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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!
April 1, 2025
Construction activity in March
In the last 30 days, the construction site has been busy, and the crews are making a lot of progress. Crews have finished the second level floor and columns, and shear walls are being prepped and poured.
What is a Shear Wall
A shear wall is a wall that is designed and constructed to resist racking or shaking from forces such as wind. They are built using concrete and cold-formed steel. Shear walls significantly reduce the sway of a structure.
What to expect in the next 30 days
The team is currently working on the level three floor. They are installing the rebar supports, and concrete crews will pour the level three floor soon. Once the concrete team pours the floor, a crew will start prepping the level 3 walls and columns for concrete. From there, the team will start the prep work for the level 4 floors.
What is a Boom Pump
A boom pump is a specialized machine used in construction to transfer concrete from the mixing truck to the desired location on the construction site. The boom pump makes pouring concrete in hard-to-reach places easier and is very useful for projects that need precise concrete placement, such as high-rise projects like City Hall.
How does the boom pump work?
The boom pump consists of a hopper, a pump, and a distribution device. A concrete truck delivers the concrete to the hopper. The hopper acts as the holding area for the concrete before it gets pumped by the pump operator. The pump operator controls the concrete flow and the boom's location with a remote control. The pump uses hydraulic pressure to move the concrete through the pipes and hoses.
The boom system uses a series of articulating arms with joints that allow precise concrete placement. At the end of the boom, there is a flexible pipe that allows crew members to manually direct the flow of concrete. The concrete is poured in layers and crew members use different tools to make sure the concrete is evenly distributed and compacted.
The boom pump is an interesting machine to watch and an essential tool in building Raleigh's City Hall.
March 13, 2025
Hargett Street Lane Closure
Beginning Monday, March 17, the City of Raleigh will implement a westbound lane closure on Hargett Street between McDowell Street and Dawson Street to accommodate the crane operations and install pre-cast panels for the new Raleigh City Hall construction. The closure will remain in place through December 31, 2025.
In the next few weeks, crews will start installing the building’s façade. This process will require the closure of a section of Hargett Street. This closure will facilitate the continuous concrete pour required to build out the building’s floors and place the building façade. Additionally, multiple concrete trucks and equipment will be staged within the closure area for efficient material and equipment unloading.
February 5, 2025
Construction update
The City Hall construction site is abuzz with activity. Here is a breakdown of construction crews' work this month.
Crews are:
- Working on forming and building the structure's pillars and walls for levels one and two;
- Backfilling around the job site to bring the site up to grade;
- Installing more underground utilities;
- Adding additional fencing around the tower crane base;
- Placing the concrete slab over the basement; and,
- Grading and concrete placement for the drive aisle and Duke vault.
January 30, 2025
A glimpse of the outside walls of our New City Hall
Last week, the City Hall construction team had the opportunity to visit a mockup of the outside of the new City Hall.
What is a mockup, and what are they used for?
The mockup the team visited last week is a full-size model of the outside building materials. The construction team uses this mockup to test how materials perform in actual conditions, such as how they withstand water, wind, and temperature changes.
Why build mockups, and what type of testing do they undergo?
It is standard practice to create a full-size model of specific building sections. Last week's testing evaluated the materials proposed for use on the façade of the City Hall. The team tested for potential performance issues like water infiltration and air leakage.
Having these mockups and performing these tests help the City to:
- Identify design flaws or potential issues before they become costly to fix during construction;
- Ensure the building will meet performance expectations and quality standards;
- Make adjustments to design and materials early on, potentially reducing rework and project delays; and,
- Provide a physical representation of the design for client review and feedback.
January 23, 2025
A year ago today, the City held the official demolition of the old police station that once stood on the site of our new City Hall. So much has happened in the past year, which got me thinking: Wouldn’t taking a visual journey down memory lane be fun? Check out the time-lapse and short slideshow below.
January 16, 2025
I have been off for a couple of weeks, and when I returned, I noticed the construction site was looking very different. I decided to look back at some of the images our time-lapse camera took over the last few weeks. The big takeaway from those images was that the team had done a lot of backfilling around the basement of the new City Hall. However, I will say that my favorite images I came across were some of our first snow of 2025, so I figured I would share a photo of our new City Hall’s first snow.
What will construction look like this year?
In 2024, we saw the demolition of the old and the foundation of the new, along with the basement buildout. Now we see backfill going in around the basement and soon we will start to see the beginnings of the first floor. This year will be all about moving on up. Follow the construction story and see what 2025 holds for the new City Hall.
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.
