Design firm presents Roseville City Council with plans for bond-funded renovations

ROSEVILLE — The wheels are in motion in Roseville to use the bond money that voters approved last November for a variety of municipal projects ranging from fire station upgrades to a splash pad.

At the Roseville City Council special meeting March 19, Jason Arlow and Scott Lockwood, from the design firm Anderson, Eckstein & Westrick, gave a presentation outlining the proposed improvements. The board approved receiving and filing the presentation.

Roseville City Manager Ryan Monroe said that plans to renovate the library and some tile to do at City Hall, which are part of the bond funding, have approximately $1.5 million earmarked for them.

Following the meeting, Roseville City Controller John Walters said that June 1 is the target date to get the bonds sold. There is a total of $20 million in two separate series, Walters said. The first one, with the June target date, is for $12 million, and the city has two years to spend it. The second is for $8 million at a later date.

The $12 million in the first series will pay for renovations to the library, City Hall, both fire stations, the South East Regional Emergency Services Authority building and the Department of Public Services building. It also will pay for the construction of a splash pad at Rotary Park.

“Once we get the money, we can hit the ground running,” said Walters about the first series of funding. “The clock is ticking on that.”

Walters said a resolution authorizing the bonds will be up for a vote at the council’s April 23 meeting.

“We should get the proceeds in early June, and then they’re going,” Walters said. He said there’s a good chance that everything with the bonds should fall in line for the funding of the projects.

“Since rates are so high right now and the bond market is pretty strong, all indications are it should move pretty smoothly,” Walters said. “It’s exciting, we’re updating buildings that were built in the 1960s and even before that.”

 

Fire stations
The Roseville Fire Department headquarters, located at 18750 Common Road, is set to get an interior renovation. This will mainly consist of creating separate dorms for the department’s men and women, expanding the locker rooms, updating the plumbing, and moving the administrative offices to the South East Regional Emergency Services Authority building.

Roseville Fire Department Station 2, located at 17644 Frazho Road, will get both an interior and exterior renovation. The changes will include updating the plumbing; creating separate dorms for men and women; expanding the locker rooms; updating heating, ventilating and air conditioning; and creating a barrier-free entry. About 1,400 square feet of the south side of the building is set to be demolished and reconstructed with an additional 850 square feet.

Mayor Pro Tem Cathrine Haugh asked if the Fire Department was in on the planning. Arlow, AEW’s director of architecture, said the firm worked with the department.

“We gave them 99.9% of the things they asked for,” Arlow said.

“Yes, we were fully involved in this process,” Roseville Fire Chief Keith Jacobs said, adding that the improvements will allow for the potential growth of the department.

“You don’t want to be at a number and then five years from now go to another number,” Council member Kurmmell Knox said, agreeing with council member Steve Wietecha.

City Manager Ryan Monroe said that while the stations will accommodate more staff, these additional hirings would have to go through the traditional budgeting process next year.

 

SERESA building
The SERESA building, located at 18961 Common Road, will get an interior makeover. SERESA is a regional 911 dispatch center that serves St. Clair Shores, Eastpointe, Roseville and Fraser. The building is also utilized by the Roseville Police and Fire departments for different functions.

The Roseville Fire Department administrative offices will be moved to the SERESA building. The building will get a meeting room that will be used for training for different city departments, and police storage will be made more secure. The bathrooms and kitchenettes will also get a makeover.

The building is also getting some exterior tweaks. The parking lot is set to get an expansion, and a three-car garage will be added to the building. One of the bays in the garage will be heated for secure storage.

Roseville Mayor Robert Taylor asked who will be funding the project.

“The SERESA building is owned by the city of Roseville,” Monroe said. “It’s ours. To keep things clean and neat, using the bond money, all this investment would stay with the city of Roseville if and when SERESA ever went away.”

Wietecha asked why the garage was needed. Monroe said the garage is needed to store Fire Department evidence.

“My understanding is we can’t let it freeze,” Monroe said. “All of our evidence is going to be waterlogged, so if it freezes, it will be worthless in court.”

Knox asked how the leasing arrangement with SERESA works.

“They pay monthly,” Monroe said. He added that SERESA sometimes uses other spaces in the building outside of the lease, but the city allows for it.

Council member Colleen M. McCartney asked how many Fire Department employees would be in the building.

“You have the fire chief, fire chief secretary, fire marshal, fire prevention officer and inspector, training officer and two part-time employees who assist the secretary,” Jacobs said.

Monroe said the Police Department has two office spaces and an evidence/storage room in the building as well.

 

Department of Public Services building
The building, 29411 Calahan Road, will get new garage bays that will better accommodate service vehicles, replace lifts, update vehicle ventilation to code, provide a women’s locker room, replace the sewer line to the men’s locker room and redo the restrooms.

To make those changes possible, there will be a 1,750-square-foot, one-story addition that will contain a new director’s office, a barrier-free lobby with reception area, a conference room, file storage and a mechanic’s garage.

“I met with AEW and gave them all of our requests and all of our needs, and they put out this design that kind of surprised me,” Public Services Director Robert DeBruyn said. “But it meets all of our needs and then some.”

DeBruyn, when asked by Wietecha, confirmed that the department should be able to work while the one-story addition is constructed.

 

Splash pad
The splash pad is set to go at Rotary Park on Utica Road. The splash pad will be fenced in and concrete, according to Lockwood. The area would get a separate walkway so patrons wouldn’t have to cut through other areas like the basketball court and pavilion. Lockwood said the plan that AEW presented was a design given to other cities. Roseville would have to give a proposed theme to the splash pad for it to really take shape.

“When do you plan on starting work on that, and when do you think it’ll be available to the community?” Roseville Mayor Robert Taylor asked.

“With the bond rules we can start construction 60 days prior to when the bonds are actually issued, which would be July 1,” Monroe said. “I don’t know if that’s reasonable, but those are the rules.”

Lockwood and Arlow agreed that the splash pad probably wouldn’t be ready for this summer.