Salem officials seek extra $2 million as police HQ construction costs rise

Jonathan Bach | Statesman Journal

Show Caption Hide Caption WATCH: Demolition begins for new Salem Police headquarters Salem Police Chief Jerry Moore operates an excavator to tear down a building at the former O'Brien Auto Group and the future home of the Salem Police facility at Division St. NE and Commercial St. NE in Salem on Friday, March 16, 2018.

Salem's Urban Renewal Agency board members may decide later this month whether to spend an extra $2 million on the city's new police headquarters, atop the $61.8 million bond voters approved last year.

Inflation is already pushing constructions costs above estimates used for the bond. And citizens have been asking for more features to make the police facility more resident-friendly.

The board, the same people who are on Salem's nine-member City Council, will consider the proposal at its July 23 meeting.

The police facility won't be done until 2020. But when city officials asked residents to weigh in on designs, the message was clear: Make it a place that doesn't just welcome officers and suspects.

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Residents wanted a place to safely meet and exchange cash for goods from online sales, a coffee stand and artwork that reflects culture and diversity.

Officials would be diverting money to the police headquarters from Salem's urban renewal budget, which exists to develop key portions of the city and remove blight.

But they think it's OK to dip into that money because the facility's public elements "will contribute toward the goal of north downtown redevelopment by providing vibrant public space and amenities such as flexible meeting space for community events and public restrooms," according to a staff report going before board members.

As city officials try to make the place more useful to locals, the largest chunk of the July request — $1,197,000 — is poised to pay for a big community room at the station. Other expenses include public restrooms ($398,000), a plaza ($250,000) and artwork ($240,000), bringing the grand total to $2.085 million.

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The allocation would chew up half of the Riverfront-Downtown urban renewal area's approximately $4 million budget for unspecified future projects.

For perspective, that urban renewal area's broader 2018-19 expenditure budget exceeds $21 million, encompassing everything from turning State Street downtown into a two-way street to the agency's signature development loan and grant programs.

Officials had earlier allocated $4.3 million from the area's urban renewal fund for street improvements, such as opening portions of Division Street NE and Liberty Street NE near the facility to two-way traffic.

Salem city councilors in 2016 asked residents to approve an $82 million police facility. After that failed, they came back with a $61.8 million measure, which voters approved in May 2017.

Urban Development Director Kristin Retherford said the second bond measure was based on construction cost estimates at the time officials sent it to Salem voters.

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Retherford said the economy is significantly affecting construction costs, and Salem is not the only community grappling with those impacts to public projects. She also stressed other urban renewal projects in the queue won't be affected by the allocation.

Officials sold the bonds for the project last August, according to the staff report.

But buying the property, paying for designs, permits and other non-construction costs has whittled the amount of money available for construction and other site improvements down to about $48 million. The latest estimates, however, peg construction costs at about $57 million.

Project officials have drafted a list of possible plan revisions that would wrangle costs back into the current budget, according to the report.

While lots of the proposed changes won't noticeably hurt the project's quality, officials aren't certain the financial shortfall can be filled without making the building significantly smaller. The police facility could lose "critical program functions," and cuts could limit how much future growth the building can accommodate, according to the report.

Salem Police Lt. Treven Upkes directed questions to the project's manager, Assistant City Engineer Allen Dannen, who said officials believe they can cut about $7 million from construction costs.

Examples of those cuts include working with local suppliers to obtain the most efficient metal paneling for the outside of the building and reducing the number of spaces in a protected police parking deck from 100 to 70.

"That's one that's painful," Dannen said, though the hope is those spaces might be brought back later in the project, depending on how much money officials are able to save as it progresses further.

Taking increasing costs into consideration, the size of the police facility is also being slimmed down from about 115,000 square feet to about 104,000 square feet, without major program sacrifices, Dannen said.

For now, Dannen said receiving the $2 million in urban renewal money would balance the construction budget.

The future police facility location, the old O'Brien Auto Group site in north downtown, has been pretty quiet of late.

"The site may seem dormant to residents as they drive by, but it's really not," Salem Deputy Chief Steve Bellshaw said in a prepared statement. "After the big demolition, work on the site has been dedicated to getting the area prepped for groundbreaking."

Construction is expected to start as soon as this summer, according to a city webpage on the project.

The general contractor and construction manager for the police facility, JE Dunn Construction, will put on a trade partners meeting at the Salem Area Chamber of Commerce for local earthwork contractors interested in working on the project.

"We are hosting this meeting to make sure that we can get a lot of local participation right off the bat," said Mel Jones, JE Dunn's senior diversity and inclusion manager. "We want earthwork subs interested in being part of the project to have a strong understanding of what we're expecting."

Those interested are asked to register online: http://bit.ly/police-facility-contractors-mtg

Email jbach@statesmanjournal.com, call (503) 399-6714 or follow on Twitter @jonathanmbach.

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