VISTA – Frank Lopez Jr. remembers walking the grounds of the old downtown Broadway Center in 1986, when the city was looking for a new site for City Hall.

But Lopez, who would be elected to the Vista City Council in 2004, said the city couldn't scrape together the $5 million the landowners wanted for the commercial property, which flooded when it rained.

In 1995, the council again eyed the Broadway Center. Voters even passed a ballot measure so the city could move out of the abandoned junior high school at Escondido and Eucalyptus avenues that it had occupied since the late 1970s and into the Broadway property.

But council members withdrew their support. The project was scrapped in favor of building the Vista Village redevelopment project, which included the Broadway Center land.

Jokes about City Hall continued: “Once the termites stop holding hands, the whole place will fall.”

What was supposed to be a temporary situation when the city moved into the 1950s-era former school campus has stretched into decades. As the years have worn on, officials have expressed increased embarrassment over the facility, where a former cafeteria serves as council chambers, ceilings leak and rats scamper down hallways.

Nearly 30 years of waiting ended Tuesday, when Lopez and three other members of the Vista City Council voted unanimously to replace the old City Hall/school building with a 100,000-square-foot civic center complex. The council limited the cost of the municipal center, at Escondido and Eucalyptus avenues, to $55.2 million.

“I just felt like it was a big burden off my chest when we voted,” Lopez said. “Vista is on the rise, and the civic center is a symbol of that. In the next four or five years, I think you are really going to see Vista improve. . . . It's been a long time in coming.”

In the mid-1980s, Mayor Morris Vance, then Vista's city manager, asked Lopez to be on a committee to search for a City Hall site.

Funding for the civic center, which will also have a community room, an emergency center and city offices, comes from a half-cent sales tax increase that voters approved in 2006.

Four other community projects totaling more than $100 million – two fire stations, a sports park and Moonlight Amphitheatre improvements – are being financed by the tax increase.

The expenditures, especially the civic center, are needed for more than one reason, said Vance, who sat down with City Manager Rita Geldert three or four years ago to plot a course of action.

“I said that we had to get a new City Hall. I said that I would push it politically, if she could find a way to pay for it,” Vance said. “Thankfully, we had a City Council who wanted to get things done.”

Not everyone on the council embraced the modern look of the complex, designed by San Diego-based architectural firm Carrier Johnson.

Councilwoman Judy Ritter said she was disappointed in the architecture, and Lopez said he would have liked to see more palm trees.

But both voted in favor of it, as did Vance and Councilman Steve Gronke. Councilman Bob Campbell recused himself, citing a conflict of interest because he owns property near City Hall.

The turnout for the council meeting, at which the civic center was the only agenda item, was low.

Only Chuck Rable, a council-meeting regular, voiced any opposition. He bemoaned the fact that the estimated price of the project went from $40 million to more than $55 million.

The city's response was that the 2006 estimate was just that, an estimate, and that the $55.2 million price tag includes design work, money to cover unanticipated costs and furnishings.

“I think this will be remembered as one of the best things we have done,” Lopez said.

Vance agreed.

“I think this civic center is going to mean a lot to the community. I think they are going to be proud,” he said. “I used to be truly embarrassed when I brought a person to City Hall. I think people are going to have a better impression now.”

Asked about the design, Vance said the new look is for a new Vista.

“I wanted it to be something that showed progress,” the mayor said. “I didn't want it to look tired. I wanted it to leave a fresh impression. I wanted it to show progress, because Vista is progressing.”

Ground will be broken on the project in August, with enough of the construction completed by 2010 to allow some offices to open. The project is expected to be finished in 2011.

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Rick Rogers: (760) 476-8212; rick.rogers@uniontrib.com