Council moves plans for new DPW building forward

By Ryan Whisner

The Fort Atkinson City Council earlier this month approved a first step in the process to develop a new Fort Atkinson Department of Public Works (DPW) building. 

The process was discussed Tuesday, Jan. 3, during a regularly scheduled meeting.

During the meeting, those in attendance learned that three parcels of land and part of a fourth located adjacent to the current DPW site at 700 James Place were acquired from Nasco for $500,000 to accommodate the future construction of a new facility.

Also, the council authorized city staff to issue requests for proposals on the design of a new DPW structure.

None of the approvals at the meeting locked the city into any specific action concerning the future of the DPW facility.

“There isn’t a vote this evening that is going to commit us to anything in the future that we cannot manage and adjust for,” Fort Atkinson City Engineer Andy Selle said.

As the DPW projects advances, he said there would be multiple decision points. The first was the acquisition of additional land. The next step is to hire architects for the design portion of the project. Once the design is approved, bids can go out for the final construction phase. 

“Those will all come before council and that’s really where our planning and our estimating is put to the test, frankly, to see how close we were,” Selle said. “That’ll have several factors involved in it the economic climate, which before the last couple of years had been relatively stable and hopefully will stabilize over the next couple of years as we continue on this project.”

In addition, he cited the ongoing supply chain issues and rising material costs.

“Fingers crossed all these are ironed out a bit by the time this goes out for bid in late 2023,” Selle said. 

The city engineer stressed that through the steps in the process, the staff would be committed to making sure any questions were answered and that the council had the best information when a decision was needed.

“It is a challenging one,” Selle said. “We are in a challenging economic environment right now and certainly if we could wave our magic wand and change the timing of this situation we would. The cards are what they are. We’ve been dealt this hand and we’ll be able to move forward in a very pragmatic manner on this and make sure that everybody has the information they need to make the best decisions.”

Council member Eric Schultz said he appreciated Selle’s comments in making it clear that there was flexibility in the process. 

“We can decide if the request for proposals comes back outside of what we can stomach and we can say no,” he said. “We can look at other courses of action. Even with this property purchase, it is real property, it’s not an expenditure. It’s something that we can do something with it at a later date. This doesn’t commit us to a certain course of action at this point.”

Addressing the public, Schultz said: “I only hope that we get a lot more community input on this DPW project. This is going to impact everyone in the city.” 

For a new facility at the existing site, the estimated cost is $22.9 million based on current pricing models. However, in the current economic climate, the city will face challenges in interest rates for any loans and the general increased cost of construction.

The city anticipates funding the project by borrowing general obligation bonds and/or utility revenue bonds with funding through the city’s general fund, water, wastewater, and stormwater utilities.

The existing DPW facility will include a mix of new and old buildings totaling about 39,000 square feet, with some being more than 50 years old. 

“The current site is probably a decade or more beyond its useful life,” Selle said, noting that the buildings have been somewhat neglected over time. “I don’t think necessarily intentionally but when I came on board in 2015, we identified a new DPW site as a priority.”

Around that same time, the council had begun discussions of an addition to the Fort Atkinson Fire Department.

“In hindsight, we made the right decision moving forward with the fire department as we did, certainly in the situation that we’re in now with a fully staffed, EMS service,” he said. “Now it’s time to turn our attention to the DPW facility.”

In anticipation of potentially having to make a significant investment to maintain the DPW site and the buildings to an optimal level of service, the city hired Enberg Anderson in June 2022 to assess the existing facility and prepare concept plans for two possible locations – the current location and the former Loeb Lorman scrapyard at 115 Lorman Street.

At its Nov. 15 meeting, the council was briefed on staff’s recommendations based on the report.

“City staff has been very clear about our recommendation of staying on the existing site,” Selle said. “Not only because it is less expensive, but also because of the five years that that we will save in building a facility sooner rather than later.”

The city acquired the Lorman site in 2021 as part of a blight elimination/remediation grant. The grant stipulates that once demolition and clean-up are completed, the site cannot undergo any redevelopment and must remain vacant until Jan. 1, 2027.

Selle said the long-term plan for the Lorman site is yet to be determined. 

To continue operations at the existing DPW site for five or more years while awaiting the construction of a new facility at the Lorman site would mean significant repairs. This would include a new roof, for approximately $100,000 and substantial upgrades to a partially obsolete HVAC system at a cost of an estimated $189,000 to $256,000.

Further analysis of the facility would be needed to determine the full extent of necessary repairs to make the building viable for that time should the council choose to pursue the Lorman site.

As part of the overall process, Selle noted that DPW superintendent Tom Williamson has visited the Stoughton DPW facility, which is relatively new. Plans are in the works for city staff to make an additional visit to that site to begin the process of understanding where they were able to save money and what items they wish they had or wish they hadn’t spent money on.

Council member Bruce Johnson noted that something he has learned while on the council is the cost consciousness of the city staff.

“They have always been interested in the best interest of the city and have never been interested in frivolously spending money,” he said. “They’re always picking the best deal or the greatest deal for the city. I have great faith in what the city staff puts together.”

Advancing the DPW project through the multi-step process, the council acted on the land acquisition.

“Without that, we would not be able to build a facility that will serve us for future years on the current location,” Selle said. “That decision point is the first step in our journey as we ascertain this DPW project.”

Owned by Nasco, the city has been in discussion with the company for many years as to what they would like to do with the property. Selle noted that more recently and with sincerity, city staff negotiated with Nasco to purchase the parcels.

To complete the purchase in 2023, funds from the city’s general fund balance will be utilized with the intent of reimbursing the fund from a future borrowing in 2024 that will likely include the construction costs for the facility as well.

Appraisals were done by both Nasco and the city to determine the final fair amount. Selle said the closing date is set for April 28.

“There were some questions about what happens if we decided to go in a different direction later on,” he said. “Land never goes out of style. We have several options available to us to be able to recoup that investment if for some reason we decided that the DPW facilities are no longer appropriate for that location.”

Before approving the land purchase, council member Megan Hartwick emphasized the importance of city residents understanding the five-year waiting period on the Lorman site property and the actual savings the city would benefit from by remaining at the existing site.

“Seeing a purchase price for the land of $500,000 is not a small number, and we recognize that there’s impact in that,” she said. “Waiting that five years to potentially use that other land comes back to the point that came up earlier about the quote we got simply on updating HVAC to keep the existing facility and structure operable is upwards of half of that cost for that one thing.”

She noted that city staff presented the council with the option and while $500,000 is by no means a small number, she said it is smaller than what the investment would be required to get the existing facility up to speed and be an adequate facility for the next five years.

Moving toward the second step in the DPW project process, the council authorized city staff to put out requests for proposals to all architectural firms that design such public works facilities. 

Selle said the anticipation is that the council will have an opportunity to review the top three or four proposals with cost estimates for the design process.

The actual cost will be determined by the solicitations, but the city has included $100,000 in the 2023 Capital Improvement Plan for the design portion of the DPW facility project.

“Once we’ve hired the architects, we’ll be able to have progress check-ins,” he said. “We’ll start with kind of a conceptual level designs and we’ll move forward by percentage, 30% 60%, and 90%. Each stage kind of marching further along in the design.”

Selle said each of those steps will give city staff and the council further clarification on the cost of the facility, and the configuration of the facility and get further into the “wanted and needs” of a facility where it comes down to making choices about things that are more expensive, versus less expensive, or something that might last longer but be more expensive versus the less expensive item that would need to be replaced in five years.

Council member Mason Beck noted that he appreciated the thorough assessment of the existing facility.

“It was also kind of enlightening,” he said. “People who know me know, I’m not very handy and, not mechanically inclined whatsoever. but I kept reading, this is residential, this is residential and not industrial or commercial quality as far as with the HVAC systems and things like that.”

Becker said he recognized that residents would read about the projects and accuse the council of being very spend happy and unaware of the pending recession.

“Our men and women who work down there and do so much important work in the city deserve to have a good safe facility with reasonably operating services,” he said. “This is the next step we have to take to gather that information and see what it’s actually going to cost to get this all fixed.”