New Sunnyvale City Hall officially opens
Marks city’s third civic center since 1929.
By the time Sunnyvale’s latest city hall officially opened on Sept. 23, almost a hundred years had passed since the first one was built.
The first city hall
Initially, Sunnyvale’s City Council operated out of a bank, but when those premises became too small to conduct city business, a new building was opened in 1929 on the corner of South Murphy and McKinley avenues.
The new structure was built in the Spanish Eclectic style popular for important public and commercial buildings. Architect A. A. Cantin created a U-shaped design of single-story wings around a two-story central block with arcades and an arched bell tower. Architectural details included a red-tiled roof, stucco walls and shaped parapets. Inside were a civic auditorium, the justice court, the chamber of commerce and the public library.
As this city hall was constructed during the Depression, there was no money left to invest in landscaping, and citizens, local groups and even schoolchildren rallied to raise funds for trees and shrubs to surround the city hall. This landscaping includes the grove of trees that will be the focal point of the park in the new downtown development at Murphy and McKinley avenues.
City hall was a center for community life – hosting political, social and cultural gatherings. During canning seasons in the 1930s and ’40s, and during WWII when soldiers were stationed in a camp at Washington Park, it was a popular spot for dances. Throughout its years as city hall, the building hosted an average of 70 monthly meetings.
After the dedication of the second city hall in 1958, the slow, decade-long decline of the old one began. In 1960, when the city council asked for bids from businesses or organizations to purchase the building, downtown merchants claimed the vacant place was bad for business and they wanted it gone. Two entities, the Sunnyvale Historical Society and the Lockheed Employees’ Association, offered to rent the building from the city in order to use it as a museum or a meeting space, respectively. At the time, its market value was estimated at $333,000.
In the meantime, the hall did not remain empty; the Sunnyvale Municipal Court used some of the space, as did the Chamber of Commerce and the city library. The basement was occupied by church groups, the Lions Club and an antique car club, and the site was also a favorite spot to celebrate weddings.
By this time, the building was deemed unsafe, and seeing that Santa Clara County was about to erect a new court building, the city was not interested in spending money on repairs. In 1967, the council set a deadline of 120 days for citizens to submit proposals for a future use of the old city hall for either community or commercial purposes and, at the same time, offered it for sale again.
Three groups wanted to preserve it as a cultural center: the Sunnyvale Historical Society, the Junior Women’s Club and the Women’s Club. City staff estimated the cost of upkeep and loss in revenue at $37,960 per year, and instead of giving the property away to a nonprofit group or renting it out, Sunnyvale was looking for tax revenue. In 1968, a proposal to turn the building into a shopping center akin to Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco was turned down.
The late ’60s spawned ambitions for a modern urban renewal that halted plans to seek bids on the old structure. Once the council chambers and the library had moved to their new digs on Olive Avenue, an idea was put forward to turn the old city hall into a senior center. Any groups who were excited about preserving the old structure gave up quickly after they researched the cost of repairing it.
After many years of looking for a buyer and pressure from merchants who wanted additional downtown parking, the city finally ordered the building to be demolished in late 1969. One citizen spoke up at the council meeting when the decision was made: “Old City Hall is the most interesting building Sunnyvale has. It’s terribly important that you do not tear it down. Sunnyvale is dull, it is incredibly dull. I can’t see tearing it down unless you have an urgent need.”
The second city hall
In 1958, Sunnyvale proudly dedicated a new city hall: a one-story, brick-and-glass modern structure, fully air-conditioned, with a whopping 24,000 square feet of space (plus a 7,200-square-foot basement) at a cost of $825,000. The center core from which three wings protruded would house the administration, public works and parks and recreation departments while the city council still met in the old hall. Former mayor and newly appointed judge Thomas Ryan assured the citizens, “I think when you see it, you’ll realize you’ve gotten your money’s worth.”
Special features included a night depository for bill payments, a basement print shop and built-in map boards for the parks and recreation department, as well as a conference room. At the time, Sunnyvale’s population was 30,000, and the city hall was built for 75 employees serving the community, which was expected to grow to 100,000.
Seven years after the grand opening, contractor Harrison Williams suggested moving city hall to a high-rise in the proposed downtown urban renewal area and using the current building as a community center for recreational activities. A new city hall could have a symbol on the top that “would be viewable from a large part of the Peninsula, identifying Sunnyvale as a ‘space city.’”
Within 22 years, the new city hall had already outgrown its quarters. City employees numbered 109, and the public safety department, built for 183 employees, now boasted 229 and was missing a law library. Employees worked in rented offices across the road (the infamous “rabbit hutches”). Earthquake safety concerns for the basement, which housed the city’s emergency center and computers, were raised on top of space limitations. A 10-year improvement plan included adding 5,650 square feet to city hall and 2,420 to the public safety department, for an estimated $2 million.
In 1981, when the population of Sunnyvale had increased to 107,000 and was served by 561 city employees, some workers moved into the basement while conference rooms were converted into offices. This was considered a “very lean staff” in comparison to other cities in the area. The city bought the Kiddie World toy store on the corner of Pastoria Avenue and El Camino Real in 1982, razed the building and constructed a new space for the public safety department in its place. By 1984, for a price tag of $7 million, the city had gained a two-story 39,000-square-foot building, and all of the fire and police officers were finally under one roof again for the first time in many years. Their old space at Olive Avenue was to be converted into offices for city workers. At the same time, the city library was expanded from 25,000 square feet to 43,000, at a cost of $5.4 million.
The third city hall
As early as 2002, even the “new” city hall was beginning to run out of space. Ideas for creating more space were floated: refurbishing and expanding the existing structure at a cost of $69 million; building a new city hall on the existing site for $109 million; or building in a different location, such as downtown, at the Town and Country center or east of the present site on Mathilda.
At the time, however, the city had no funds to act on any of these ideas, even though it became obvious that there was a need for more space, as much as 100,000 square feet.
Having whittled down various options for a possible new construction of a civic center, the city council in a split vote in 2017 approved the vision of a “community plaza.” The Civic Center Master Plan included a pedestrian plaza surrounded by city hall, the public safety building and the library. It would be developed in three phases, the first including the construction of a new city hall with underground parking, renovating and creating additional space for the Department of Public Safety, an Olive Avenue plaza and open space landscaping with bike lanes at a cost of $174 million.
The council decided to leave Olive Avenue open to vehicle traffic for the time being, giving public safety vehicles easy access to Mathilda Avenue but leaving the option open to close it in the future.
Learn more about the former city halls and Sunnyvale history at the Heritage Park Museum, 570 E. Remington Drive. www.heritageparkmuseum.org. Museum hours are Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday, noon-4 p.m.
Katharina Woodman is a volunteer at the Sunnyvale Heritage Park Museum.