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Welcome to our new City Hall Project update page! Your source for the most up-to-date construction information on the City's new City Hall. When completed, the new building will enable us to serve our customers better and provide a collaborative, dynamic workplace for City employees.
Stay in the loop, visit this page often!
December 18, 2024
Is that a wall, I see?
We are starting to see the building emerge from the ground. The crews are setting up the forms for the back walls near the parking deck and along McDowell Street. The wall forms consist of large panels, and inside those large panels is a network of rebar. The rebar adds extra strength to the concrete once it is poured into the forms.
Equipment highlight
If you have been watching the construction site, you may have noticed a person driving a remote-controlled trench roller around the site. Construction crews use this device to compact the soil on construction sites. Compacting the soil reduces air pockets creating a denser stable base, which helps to prevent settlement and potential cracks in concrete.
How does a trench roller work?
A trench roller uses weight and vibrations to compact the soil. The roller's drum or tires have weights that generate high-frequency vibrations. As the machine moves forward, the drums' vibration creates both impact and pressure, removing air pockets and compacting the soil, creating a densely packed surface. The process is done in layers. The machine rolls over the area in a slow, controlled manner and then repeats the process until the entire area is compacted.
The remote-control device uses infrared technology, which stops the machines if the operator loses sight of it.
December 10, 2024
Have you noticed the many plastic pipes grouped together at the new City Hall construction site?
What are these pipes and what are they for? This group of pipes is used for a system called a duct bank.
What is a Duct Bank?
A duct bank is an underground utility system for electric and telecommunication cables. It consists of multiple pipes called PVC conduits, which organize and protect cables.
Why Do We Use Duct Banks?
The purpose of duct banks is to organize and protect wires and cables. The underground system protects wires and cables from electrical fires, weather, strain, and more. The PVC pipes also keep the wires and cables separated and orderly. Duct banks are mostly used in larger public buildings that require large amounts of wiring like office buildings, schools, hospitals, and data centers.
December 4, 2024
The team presented a construction project update during the City Council Meeting this week. The project was reported to be 12 percent complete and on schedule. We also heard about the communication efforts and the public art. The public art project planned for Raleigh's new City Hall is a generative light installation that will learn and evolve with its environment. The artwork will exist in two realms: the physical environment, experienced through sight, and the virtual environment, experienced through sound. To learn more about public art, visit the City Hall Public Art project page.
November 20, 2024
The week before last, members of our team had the opportunity to visit Gate Precast Concrete in Nashville, Tennessee. Gate Precast Concrete is the company making the precast concrete panels that will be the exterior shell for the new City Hall. What does precast mean? Precast is a concrete product that is created offsite then delivered to its project destination for final use
These panels are enormous, and each takes 24 hours to fabricate. They are very labor intensive. The only part of the process that is automated is the concrete mix. Here is a short video that shows part of the process.
October 29, 2024
The end of the month is here, so let’s look back at what our construction contractor has completed this month. Here is a list of the work that crews completed in the last 30 days.
- Finished forming and pouring the exterior basement walls;
- The mechanical, electrical, and plumbing accesses at the basement level are done;
- Waterproofing around basement walls;
- Backfilling around the basement walls;
- Installed the foundation drain around the perimeter of the basement;
- Poured the mat foundation for the electrical vault;
- Formed the concrete walls for the electrical vault; and,
- Relocated an electrical transformer.
What can we expect to see in November?
In the next 30 days, the contractor will have crews working on the following;
- Pouring the interior basement walls;
- Completing the electrical vault walls;
- Installing the fill at the basement interior;
- Doing the rough-ins for the basement’s mechanical, electrical, and plumbing; and,
- At the end of November, the deep foundation work for level one will start.
October 15, 2024
All went well during last weekend's work, and power was restored to the Raleigh Municipal building and parking deck on Sunday. This week, crews continue their work on forming the basement walls. Sections that are completed are now being waterproofed and then backfilled. There is also a team working on the foundation for the new electrical vault.
September 18, 2024
This week we will do a bit of a recap of activities that crews have completed and then look forward to what we can expect in the next few weeks.
As we saw in last week's construction video, the contractor completed the main tower foundation. Before pouring the nearly 3,420 tons of concrete, crews installed a rebar network that helps maintain the concrete's integrity. Before the rebar installation, they drilled about 30 to 50 feet down and installed more than 100 deep foundation peers. In short, our new City Hall has a solid foundation.
Crews are forming the basement walls. Rebar is being installed, and in the next couple of weeks, the team will pour the concrete into the wall forms. After completing the basement walls, they will waterproof and backfill around them.
The team is also working on a foundation pad for the backup generator for the new building.
September 4, 2024
A Foundation for Our New City Hall
The rebar is in place, and the site is ready for the foundation. Crews are scheduled to place the concrete foundation next week. The team will close Hargett Street on Monday, Sept. 9, and it will remain closed to traffic throughout Wednesday, Sept. 11.
The foundation will take around 180 truckloads of concrete and about 20 hours of continuous work. The first concrete truck is scheduled to arrive in the late afternoon or early evening on Monday, Sept. 9, and the last truck is expected to leave the site mid-afternoon on Tuesday, Sept. 10.
During this work, there will be some noise from the trucks entering and leaving the job site and the generators needed for pumping the concrete.
We know that construction noise, especially during the overnight hours, can be disruptive, and we appreciate your patience as we work to build our new city hall.
