Port Huron starts its homework on moving City Hall into the Woman’s Life Building

PORT HURON, Mich. — Port Huron has started a long look at a new home for City Hall. The City Council voted on Sept. 28 to pursue the purchase of the Woman’s Life Building at 1338 Military St. for $1 million, WPHM reported. The Times Herald said the price in the council resolution also covers related parking on Chestnut Street.

Nothing moves yet. City officials will spend the next several months evaluating the building before they decide whether to relocate city offices and the Port Huron Police Department there, according to WPHM. The station said both of the city’s property agreements now enter a due diligence period and that no final decision has been made.

The other half of the plan is the building the city would leave. The council also approved a purchase agreement to sell the Municipal Office Center at 100 McMorran Blvd. and its parking lot for $2 million, WPHM reported, naming the buyer as BMI Group. The station’s Sept. 28 preview and the Times Herald both tied the deal to developer Paul Veldman, who would turn the riverfront building into housing and possibly a hotel.

Voters get a say first. Port Huron’s charter requires a public vote to sell the MOC, as it does for any sale of city property on the waterfront, the Times Herald reported. Residents approved a 2023 ballot question letting the council sell the building, 1,684 to 821, but that measure gave the council only through December 2025 to act. City Manager James Freed told the paper that voters will have to approve this sale, and that it covers only the building’s footprint and parking, not waterfront land.

Freed laid out the reasoning on WPHM the morning after the vote. He said the city has spent years looking for a replacement for the aging MOC after studies found millions of dollars in maintenance it would need in the coming years. John Borgen, president and CEO of Trusted Fraternal Life, which owns the Woman’s Life Building, joined him on the air. Borgen said the organization plans to keep a Woman’s Life presence downtown if the sale goes through, and the two signed the purchase agreement live during the broadcast, WPHM reported.

The building has deep roots on Military Street. The Woman’s Benefit Association built it as its headquarters between 1915 and 1917, according to the state historical marker at Military and Chestnut streets. The association is today’s Woman’s Life Insurance Society, which announced in 2024 that it would merge with Milwaukee-based Trusted Fraternal Life, the Times Herald said.

Sources:
105.5 WPHM, “Port Huron Takes Next Step Toward Moving City Hall,” Sept. 29, 2026, https://www.1055wphm.com/2026/09/29/port-huron-takes-next-step-toward-moving-city-hall/
105.5 WPHM, “Port Huron council to consider downtown property proposals,” Sept. 28, 2026, https://www.1055wphm.com/2026/09/28/port-huron-council-to-consider-downtown-property-proposals/
Port Huron Times Herald, “Port Huron looks to buy building for city hall; sell MOC,” Sept. 25, 2026, https://www.thetimesherald.com/story/news/local/port-huron/2026/09/25/port-huron-michigan-looks-to-sell-moc-buy-womans-life-insurance/91941503007/
Historical Marker Database, “Woman’s Benefit Association” (Michigan marker L1605), https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=217558
Photo: The Woman Citizen (Alice Stone Blackwell, ed.), “Home office, Woman's Benefit Association of the Maccabees, Port Huron, Michigan (1918),” 1918, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain, cropped and color-corrected, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Home_office,_Woman%27s_Benefit_Association_of_the_Maccabees,_Port_Huron,_Michigan_(1918).png

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