LAKE FOREST : City Hall Will Move to Larger, Cheaper Quarters Before April

Crowing over what they say is a sweet deal, the City Council agreed this week to lease a bigger but less costly site for City Hall.

Sometime before April, city officials will pack up and move a few hundred feet down the street to larger offices in the Lake Forest Professional Center at 23161 Lake Center Drive, thus saving about $3,000 a month.

The current location in a shopping plaza at 23778 Mercury Road “has been quite good for us, but this is a really good deal,” Councilwoman Ann Van Haun said. “We really need the extra space.”

Calling around to neighboring cities, city officials said, they found that Lake Forest, with a population of 60,000, has one of the lowest City Hall space-to-residents ratios in South County.

Currently working out of 8,276 square feet in city offices, city staff will see their elbow room expand to 11,658 square feet in the new building.

Laguna Hills officials rent 11,515 square feet to serve 25,000 residents, while Laguna Niguel leases 19,646 of office space to serve a community of 54,000.

Lake Forest officials say they will customize the new office space to suit the city’s needs.

Van Haun said at Tuesday’s City Council meeting that the office building is also a more appropriate location for City Hall than the shopping center.