The City Council has approved moving forward with the design team of MSR (Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle) in partnership with Henning Larsen to design a new public service building for the City of Minneapolis.
The goal of the new Public Service Building is to strategically collocate City employees who are now working in several leased and owned sites scattered around downtown Minneapolis. It will be a sustainable and resilient building designed to better serve residents and businesses and to improve productivity for a multi-generational workforce.
The winning team of MSR and Henning Larsen was selected through a competitive four-stage process that began in March 2017 and included a request for qualifications (RFQ), request for proposals (RFP) and two rounds of interviews. The selection panel focused on relevant past experience, key team members, understanding of the project objectives and fit with the City’s team.
M.A. Mortenson Construction has been selected as the construction manager for the project. The City issued a RFP on June 12. Four proposals were received and forwarded to an evaluation panel for consideration.
The design team worked on the schematic design phase from September through December 2017. During schematic design, the City and the design team will work together to finalize the space program and budget for the project and will also facilitate a stakeholder engagement process that will include City employees, service center clients and visitors, nearby neighbors and members of the public.
Following the completion of schematic design, detailed design will follow and be completed by late summer of 2018. Demolition of the existing ramp will begin in summer 2018 and construction of the new building is expected to begin in fall of 2018 and be completed by summer of 2020. There will be a variety of subcontracting opportunities including goals set for women, small businesses and minority-owned vendors.
The City expects the building to be occupied and open to the public by the fall of 2020.