Michael Malone of Partners in Architecture speaks at the Mount Clemens City Commissioners meeting. Commissioners approved Partners in Architecture as the architect of the 20 South Main Street City Hall/fire station renovations.
By: Dean Vaglia | Mount Clemens-Clinton-Harrison Journal | Published February 20, 2026
MOUNT CLEMENS — A new City Hall moves closer to reality as the Mount Clemens City Commission approved Partners in Architecture as the project’s architect on Feb. 17.
Unanimously decided with only Commissioner Thersea McGarity not in attendance, the approval of the Mount Clemens-based architects came following a nearly three-hour work session on Feb. 12 where four firms were interviewed.
The $676,900 contract tasks PIA with designing the renovations to make 20 South Main Street suitable as a combined City Hall and headquarters for the Mount Clemens Fire Department. The firm’s prior experience with municipal buildings includes the Northville Township Essential Services Complex (a combined police station and fire station), the Madison Heights City Hall/Active Adult Center, Chesterfield Township Hall, the Green Oak Township fire station and public safety campus and the Addison Township City Hall/senior center and police facility, among other projects.
Prior to the vote, most trustees expressed support for the PIA to be the project’s architect — City Manager Gregg Shipman said the firm was not McGarity’s top choice “in an unofficial capacity” — with many citing the firm’s overall body of work, as well as its history with the city. PIA’s headquarters at 65 Market St. is even subject to a brownfield agreement with the city.
While there was a solid consensus for PIA that could have made for a quick vote, Commissioner Roxanne Brown spurred discussion about what she saw — and other commissioners would recognize as well — as an issue with a lack of diversity among the contractors vying for the role.
“It’s because of the relationship that PIA has with this city — 21 years here in this city — that I expect that if you’re going to fill this room with employees that you would be sensitive to diversity and inclusion in some way,” Brown said. “Yes, architecture and engineering both are fields where people of color and women are still underrepresented, but I would expect a level of sensitivity in a city whose demographics you have to be familiar with, because this city is almost 40% African American now.”
According to census data as of July 2024, 20.1% of the city’s 15,480 residents considered themselves “Black alone” and 36.9% of residents considered themselves of Hispanic descent and/or of some racial background other than “white alone.” Brown said her “almost 40%” number came from people that were not counted by the census, while Mayor Laura Kropp said about 26% of the city’s population is Black.
The matter of diversity was noted by other commissioners as well. Commissioner Laura Fournier mentioned PIA’s delegation lack of diversity was “her first thought” on Feb. 12, while Commissioner Erik Rick was motivated to research diversity in the architecture and engineering industry following the interviews.
“I had not appreciated that of all the licensed architects in Michigan, there is 2% Black, 1% Hispanic and total of 14 Black women in the entire state, which is mind-boggling when you think about it,” Rick said.
Brown wished to use the power of the City Commission to ensure the contract with PIA would include some measure of concern for diversity and community involvement, bringing up a requirement to use minority or women-owned subcontractors and working on some relationship with Mount Clemens Community Schools to encourage architectural and engineering interest among students. The ultimate decision by the board was to direct City Attorney Robert Huth to negotiate language in the contract stating “The city encourages a sensitivity to diversity and inclusion” — an addition Brown found “comprehensive enough” to support — as part of the overall contract negotiations. Michael Malone, PIA’s principal-in-charge for the City Hall project, expressed a willingness to support such language in the contract and desired a deeper connection with the school district.
Rick, following the meeting’s adjournment but still with his microphone active, approached Brown about possibly making the final version of the diversity sensitivity statement a standard part of the city’s contracts going forward.
Commissioner Spencer Calhoun was happy that the commission had this discussion given the city’s stated values.
“Our city has a value statement that is in our strategic plan, and I will say I’m glad to see us having these kinds of discussions,” Calhoun said. “I think that these values should be in how we spend our money and seeing (the value statement is) already something we’ve voted on before and is something that we’ve discussed that we’d like to keep in there, I’m glad to see that those values are important to the commission and to our businesses in the community, including Partners.”
Other business
Beyond the discussion on the 20 South Main project, commissioners approved a specialized services operating agreement with the Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation. The agreement, identical to the one approved in 2025, allows the use of SMART buses for the city’s dial-a-ride program for senior and disabled residents.
Following past discussions about regulating the sale of kratom and the successful passage of regulations in neighboring Clinton Township, a representative from CARE of Southeastern Michigan brought up the matter of substance abuse during the meeting’s public comment period. Fournier addressed the matter in her end-of-meeting remarks, stating the issue of kratom regulation has “not been lost” and that the commission “would be looking at that at the next meeting.”
Kropp, in discussing her absence from the last meeting due to attending a conference in Washington, D.C. as the first vice chairperson of the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments, announced that SEMOCG would host its general assembly meeting at the Emerald Theater on Tuesday, June 23, where she will be made the chair of SEMCOG.