the staff report.

“We’ll be able to write down the cost of the building quite significantly,” Goldman said.

Once ownership of the building transitions to Burlingame, the city will be able to expand into the space if necessary, she said.

The decision to move forward with 1440 Chapin Ave. will be at the discretion of the City Council, that will discuss the purchase at its 7 p.m. meeting Tuesday, Feb. 18, Stevenson said.

“I think the 1440 Chapin location proved to be the best option; they’re obviously making the recommendation, as you can see,” he said. “Council will certainly discuss this on Tuesday, but I think it’s the most fiscally responsible direction.”

Nearly 10 years ago, Burlingame had weighed the possibility of developing housing at the current City Hall site, though Stevenson said conversation around the fate of the old building would be held at a future date.

The $34.5 million purchasing price, combined with necessary tenant improvements, would bring the total cost to $41.9 million, the staff report said.