South St. Louis County News

St. Louis Call Newspapers

South St. Louis County News

St. Louis Call Newspapers

South St. Louis County News

St. Louis Call Newspapers

Crestwood aldermen slate work session on police facility

Plans for a new police facility, including the possibility of “retrofitting” City Hall instead of constructing a free-standing building, are scheduled to be discussed next week by the Crestwood Board of Aldermen.

The work session to discuss plans for the new police facility will take place at 6 p.m. Tuesday, June 22, at City Hall, 1 Detjen Drive. A regular meeting of the Board of Aldermen will follow the work session.

Crestwood voters in August 2002 approved Proposition S, the extension of a half-cent sales tax to fund construction of the new police building, provide revenue for repairs at City Hall and allow the continuation of the city’s street repair and replacement program.

The half-cent, capital-improvements sales tax had been scheduled to end in 2008, but voter approval of Proposition S extended the sales tax until 2023.

In November 2002, the city issued $9.83 million in certificates of participation — or COPs — to fund the construction of the new police building and the repairs to City Hall.

The bond-like certificates are to be repaid over a 20-year period and payments with interest will total $14,674,505.

The project budget for the new police facility and renovations to City Hall totals $8.7 million, including site work and professional fees. The cost of the new police facility itself, including furniture, fixtures and equipment, totals roughly $5.85 million.

However, as previously reported by the Call, City Administrator Don Greer told the board May 25, “… Part of the reason that this project has not come forward is quite candidly, I do not believe that if bid today, the project would come in under budget. I just don’t believe that. The most recent architectural estimate that we have indicates that it is more expensive. When we started this process two years ago, however long ago it was, I promised the board that I would not bring you a project that was not under budget. And that has been the energy and the effort of both the director of public works, the police staff and myself is to make sure, with some degree of confidence, a project that will bid under the $5.85 million.

“One alternative that we have begun exploring, largely in reaction to the most recent architectural estimate, is the concept of what could we do to retrofit the existing building. I really hadn’t wanted to talk about this yet, but I’ve met already with the architects a couple of times. We’ve taken a look at the existing plans to see what kind of structure, whether a second floor could be put on, whether we could expand some of the exterior walls. Some of those things are being discussed and we’re trying to do a cost comparison to see if the construction would actually be cheaper,” Greer said May 25.

Board members originally were scheduled to discuss plans for the new police facility at a work session Saturday, June 19, but after much discussion last week, decided instead to discuss an appropriations ordinance that would extend Crestwood’s fiscal 2004 budget through Dec. 31 on Saturday morning. Saturday’s work session on the appropriations ordinance, which is needed for the city’s transition to a calendar fiscal year that will begin Jan. 1, will start at 9 a.m. at City Hall.

During the June 8 board meeting, Greer said, “I just kind of wanted to give you an idea on the police building, what I had originally asked you to do was to meet to talk about that. I have for the last several weeks been pursuing, the public works director and I, have been pursuing an option of retrofitting the existing building. And while those issues are very, and I underline the world very, preliminary at this point, all indications continue to move in a very, very good, very positive direction. So I have asked the architects and engineers associated with the design of the project to work up some very rough sketches and ideas sufficient to be able to give the board some projection of cost.

“We think that this may be significantly less expensive and I don’t want to give you numbers because I’m a little nervous at this very early point, but some of the efficiencies that can be gathered by doing this in this fashion, which still captures nearly the majority of the square footage that we’re talking about. And remember in the stand-alone building, the court was part of that process, too, so by retrofitting some of City Hall, we’d be displacing public works. There are a lot of issues, relocation during construction, things like that, that really have to be resolved,” he said.

“But the type of construction in and of itself to add, say, a second floor, to that side of the main building, would be less expensive simply because the type of construction would be different. It would not need to be a secure environment as we would construct in a separate building because we would put the administrative offices there. All of the booking, prisoner jail cells, the interrogation rooms, things of that nature, would still be in a secure environment and there wouldn’t really be a need to do the same heavy type of secure construction in that.

“The very early indications are, and their structural engineers have taken a look at the original plans of the building. Some of the construction (that) would go out would be on slabs, so there really wouldn’t be as much site work and if you’ll remember, the original budget for the stand-alone building, there was well over half a million dollars worth of site work that was involved in the construction of that building. And we think there are some very strong potential savings and what I had really wanted to do in that work session — and it doesn’t have to be on the 19th is why I’m saying that,” Greer noted.

“Believe me, the architects would love me if I’d give them a little bit of extra time because I’ve been pushing them pretty hard to get you some information … What I had planned to do with the board in that type of a work session was essentially bring you completely up to date with exactly what we’re facing with the stand-alone building and why this thing got to where it got and then give you the information that we believe may be a better channel for us to follow with regard to obtaining the requirements or the needs that we have in the facility — not as much square footage, but what we need to make this whole thing work and quite honestly, right now I’m thinking that this project could be considerably less expensive. That may be more intrusive because if we’re doing construction at City Hall, we’re going to have to take a look at what effect that has on the other services and the other offices and departments that are there, but we meet again early this afternoon and I continue to be quite excited, actually, about the potential to save some money, so if you want to put that one off some time for a time period, we’re probably OK with that …,” the city administrator said, noting the architects and engineers probably would appreciate a few extra days.

At one point during the discussion, Ward 2 Alderman Tim Trueblood noted that under the terms of the bond-like certificates of participation that were issued, the new police station must be constructed by November 2005.

Greer later said, “… There are a couple of issues with the police building that I think are and Alderman Trueblood alluded to the timing and that is one that I am trying to be enormously sensitive to. One of the issues that I feel appropriate to obtain is actually from, a legal opinion from counsel because it does have an effect on the manner in which the money is spent. Now when I look at it, it looks to me and I don’t profess to be an attorney, but I’ve talked to my city attorney, who agrees with me that I should get a legal opinion with regard to how that money, you know, the original prospectus on the certificates talked about X for here and X for here and X for here.

“Now if we redo the police building, more money would be spent on the City Hall side, City hall renovations, but I think that flows because we, in essence, are displacing. So it’s really, because of one, we have to do the other, but I do think it’s appropriate for us to get a legal opinion from counsel that does that. So I don’t want to spend the money to get a legal opinion until we kind of got some idea if this is a plan that’s going to work …,” he added.

In response to questions from Ward 3 Alderman Jerry Miguel, Greer noted that information presented at the work session would be preliminary and far from complete.

“… I have not authorized the expenditure of thousands of dollars of money until there’s some indication that this will work. I mean that would be the board’s decision … In principle and in estimation, this will work and I think we can get to that point and if that’s the direction the board wants to go, then the board’s going to have to authorize some expenditures because I don’t have the authority to authorize those kind of expenditures …,” Greer said.

“What you’re going to see in that work session will be preliminary, but I also believe that you’ll be able to get answers as to … will this work? Can we get the configuration and the square footage that’s needed? … There’s a whole lot of work to get to before we actually could say this is ready to go to bid. But I do believe that you’ll have enough information to give the staff some direction as to where you want to go with this by then,” he added.

Regarding the appropriations ordinance, which Greer has emphasized is not a budget, that will be discussed Saturday morning, aldermen voted earlier this year to adopt an ordinance changing the city’s fiscal year to a calendar year, effective in 2005. The city’s previous fiscal year ran from July 1 to June 30.

The change in the fiscal year is designed to allow the city to better control its expense position. As proposed, the appropriations ordinance would extend the fiscal 2004 budget from July 1 to Dec. 31 and authorize the continuation of current expense items, including employee salaries, debt service payments and capital expenditures.

More to Discover