Located at the east end of Battle Creek's central business district, the Battle Creek City Hall is a broad-fronted, three-story-plus-attic, Neo-Classical Revival-style structure w1th a rusticated limestone
masonry first floor and red brick upper stories. The building's Symetrical front and end walls each display centrally positioned, pedimented, two-story high porticos of the Ionic order, resting on arcaded entranceways.
City Hall is located at the northeast corner of Michigan Avenue arrl Division Street and faces south on Michigan Avenue. Michigan Avenue is Battle Creek's historic main street and the heart of the city's central business district extends along it to the west from City Hall. The City Hall is largely surrounded by civic buildings, including the former post office/federal building (now listed in the National Register) to the west across Division Street, the 1913 red brick and terra cotta Masonic Temple directly to the east, and the orange brick First United Methodist Church to the south. Narrow fringes of lawn with flower beds and plantings of small trees and shrubs front City Hall's street-facing facades.
The structure is symmetrical in form, with a broad, south-facing front and narrower, east- and west- facing ends. The south or front facade consists of five sections: strongly projecting, three-bay wide units at either end; a slightly projecting, gabled, central block containing triple recessed, arched entrance-ways in the base and a six-column, Ionic portico above; and, between the center and end section on either side, recessed, two-bay wide units. The east and west facades are identical; each has a broad, slightly projecting, pedimented, center section containing, in the base, an arched, recessed entranceway flanked on either side by a window set in an arched recess, and a recessed Ionic portico in antis above. The north or rear facade follows the front's five-part configuration, but has no portico.
Resting on a concrete foundation, the City Hall is a steel-frame structure having brick
with clay tile on the interior surfaces for plastering. Some of the interior partitions are
clay tile construction. The floors are of terrazzo or wood supported on flat-arch clay tile systems. The
original clay tile roof remains, but has been covered over with built-up roofing, which is now painted a silver color.
The exterior finish is of tooled-finish, gray-buff limestone, common-bond, red brick masonry, and white-painted, cast concrete work. The first floor' s rusticated masonry, quoining in the second and third floors, and the column shafts are of limestone. Cast concrete elements include the architrave-trim window surrounds and spandrel panels in the second and third floors, the column capitals, the main cornice and entablature, and the attic finish. A wealth of classical detailing, including rosettes, dentils, beadwork, egg-and-tongue mouldings, and acanthus bands, decorates the concrete work of the entablature and spandrel panels. Handsome, black-painted, Renaissance Revival railings front the porticos and wrought iron guards protect the arcade windows flanking the east and west entrances. The structure's original, black-painted, steel, casement windows renain intact; however, the original entrance doors have been replaced with modern glass and aluminum ones.
In the interior, City Hall is arranged with large rectangular lobbies in the central area of each floor
and broad central corridors extending from them in either direction to the east and west. There are
staircases at either end of the building and a broad, U-shaped staircase at the back (north side) of the main
lobby. Windows in the wall back of the main staircase's half-level landings between the first and second
and second and third floors are of colored glass; each window of the upper set of windows bears a medallion containing the seal of the city.-
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