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 Rick SmithRick Smith has been covering Eastern Iowa for 28 years. In the last decade, he has reported on City Hall [...] |
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Public Works facility open house to feature images of new building
$35 million facility expected to open in 2014
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Photo: 6842632-LAS-PUBLIC-WORKS-33333-10_05_2011-13.12.jpg
A rendering of the new Public Works building, set for completion in 2014. (image courtesy Neumann Monson Architects)
City Hall on Tuesday unveiled a picture of what the city’s new Public Works Facility will look like once it is in place in 2014.
The image comes as city officials prepare to hold an open house on Wednesday, from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m., on the second floor of the existing Public Works Facility, 1201 Sixth St. SW, to talk about the city’s redevelopment plans for the new building.
In December, the City Council voted 8-0 to demolish the existing building, which took on flood water in 2008 and which once was home to a crane manufacturing plant, and to replace it with a new, $35 million building.
The new building will go up at the same site, only closer to and facing 15th Avenue SW. City employees will stay in the existing building until the new one is in place.
The new building won council support, in part, because it will house in one facility what is now spread over 10 facilities.
The council also concluded that the old crane plant, with multiple support posts, is no longer an efficient place to store and service the city’s fleet of large Public Works Department vehicles.
In December, Dave Zahradnik, the project architect for Neumann Monson Architects of Iowa City, said the city annually will ave 13,000 work hours and $845,000 by building an open, efficient area so workers don’t waste 10 to 15 minutes a day maneuvering equipment around the posts in the current building.
The city has said it will have $17 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster funds and a state I-JOBS grant of $5 million to help pay for the new building. Mayor Ron Corbett has said the city may also use revenue from the city’s local-option sales tax as it has done in the construction of the city’s new library and will use to build the city’s new animal shelter on the campus of Kirkwood Community College. The library and shelter, like the Public Works Building, were hit by the 2008 flood.
In demolishing the existing building, city officials are studying to see if the building’s front corner can be saved and used in some fashion in the new building.
Cassie Willis, spokeswoman for the city, on Tuesday said the Wednesday evening open house is designed for both the general public and for neighbors who live around the Public Works Facility. Those neighbors have all received letters of invitation.
Those who attend the event will be asked to submit ideas for a name for the new building.
Link-Belt Speeder provided jobs for thousands of people over several decades, including me. I would like to see the city aquire an antique Link-Belt machine, give it a fresh paint job and display it permanently somewhere on the 6th street former Link-Belt property as a tribute to the company and the jobs it provided. As an example, there is one on display at a quarry on the north edge of LeClaire, Iowa, alongside the Old River Road.
It’s going to be pretty hard to incorporate the existing buildings front corner when it looks like they have a completed plan they are showcasing tomorrow. Full sized cranes maneuvered in that facility for decades and if city employees are losing 13,000 hours per year I think we might need to hire some that can drive. This is one more nail in the coffin confirming my no vote come march 6th.
This comment represents a basic lack of understanding of the logistics of city vehicle operations in the public works building. You’ve got the same group of vehicles moving in and out of the building each and every day, but not always necessarily in the same order or with the same frequency. There may be a day when you need a piece of equipment that is stored in the back, but you have to move 8 vehicles to get to it because of the narrow corridors in the building. The cranes that maneuvered in this building did not operate in the same manner at all, so this really is a case of “one size does not fit all”. Furthermore, if the city has to front $12 million of its own money, the payback period will be just over 14 years on these labor savings alone, to say nothing of the improvements that will take place in other areas, such as energy efficiency. To everyone commenting on this, please consider the lifecycle costs of the facility before you outright condemn it – in the long run, the city is saving money.
I’d like to know how the city paid for repairing the original building they are now going to tear down. Were any FEMA or flood-related funds used? If so would the city not be guilty of ‘double-dipping’ by razing a building already paid with flood-relief money only to rebuild because they deem it is inadequate for their needs (despite the fact that NUMEROUS city employees that currently work there say its unnecessary and a waste of money) by using LOST funds to help rebuild a second time. I would think that could set a dangerous precedent in the mayor wanting to use LOST funds for other projects already rebuild with flood funds. Another example of the current LOST language being too loosely worded and allowing Corbett a ‘free-reign’ spending pattern that just reinforces the NO vote for a tax extension given their mis-prioritized spending of the current funds. Why does Corbett think its OK to use LOST funding to rebuild a public works building when actual flood-related projects that could benefit from those funds go unfinished and many not even started?
Great, let’s continue to rebuild in the flood zone. Haven’t our city leaders learned anything from the flood of 2008? Using LOST to help build this building is not the way the LOST was supposed to be used. Just keep telling the taxpayers that the LOST is for the flood victims, and they will just keep saying yes to be fleeced by the city.
Steve, I challenge you to find an empty lot of comparable size somewhere that is not on the outskirts of town. Are you proposing that the city council condemn and level an entire city block of homes or businesses outside of the flood zone, just so the taxpayers won’t be “fleeced”. The sooner that people realize that just abandoning the core of our city is not a viable option, and that alternative methods of flood mitigation and prevention should be explored, the sooner we can get back to important city matters.
Just to set the record straight, cranes never manuevered inside that building. With the exception of the assemblyline bay, the rest of the building was committed to parts production and office space. As for the assembly line bay, cranes were pieced together as they moved along that bay and when they reached the end of that bay and went out the door under their own power, still didn’t have some parts attached, such as the boom. I know, I worked there.
I wrote earlier about my desire to see the city aquire and display an old Link-Belt crane on the 6th street property as a tribute to Link-Belt and the jobs it provided. After reading about the city’s desire to save a corner of the existing building and use it as part of the new building, I have another suggestion. Why not leave this corner of the building in place and use it as part of a display, along with an antique Link-Belt crane? It would cost less than incorporating into the new building and as for an antique Link-Belt crane, they are scattered all over the country and one could probably be bought for its’ worth as scrap metal. There could be one sitting somewhere right in Cedar Rapids…and I would think the public works employees could manage to put a fresh coat of paint on one, saving even more money.