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It’s mostly out with the old and in with the new for Eugene City Hall.

At a Wednesday work session the Eugene City Council reaffirmed its decision from earlier this month to raze the building at 777 Pearl St., which closed in 2012, and construct a new City Hall at the same site, according to a news release from the city.

The councilors left open the possibility of preserving the council chamber; however, the existing building, completed in 1964, is coming down.

鈥淭he council chamber is a structurally separate piece at the center of the City Hall building,鈥� facilities design and construction manager Mike Penwell said. 鈥淭he council wanted to carry some of the history forward since they had 50 years worth of council meetings in those chambers.鈥�

The new construction will be done in at least two phases, with the first planned for a half-block of the full-block site. The first phase consists of one 25,000-square-foot building that would accommodate the mayor, city council and city manager offices, Penwell said. That phase has a $15 million budget.

No decisions have been made about further phases, but Penwell said there would 鈥減resumably be a single second phase鈥� that could be as much as 100,000 square feet.

Deconstruction of the former City Hall building began Sept. 2, but the council on Sept. 8 paused demolition for two weeks as it reviewed technical information, receiving community input and making final decisions about how to move forward with the project.

The council voted 5-3 in favor of demolishing City Hall and 6-2 in favor of beginning construction of a new building. Penwell said the discrepancy is a result of one council member wanting to leave the old building intact and build a new City Hall on another site.

The council plans to meet again soon to discuss the future of the existing council chamber and consider options for possible underground parking as well as the addition of a fourth floor to the first-phase building.