ORANGE, Ohio – On Monday, August 18, at 6 p.m., the Village Council will interview four nominated architectural companies at Village Hall to create preliminary designs and costs for the construction of a possible new fire station and rehabilitation of Village Hall.
At Mayor Judson Kline’s request, the interview was scheduled at Wednesday’s (Aug. 13) council meeting.
The public is welcome to attend the open council meeting where the interviews will take place. However, Council President Brent Silver stated that residents will not be allowed to speak or ask questions during the meeting.
Residents may, however, write down any questions they would like to ask at the meeting.
Please forward those inquiries to the mayor’s executive assistant, Clerk of Council Anna Girardi, [email protected].
Kline informed the council on August 6 that three architectural companies had been selected and graded by a review committee made up of him and other village officials to create project drawings and finances.
The council was also asked to consider a fourth firm.
At the time, Kline expressed his desire for the council to schedule interviews with some or all of the applicants for its upcoming meeting.
In order for the council to approve the contract selection at its next meeting on September 3 at 7 p.m., Kline asked on Wednesday that the interview be scheduled within the next two weeks.
Council will be able to take such decision at the meeting on September 3rd by setting the session for Monday, August 18.
Kline stated, “I would like to proceed with this so that we can reach a value for this project and then decide on the next steps.”
All four of the suggested architectural companies will be interviewed by the council.
According to the evaluation committee’s ranking, DSA Architects, Richard L. Bowen & Associates, and Perspectus Architecture were the top three firms suggested for consideration.
Cleveland is the home base for all three businesses.
According to Kline, because of its longstanding ties to the village, the review committee also indicated interest in considering a fourth firm, Bialosky, also of Cleveland.
Although Bialosky has less experience with police and fire facilities than the other suggested businesses, Kline pointed out on August 6 that the company had collaborated with previous Mayor Kathy U. Mulcahy to examine the budget and design for Village Hall’s initial expansion and restoration.
The meeting should last at least two hours, according to Silver, who estimates that each interview will take roughly thirty minutes. He stated that the interviews would be followed by a council discussion.
According to Kline, the goal of the interviews is to give the council a chance to hear from the architects and decide which one they believe will best serve the community, represent our interests, and produce the highest caliber of design for these facilities.
Additionally, we will be able to create a budget as precisely as feasible.
There will be public funding involved.
Kline recommended that the council ask about the firm’s experience with budgeting for these kinds of projects during the interviews.
We must be very specific so that when we go to the village for a bond issue, we are going with numbers that reflect what we will be able to build and be able to do it within that budget, he said. It’s very important to the project’s outcome because there will be some level of public financing involved.
Kline stated on August 6 that in order to finance the construction and restoration work, a bond issue will be required.
At the time, he informed the council that he intended to put the bond issue on the ballot for May.
According to Kline, the current fire station at Village Hall would be replaced by the planned new one, which would be situated at the southwest corner of Harvard and Brainard roads.
On August 6, the council decided to purchase 37 acres of land from the Western Reserve Land Conservancy, and this would be on a two-acre portion of that land.
A public park would be created on the remaining 35 acres.
In order to meet the future needs of our police department, administration, and community facilities design, there are also plans to remodel, renovate, and repurpose Village Hall, located at 4600 Lander Road, according to Kline on August 6.
In a letter, the mayor outlines their plan.
“With an eye toward the future, the village is looking into replacing its fire station with a new state-of-the-art facility, as well as renovations to Village Hall to accommodate the police, administration, and community (and) serve the village for the next 30 years,” Kline wrote in a letter to the community published in the village’s E-News on Tuesday, August 12.
In order to accomplish this, he noted, he wanted to explain to the residents the reasons behind it, as well as the goals, plan, and procedure.
In the letter, he stated that the current Village Hall building was created and constructed thirty years ago in response to community needs at the time.
In many ways, it was inadequate, and it failed to anticipate a time when we would have both male and female police officers and firefighters.
According to Kline, the community had a volunteer fire brigade when community Hall was constructed in 1995, therefore there was no need for a hostel, areas for training and exercise, or a functional kitchen.
In order to address the village’s present and future demands, we thus started looking into how we can enlarge and rebuild the Village Hall building in 2022 under (previous) Mayor Mulcahy, he said.
According to Kline, a plan and budget projections were made. According to him, the village subsequently hired an architect to formalize the concept and offer precise cost estimates.
After learning this, the village thought about its alternatives and concluded that the funds we would need for the refurbishment and extension would not be sufficient to support the town, he said.
We might end up with a Band-Aid solution after spending the money.
Consequently, we began to think of a more realistic plan that would result in a new fire station and a refurbished Village Hall that would relocate the police facilities inside the current fire area.
According to Kline, village authorities believed that in order to pursue this course of action, a cost-benefit analysis conducted by the fire department was necessary to define the requirements for the new structure as well as the optimal location for a new facility.
According to him, a site at Harvard and Brainard (roads) makes sense because of the village’s expansion and the population center’s shift to the northwest, numerous fire calls, and the numerous trips to Ahuja Medical Center (in Beachwood).
The community is moving on to the next phase after purchasing the two-acre lot at Harvard and Brainard from the Western Reserve Land Conservancy, according to Kline.
These consist of choosing an architect or architects and designing the modifications to Village Hall and the fire station.
According to him, the process will incorporate public participation and input.
The goal is to create plans, decide the project delivery method, create an appropriate budget plan, and compute precise cost estimates.
According to Kline, the council will next conduct interviews and assessments of the architectural companies that were suggested by the review committee.
We will be able to decide how best to finance the project and create a bond issue to present to the voters once we have finished the processes mentioned, he said.
We are eager to pursue our future together and are thrilled to be building for it.
According to Kline, seven architectural companies were first invited by his office to take part in the design-budget process.
“The five firms that were evaluated by the review committee are the five that responded with qualifications,” he stated.
According to Kline, the firms will submit a fee proposal for the particular projects once the council has chosen the architect or architects.
He stated that after being examined by Law Director Stephen Byron, the idea or suggestions would be brought before the council for possible legislative action.
