ABOVE: The Fairmont Fire Hall, located on E. 4th Street, was the topic of conversation in a special city council meeting on Thursday.

FAIRMONT– In a special Fairmont City Council meeting on Thursday, a presentation by Brunton Architects and Engineers was given on the 2023 Public Safety Feasibility Study. The fire hall, which was built in 1958, was the original catalyst for the study.

City Administrator Matt Skaret started the meeting off by saying there is no money budgeted in 2024 or 2025 for a new fire hall, city hall or combination of the two. He said the purpose of the presentation was to just inform the council on why the feasibility study was conducted and to provide an estimated cost on the different options.

In addition to this study, which kicked off in May of 2023 and mostly focused on the fire hall, Skaret said that Wold Architects and Engineers also did a study on city hall which identified a recommended $3.7 million of work.

“Looking at the different options, are there some economies of scale and some shared spaces that could be accomplished with adding a city hall component to a fire hall… they looked at those options as well,” Skaret said.

Ginnie Schneider and Corey Brunton presented the study. Schneider said their offices are based in Mankato and Minneapolis and that they have done many studies on governmental and public safety offices.

She said that Brunton’s approach is to focus on efficient structural systems and be conscience of budget.

“We started this entire process with you all a little over a year ago… and that involves getting to know the departments and what the needs are and establishing a scope of work,” Schneider explained.

She shared that a previous study had been done on the fire hall back in 2015, which they supplemented with their additional observations.

“We identified a few safety concerns with regards to the site,” Schneider said.

They include apparatus bays just 12 feet from the sidewalk, just one pull through bay and insufficient parking for firefighters.

She shared some additional findings, such as roof leaks throughout the building, no exhaust capturing systems throughout the apparatus bays, no designated hose tower for hose drying and decontamination after a call and a lack of storage space.

“With that understanding, we’ve met with the department several times and developed a space-needs program. We took the time to know what they foresee needing,” Schneider said.

She said the space-needs program was also done at city hall with the understanding that not just a fire hall concept needed to be explored, but a combination concept.

“So we also evaluated the existing property for renovation addition concepts knowing that there are issues with the current station but we wanted to explore what a renovation addition scope could look like for the facility,” Schneider said.

Two options they looked at, which she prefaced by saying were not feasible, were building a second floor or partial second floor addition over the current apparatus bays.

“Options three and four include a single bay addition to the apparatus bay to fit additional vehicles and a remodel of the existing administrative office wing of the building. Option four has an addition to that side as well. Both of those options are estimated respectively at $4.5 million roughly and $6 million for an additional addition for option four,” Schneider said.

Option five includes a bay addition and a demolition of the office portion of the building and option six is the bay addition, two stories and the addition of an office wing. Those estimates come in at $6.6 million and $9.5 million respectively.

She added that the cost estimates are assuming a 2025 construction.

Next, Schneider shared that they evaluated a potential new site which she called a generic site for a new construction concept. The site happens to be kiddie-corner from the current site because it’s ideal for response times.

For that they looked at several options, including a fire hall only facility, which would be two stories and cover 20,000 square feet and cost $7.9 million. The second option would include a combined fire hall and city hall which would also be a two story facility, cover 32,000 square feet and cost roughly $12.5 million.

“Where do we go from here? I think for any designer or architect to move forward, we need to determine an appropriate budget and allocate funding for the project and determine if it’s a fire only or a combination in order to provide direction on scope,” Schneider said.

When it was time for questions, Council Member Michele Miller asked why in the packet there was a design that included the police station but it was not talked about in the presentation.

Public Works Director Matthew York said that when the study was first talked about over a year ago, it was when some law enforcement center conversations were being talked about.

“I think things have changed a little bit since then, which is why I asked Brunton to stay clear of the police department as part of it for this discussion… it’s been thought of… but I think as of our current climate, that’s probably not going to be something we should focus on unless it’s something the council wants us to focus on,” York said.

Miller said she was going to ask what the benefit would be for the city to build a fire hall/city hall/police station rather than paying the county rent on its proposed facility.

“Over the next 10 to 15 years would we save any money in that direction,” Miller asked.

Council Member Britney Kawecki said that if Brunton came up with some plans for all three, she thought it would be beneficial for the council to hear it.

Scheider said there were some challenges with the concept because it was a three story concept but she said it was in the study and could be evaluated by the council.

York said, “In our study on page 27, the 2025 cost for a police and fire hall was $11.6 million and the fire, city hall and police department was a total of $18.34 million.”

Kawecki said the hard thing for her was protecting the firefighters because clearly the current facility is not meeting safety standards. But she said the city is already facing other high expenses and the taxpayers are “up to their head in expenses.”

“How do we meet the standards that need to be met for our firefighters while maintaining their safety but not killing our taxpayers in our community in a community that’s not growing,” she asked.

Schneider said she understood the concern and that was why they evaluated a precast option because it would last longer and carry a lower budget.

“We can achieve a very civic, stately looking facility in precast or in simple construction of another method as well,” Schneider said.

Brunton added that one of the hardest costs to control is the cost of labor, which is seeing changes across many industries.

Speaking to the cost, Skaret said that city would likely have to bond for any project and spread the debt service out over 15 or 20 or 30 years.

Council Member Randy Lubenow asked Finance Director Paul Hoye what the city’s bonding capacity is, especially considering some of the city’s other planned projects.

Hoye said that the debt limit is based on a percentage of the taxable market value and that the current limit is just over $30 million and that right now the only thing going against it is the Public Works building, which is a little over $6 million.

“We have roughly $24 million available in debt limit right now but at the council meeting on the 23rd we’ll be looking at approving a five year street reconstruction plan that we would issue bonds… that would count against our debt limit,” Hoye said.

If approved he said that would leave the city with about $18 million left in debt limit.

The council talked about some other potential locations for a new fire hall. York said if the council was serious about going through with the project, he recommended it figure out a price and then start working with the appropriate parties.

“There’s a lot of leg work that needs to get done between now and the time that the engineers and architects start figuring out how pretty this is going to look,” York said.

Kawecki said she thought the council needed to put the project on a Capital Improvement Plan and figure out alternative sources for funding and look at what communities around Fairmont are doing.

Miller said she was afraid of the city pushing the project off. She also said she wasn’t fond of increasing the city’s debt.

No action was taken at Thursday’s special meeting.