09/11/2026
Hi friends,
For the past few years, you may have heard me or members of our City Council talk about the need for a new City Hall. As our city continues to grow, we are faced with the reality of providing adequate space for our team to operate from to best serve our citizens.
The Elizabethtown city government has occupied the 22,500 square foot building at 200 West Dixie Ave as the current City Hall since 1995. This building has served the city well for over 30 years. Over a year ago, we traded (then leased back) the building we currently inhabit for the old Elizabethtown Laundry property on South Main. The thought process at the time was that we would implement a 5-year plan to clear the old laundry buildings on that property and construct a new 50,000 square foot City Hall building, to include a city downtown center for other commercial/retail developments to accompany our new home. We believe our projected costs for the new building on that property 5 years from now would be in the $40-45 million dollar range.
Recently, we were approached about another opportunity that caused us to pause and consider a different direction. The former First Federal building on Ring Rd became available for purchase earlier this year. Most of you are probably familiar with this 18-acre campus and incredible building that sits across from Heartland elementary school. The recently renovated 54,000-foot building offers 3 floors and a full finished basement that will give Elizabethtown City Government the ability and space to operate for decades. With City Council awareness, we signed a purchase agreement for the property, and the plan is to close in November. That timeframe allows the city a due diligence period to further evaluate the building. The price tag all in (to include some interior modifications) will be somewhere just shy of $16 million. The city will bond the full amount of the project.
While the City Council and I realize that is quite a bit of money, we are thrilled that we have found a different path from the $40-45 million that we have projected to spend five years from now. In fact, we think this gives us an even better opportunity and set up for city operations. Those plans include bringing the City Council chambers back into the footprint of City Hall. We still have big plans for the development of the old laundry property downtown, and we will be working to find the right developer to make that dream a reality.
I expect some people to have concerns about City Hall moving out of downtown, initially I did too. If you will remember several years back, Hardin Co Judge Executive Harry Berry and Hardin Fiscal Court were bold enough to move county operations out of downtown Elizabethtown to their new current location on Patriot PKWY. Many people, including me at the time, thought that decision was the wrong one and that downtown Elizabethtown would never recover. I think that most would agree now, history has proven Judge Berry's instincts correct. With the historically appropriate revitalization of the old downtown county buildings, we have seen a great resurgence in downtown development and energy. We are hoping to have the same effect with the current building we occupy when we leave it.
As always, we are open to questions and comments. My door is always open, and my phone is always on. We appreciate all of you and we are proud to live and work in Elizabethtown, the best city in this great Commonwealth.
All the best,
Mayor Jeff
