In March 2000, the City Council selected the Austin firm of Cotera + Reed Architects with Antoine Predock, FAIA of Albuquerque, New Mexico as the Lead Designer. Council approved the Schematic Design for the New City Hall and Public Plaza in May 2001. Construction of the underground parking garage was completed in August 2002. Hensel Phelps Construction Company of Austin, which was selected as the Construction Manager for construction of the building and plaza, began construction in April 2003.

The Austin City Hall will be approximately 115,000 gross square feet and overlook both Town Lake and a revitalized, retail oriented Second Street. It will include a café and “City Store” in 3,800 gsf. A Public Plaza
will be constructed on the south side of the lot, facing Town Lake. Three levels of underground parking are included in the development, with parking for the retail patrons included in the project. Personnel and functions that will relocate to the new City Hall include: the Mayor and Council Members, City Manager and her staff, City Clerk, City Auditor (currently in leased space in Two Commodore Plaza) Public Information Office, Budget Office, departmental administration for the Financial and Administrative Services Department, and the Law Department (currently in leased space in Norwood Towers).

The development of the Austin City Hall and Public Plaza provides Austin with an opportunity to design and build a city hall that is “uniquely Austin.” Community participation was vital to the programming and strategic planning process. With the new City Hall being part of a larger private development, it was important for the design team to create a new City Hall that is distinct from the surrounding CSC development. A massive, arcing Lueders Limestone wall, emerging from bedrock at the lowest level of the parking garage below, anchors the project to the site. Morphing out of this wall is a limestone base that encloses the first two stories. A copper skin, resting on the limestone base and capped with a folded copper roof, shelters the upper levels. As the arcing wall cuts through the building, it creates an open four-storey lobby transected by catwalk-like bridges at each level. A reflective copper ceiling over the lobby bounces light into the gathering space below. The plaza winds its way around the limestone peninsulas of the terraced building. Water runs through a group of monumental limestone boulders in the plaza to symbolically return to Town Lake through a vortex. Amphitheater seating spilling down from the terraces can be used informally or to view performances on a Limestone stage. The amphitheater is protected from the sun by a photovoltaic glass trellis, supplying ten percent of the building’s power. The environmentally intelligent approaches in this project earned it a LEED Gold Certification.