City of Elizabethtown announces plans for new City Hall facility on Ring Road

The City of Elizabethtown is announcing a change in their plans for a new City Hall.

In a post on the City of Elizabethtown Government Facebook page Friday, Elizabethtown Mayor Jeff Gregory announced that rather than construct a new City Hall campus at the former Elizabethtown Laundry property on south Main Street, the city will instead acquire the former First Federal building on Ring Road that was most recently occupied by BlueOval SK.

Gregory said the city is excited about the new plan for several reasons.

“We’ve been out of space at City Hall for some time, with people doubled up in offices and some even working out of spaces that were really never intended to be workspaces,” Gregory said. “Our city’s growing, and with that comes growth in government as well, so sometimes things present themselves and you have to pivot and reconsider, and that’s exactly what happened here.”

The city moved into the current City Hall in 1995, and moved the city council chambers to the former Kentucky High School Basketball Hall of Fame building earlier this year as part of a five-year plan for a new city campus. Gregory said with the Ring Road property recently renovated, the city can accommodate more growth, bring the city council back into the City Hall footprint, and reduce a planned $40-45 million budget to about $16 million.

“We think we’re getting a better opportunity in saving between $25-30 million doing it, and it really provides an opportunity for city government to have a great place for decades to come,” Gregory said.

Gregory said in the Facebook post: “With City Council awareness, we signed a purchase agreement for the property, and the plan is to close in November.”