Sitting on a two-acre lot across from the Downtown Library is Hayward’s old City Hall. The building, with its Art Deco style, is one of the most recognizable historic buildings in the city. And with street parking recently added to Mission Boulevard to slow traffic, it’s more accessible than ever, despite also being completely closed off.
In 2024, after a string of fires, the City of Hayward spent $128,000 to conduct minimal repairs and improve the security of old City Hall. The fires, allegedly started by unhoused residents seeking shelter, resparked a nearly 50-year-old discussion over what to do about the structure. Despite the prime location and ample lot size, it remains unused beyond a photo backdrop.
With solutions ranging from demolition to preservation to renovation, the site has become trapped in a legal limbo. “It pains me to see the eyesore it has become,” said then-interim city manager Dustin Claussen in a 2024 city council meeting. Historic City Hall remains a beautiful but inaccessible shell of a building—a historic paperweight in the heart of Hayward’s downtown. Let’s take a closer look at old City Hall, its history and how it landed in this position.
Building over history
Before William Hayward stumbled onto his extensive Rancho San Lorenzo property, Don Guillermo Castro lived in an adobe home on what is now Mission Boulevard. After Castro sold off his property to pay off his gambling debts, Charles Ward—of Ward Creek—moved into the home, which later collapsed during the 1868 earthquake on the Hayward Fault.
After the earthquake, when Hayward was officially established, the only structure on the lot was an old wooden jail which remained until the City Hall was constructed in 1930—the jail was moved to the basement of the new building. Construction was completed within a year, and it was occupied by city staff until 1969 when they moved to the newly constructed City Center Building on Foothill Boulevard.
Old City Hall housed the Hayward Police Department until 1975, when they moved to their Winton Avenue headquarters. After that, multiple organizations and groups expressed interest in the building—Project Eden appears to have used it for a time—but by the mid-1980s, it was mostly abandoned.
Continued calls for preservation
In the ’90s, the city council began coming up with plans for what to do about the Historic City Hall building. Due to damage from the underlying Hayward Fault, it was no longer safe to use—the Hayward Fault was slowly pulling the building apart. The 1992 Redevelopment Plan recommended relocating Historic City Hall, though then-Councilmember Jimenez worried that it would be destroyed in the process.
The alternative put forward by city staff was to preserve the exterior. In 1996, a group called Friends of Historic City Hall, led by resident Frank Goulart, pressed the city council to actively preserve the whole building. They recalled beautiful murals in the council chambers and other interior design features, but the city council never found the money.
Friends of Historic City Hall continued working for years to move things in a better direction. They pushed back against full demolition in 1996—citing an alleged Superior Court prohibition—piecemeal demolition in 1998, and advocated for roof repairs to preserve the interior. And after years of advocacy, a Historic Preservation Program was created for the City of Hayward.
Not what it seems
Getting the old City Hall designated as a Historical Resource was a win for lovers of Historic City Hall. But it never quite lived up to the ideal. Under Hayward Municipal Code, only the exterior of a building is required to be preserved. But they’re still not required to maintain the interior, and 1998 city council minutes confirm that there was never an intention to preserve it. And if the city ever does decide to move or demolish the building, it would be an extensive process: a special permit, environmental reviews, public hearing and more.
So old City Hall sits on Mission Boulevard in a strange position: too historic to tear down, too dangerous to use and on land too valuable to ignore. With upcoming plans to narrow Mission Boulevard and make Downtown Hayward a more coherent and walkable space, that land is going to be more valuable than ever.
The discussion continues with no clear path forward. Councilmembers Francisco Zermeño and Angela Andrews have both expressed interest in finding some use for it, but the earthquake damage is prohibitively expensive to fix. Maybe one day our city will find a way forward, but in the meantime, the doors remain barred and the windows barricaded; an example of what happens when we don’t invest in our history.
