The vote of the Huntsville city council perhaps held little - if any - significance for the long-term implementation of the city's newly-adopted downtown master plan.

But that vote also revealed the first action on what has, to this point, been simply a conceptual plan.

Two Huntsville developers have approached city leaders to pitch building an "iconic" building at the site of the current city hall, which is destined to be demolished as the city plans to build a new one across Fountain Circle at the site of the current city parking deck.

What the vote at Thursday's council meeting passed was a resolution authorizing Mayor Tommy Battle to enter into a non-binding letter of intent with the developers - Triad Properties/Crunkleton & Associates - for the redevelopment of the site of the current city hall and the shuttered annex building next door.

The new downtown master plan called for a large mixed-use building that would be built on the city hall site and front Church Street. Battle said that is the plan for Triad/Crunkleton.

"Iconic is like something we saw on the (master plan) drawings," Battle said. "It's a building that's timeless, that is an asset for us, that when people come (to downtown), people say that defines our city. I think that's what you talk about when you talk about an iconic building.

"It has that element of, when you look at it, you go 'Wow!'"

The resolution passed the council unanimously but not without a 40-minute discussion, led by Councilman Mark Russell, prior to the vote that focused on why the council needed to approve a resolution for a non-binding agreement.

Battle cited "transparency" as the reason he sought the resolution and said that would be how the city plans to proceed given the large nature of the master plan project. Council approval of the resolution would also indicate a measure of enthusiasm for the project.

It would also signal to the developers, which Battle said had already spent thousands of dollars on the project, that the city was "serious" about working with them.

"There's a long way to go before there's anything to get excited about," Shane Davis, the city's director of urban development, told the council.

The timing of the project would have a new city hall being constructed at the site of the current parking deck before the city hall complex could be turned over to the developers, Davis said.

Battle said Urban Design Associates, the Pittsburgh-based firm that presented the master plan approved by the council, would be brought back into the project for work on the building proposed by Triad/Crunkleton.

The master plan also called for aesthetic continuity between the "iconic" building and the neighboring city hall.

Councilman Bill Kling asked about the process of signing an LOI with Triad/Crunkleton rather than putting out a request for proposal.

"If you're going to get what you have from UDA (the developers of the master plan) and that type of development, you've got to tie down to one person to do it, one firm who has committed to doing something like this," Battle said.

City leaders have already deemed the current city hall, which opened in 1963, as obsolete moving forward. The building's physical condition indicates its time is drawing to an end and it's only about half as efficient due to spacing as it needs to be.

The city has employees spread out in nine buildings across the town and a new city hall would bring them together under one roof. That would also allow the city to shed itself of the costs of those other facilities, Davis said.