Renovated Arlington Town Hall should be ready by early next year
By Michael Waddell – Daily Memphian
October 7, 2025
Arlington employees must wait a few more months before moving into their newly renovated Town Hall at 5854 Airline Road.
For a good chunk of this year, staff has relocated to Arlington’s Public Works building at 11719 Memphis-Arlington Road. Construction on the existing Town Hall forced the growing number of employees into alternate spaces.
In October 2024, the town’s Board of Mayor and Aldermen approved a resolution for the design of a Town Hall addition. Plans by Renaissance Group, approved in January, doubled the building’s office space to more than 5,000 square feet.
“The building looks amazing,” Alderman Jeremy Biggs said of the work by general contractor Grinder Taber Grinder.
“We ran into a few existing problems, but ultimately, we’re catching back up on the timeline,” Town Planner Jeremy Credeur said. “With renovations, there’s always unforeseen issues behind those walls. But we’re in really good shape now.”
He said the worst-case scenario is that the $2 million renovation will be ready by early February 2026, although he is hoping for earlier completion.
The exterior work is almost finished, with landscaping and grading underway. The interior will take longer, Mayor Mike Wissman said, noting that delays are expected with construction projects.
Arlington’s long-range plan is to build a new Town Hall on land off Milton Wilson Boulevard. The town has focused on acquiring potential properties since 2016, according to Town Administrator Cathy Durant.
The most recent acquisition came in December 2023 with the purchase of 353 acres from the State of Tennessee. That land was once part of the 444-acre state Department of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (DIDD) campus.
The DIDD is building a new facility on a portion of that land that should be completed soon.
“I drove by, and the building looks great,” Wissman said. “That campus has turned out really nicely.”
Arlington hopes to acquire an additional 88 acres from the former DIDD campus for infrastructure purposes.
“Until the DIDD offices move in there, that process won’t start,” Wissman said. “That’s why our master plan for that area is kind of in a holding pattern until they get to that point.”
Prior to acquiring the DIDD land, a new Town Hall was planned as part of a municipal complex on 15 acres north of the current Town Hall on Airline Road between Village Center and Douglass streets.
Fleming Architects designed a master plan for that site, including an 18,000-square-foot Town Hall, a 17,000-square-foot library/learning center, three flex buildings totaling 43,000 square feet, a lake, a park, and a large lawn area.
A variation of those plans could potentially be used on some of the town’s acreage off Milton Wilson Boulevard.