By: Alyssa Ochss | St. Clair Shores Sentinel | Published May 17, 2026
ST. CLAIR SHORES — At its meeting on May 4, the St. Clair Shores City Council voted 6-1 to award a reconstruction bid for the St. Clair Shores Civic Ice Arena parking lot.
Councilwoman Candice Rusie cast the opposing vote.
According to items from the agenda, the parking lot has been in disrepair for a long time and is a prime candidate for improvement through the millage funds approved by voters in 2024.
“The parking lot will be reconstructed in concrete with upgrades to both the storm sewer system and water main, as well as a new layout promoting better traffic flow and parking,” the agenda items indicated.
According to previous reporting, in 2024 when the council set the language and rates, the millage was said to collect $3,931,795.50 per year for the city.
The new language allowed the funds to be used for alleyways and parking lots as well as city streets. Council members raised the rate to 2 mills from the previous rate of 1.75 mills passed in 2019. At that time, the millage rate was at 1.6430 due to rollbacks. They set the rate and added the new language at their meeting on March 18, 2024, for the August election.
Both Rusie and Councilman John Caron were opposed to the language at the time.
City Engineer Mike Freckelton confirmed they will be utilizing the millage funds for the project at the meeting on May 4.
The city received 11 bids for the project with Mark Anthony Contracting coming in as the low bidder at $2,228,951.41.
“This was approximately $100,000 less than the next lowest bidder and nearly $800,000 less than the engineer’s estimate for the project,” the agenda materials indicated.
The original engineer’s estimate was around $3 million.
With a 20% contingency fee, the whole project will cost $2,674,741.69.
Freckelton presented the item at the meeting on May 4. The first thing Mayor Kip Walby did was wish Freckelton well as he moves onto future endeavors after May 8.
City Manager Dustin Lent said they usually do not ask for a 20% contingency.
“One of the main reasons for this large one, as Mike mentioned, is for the stormwater runoff and eliminating … trying to get with the new standards from the county,” Lent said.
This includes a retention pond and other amenities. The city is working with their engineers from Anderson, Eckstein and Westrick, Inc. to construct the amenities. They will also look at all their options to utilize other retention ponds in the area and other ideas.
“Because this was bid out and because of the timelines, our goal is still to try to have this project done and completed before hockey season starts,” Lent said.
He said they will be working with the Macomb County Department of Public Works office to complete the project.
Councilman and Mayor Pro Tem Ronald Frederick said this was a long time coming.
“And you can see why, because it’s so expensive,” Frederick said. “We’ve talked about this parking lot forever.”
Frederick, Walby and other council members are also pleased that they received 11 bids and that the price came in far under what was expected.
Rusie said she wasn’t in favor of adding city parking lots as an allowable use for the millage funds. She acknowledged that the project needs to get done, but said the price is a lot, especially with the city now coming out of winter as residents are dealing with various road conditions.
“To take $2.2 million to $2.6 million of money that we could put toward triaging some of those issues toward a city parking lot for a hockey arena is not something I feel comfortable doing at this time,” Rusie said.
She again acknowledged that work does need to get done at some point.
“I would rather see this go toward fixing some of the roads,” Rusie said.
Councilman Dave Rubello asked where the money would come from if not through the millage funds. Lent said the money would come from the general fund.
Walby said this is not the first time they’ve used the millage funds for similar items.