It’s official.

The decaying Public Safety Building in Downtown is to be transformed during the next four years into a tax- and job-generating $325 million office-hotel-retail-child care complex linked to the Virginia Commonwealth University medical campus.

As anticipated, Richmond City Council approved the sale of the 56-year-old city building for $3.5 million to Capital City Partners, the private venture of William Hallmark and Susan Eastridge, who led the failed Navy Hill Coliseum replacement venture in Downtown and are spearheading the $2.3 billion GreenCity arena develop- ment in Henrico County.

The 9-0 vote during a special council meeting Monday supports a deal that council members noted is much more than a real estate transaction to remake 3 acres of land adjacent to City Hall in a two-block area bounded by Marshall, Clay, 9th and 10 streets.

Mayor Levar M. Stoney called it a win-win for city residents, the community, VCU and the city, describing “the sale and redevelopment of the Public Safety Build- ing site a critical first step to improving Downtown,”

After two decades of talk about replacing the structure built in 1964, “I am glad that council has approved this important project,” said 6th District Councilwoman Ellen F. Robertson, whose district includes the project area.

The terms negotiated by Mayor Stoney’s team require Capital City to meet goals for training and hiring of Richmond residents for the jobs the development would create during construction and afterward.

The deal also requires union labor and tradesmen to perform a major share of the construction and payment of union-level wages in all phases of construction.

The deal also sets a goal of 40 percent inclusion of Black- and minority-owned businesses during the demolition and building phases, including reopening Clay Street between 9th and 10th streets.

Capital City also is required to create a $500,000 fund that will largely be used to provide college scholarships for low-income Richmond high school graduates.

When complete, the new complex is projected to generate $5 million to $6 million a year in total new taxes for the city. During the first 25 years, the terms call for the city to receive at least $59 million in real estate taxes, or an average of $2.3 million a year.

The city’s only expense will be to relocate operations still in the building, including the Drug Court and a branch of the Department of Public Works. Under the deal, Capital City is to bear all other costs without any city subsidy.

The project is to include a 20-story building and a total of 300,000 square feet

of office space for VCU Health and others. The project also will produce new quarters for two nonprofit hotels that serve VCU patients and their families, The Doorways and the Ronald McDonald House, and a new parking deck.

New retail and restaurant space also is part of the project, along with a new day care center that VCU Health will operate and that will reserve 20 percent of its slots for city residents who are not connected with the university or its medical center.

Ahead of the construction that is expected to start in about a year, GRTC’s bus transfer station, now located on the 9th Street side of the Public Safety Building, will be relocated to the public parking lot across the street.