I like to tell the story of how the Town of Fishers had its Town Hall on 116th Street in what is now an art gallery when I first moved to Fishers in 1991.  It wasn’t long before the new, shiny town hall opened for business.

That town hall (currently city hall), now nearly 30 years old, appears to be ready for the demolition crew in the not-too-distant-future.  What will replace it, and how Fishers goes about constructing a community center, will be just another set of public projects that will likely have a major impact on all of us living in the City of Fishers.

The city has released a request for proposals (RFP) recently and Indianapolis Star reporter John Tuohy filed two stories about what those documents contain.  It provides more details about what the city wants in the proposals from the private sector.

One idea I have reported before is to construct a new City Hall with a performance center in the new building.  The RFP proposes a first-floor 400-seat facility with city offices on the upper two floors.

There is also a proposal for a new community center, or recreation center, at another unnamed location in Fishers.  This will require a fairly large swath of land.

There are some preliminary projected budget numbers attached to these proposals, $20 million for the new City Hall with a performance center and $40 million for the community center.

It should be noted that the city is in the early stages of these projects.  Any cost figures are estimates until RFPs are evaluated and bids are submitted later in the process.

It should also be noted that Mayor Scott Fadness never considered a new City Hall to be a priority for his administration, but City Hall is sinking and the cost of maintaining the current building has been increasing, with every indication that the bills to keep the current City Hall functional will continue to increase in the future if the structure is not replaced.

In a May City Council retreat, Fadness said the current City Hall has “flimsy construction” and is a wood structure, when most public buildings of its size are built with steel.

“When you walk in (City Hall), it does not feel like an institutional building,” the mayor said back in May.

Mayor Fadness, in a Sunday evening interview with LarryInFishers, says the RFP incorporates the vision expressed by the City Councilman Todd Zimmerman’s committee, and begins some of the hard lifting to take the ideas to the next phase.

“What’s occurred over the last 2-3 months is less of the exciting, upfront stuff and more, frankly, the how are you going to pay for it, how are you going to procure it?” the mayor said Sunday night.

According to the mayor, the RFP calls for an agreement to put together a team consisting of a design group, construction team and financing team, working together.

“We’ve made some good progress, it will be really interesting to see,” said Fadness.  “Do we get a wide variety of people to submit? Do we get them from out of state?  It will be really interesting to see who decides to put their hat in the ring.”

Once the teams are established, the vision from Councilman Zimmerman’s committee and the mayor’s staff will take the ideas for these facilities and bring them down to the cost and logistics of making the vision a reality.

I asked the mayor if he continues to be confident this can all be accomplished without an increase in the city’s tax rate.  His answer was yes.  “We’ve been heads-down and we are continuing to look through everything.  I believe we’re going to be able to do that,” Fadness said.

“This is not a Holland Park community building or Billericay Park community building, this is a significant facility that should have some pretty world class amenities with the budget that we are looking at,” the mayor added. “It is quite an undertaking.  We still do not have the location identified yet as to where we are going to put it.  Some of that will be part of the discussion with the design team – What is the footprint?  What’s the ideal setting for it?”

It appears we will know more when the RFPs are all submitted in October.

Fishers has had a lot of development since I called it my home in 1991, mostly private sector projects.

Many Fishers citizens have expressed an interest in an indoor performing arts center, and a community center (or recreation center).  Councilman Zimmerman has a group continuing work on this project.  We will be watching what comes next.