City of Kingsburg leaders are considering relocating their Swedish-themed city hall north about a mile along Highway 99. Google Street View image

Kingsburg’s City Hall is in the heart of the famed “Swedish Village,” but town leaders now are floating a plan to pick up and move administrative offices to a future 18,500 square-foot building closer to Highway 99.

“We love being downtown” said City Manager Alex Henderson, “but we’re just out of room.”

The city is processing an environmental document on a vacant 13-acre parcel of land near Stroud Avenue along Highway 99 that will need to be annexed to be developed. The parcel is west of the freeway and

It would be the furthest northward extension of the city’s boundaries west of the freeway toward Selma’s city limits. The site is a little more than a mile north of the existing city hall.

 

Henderson said the owner of the triangle-shaped parcel has offered to donate 2.3 acres to the City of Kingsburg for the new city hall. City leaders favor encouraging more development along Highway 99, adding space for future sales tax generators for the city. The site is designated as highway commercial under the city’s general plan. Next to the planned city parcel with its 78 parking places are three other small parcels that could be developed by other parties along with the remaining acreage later.

Kingsburg carries on with its Swedish-themed stores, restaurants and architecture dating from the 1920s when some 94% of the population in a three-mile radius of Kingsburg were Swedish-American.

Henderson said the plan to build the new city hall is preliminary and community input will be sought to see just how the parcel will be used. Kingsburg Swedish-style architecture is mandated under development standards regulated by the city’s zoning ordinance.

The environmental document for the proposed annexation calls for a mitigated negative declaration, meaning it would have minimal environmental impacts if the city takes certain measures.