The Kenton County Planning Commission approved a public facility review of Covington’s new city hall last week.
Government projects are not subject to zoning regulations like private developments. Public facility reviews in front of the planning commission serve as a way to ensure public projects in the county’s many cities cohere with county comprehensive planning, even if the commission is ultimately toothless in blocking such developments from moving forward.
The building site is in the 600 block of Scott Street, at the former location of the Emergency Shelter of Northern Kentucky and a small park.
Flanking either side of the land is the Kenton County Library branch to the north and the post office to the south.
The city released conceptual renderings from firms Brandstetter Carroll, Inc. and Elevar Design Group in October of last year and broke ground in October of this year. Pepper Construction will perform the building itself. The city hopes to open the building sometime in the summer of 2026.
Many of the renderings and imagery around the new city hall have been preliminary up to this point, but the planning commission meeting served as an opportunity to get more concrete details on what the building may actually look like as Brandstetter Carroll is required to submit planning documents to the commission.
The new building will be three stories high and will contain all of the city’s departments plus chambers for the city legislature, 20 off-street parking spaces, trees, shrubbery and other landscaping.
Check out the building plans submitted by Brandstetter Carroll below.