St. Pete to evaluate state of Municipal Services Center in downtown
By Breanne Williams
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Mar 29, 2023

St. Petersburg is looking into the future of its Municipal Services Center in the heart of downtown.

City council on April 6 will vote on whether to spend $199,410 to evaluate the state of the MSC building, which is located at 1 Fourth St. N.

Harvard Jolly Architects Inc., which the city hired in February 2020 to provide professional services for city facility improvement projects, would conduct the analysis. If approved the $199,410 will be broken down as follows:

Architectural condition assessment: $45,000

Structural engineering: $22,000

Building envelop consulting: $43,460

MEP engineering services: $30,000

Elevator consulting: $19,600

Cost estimating: $19,600

Allowance: $20,000

The building was built between 1927 and 1929. It had a major addition in the 1950s; in the 1960s, a second-story portion was added, and in the 1970s a parking garage was built. It has not undergone a major renovation since the building was transformed to become home to the MSC in 1995.

In 2020, the city received an unsolicited offer on the property, which triggered an open bid process. A proposal from Tampa-based Third Lake Partners LLC for the construction of a new MSC and apartments near city hall was selected by previous Mayor Rick Kriseman, though Mayor Ken Welch eventually killed the project.

City staff was “directed to determine whether the critical building systems in the existing MSC could remain functional without significant repair and replacement cost for the next 10 years,” according to city documents.

The evaluation will examine the building’s primary structural elements (including the parking garage), the mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems, the state of the elevators and estimated costs for the items. According to the task order, the scope of the study will strictly be for building maintenance and “does not encompass any space needs analysis or plans for space reconfiguration.”