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<br />Case #3 <br /> <br />DISCUSSION ON PUBLIC ,YORKS CAMPUS <br />By: Brian E. Olson, Assistant Director of Public Works/Prin'cipal City Engineer <br /> <br />Background: <br /> <br />On August 19,2002, the City Council directed Staff to retain the Alloy Recovery site for <br />the use of the Public Works Department. (minutes attached) <br /> <br />On July 20, 2004, the Public Works Committee recommended to the City Council to <br />approve the City taking control of the property out to Limonite Street. (Kill property) <br />This motion was ratified by the City Council on August. 1 0, 2004. (minutes attached) <br /> <br />This year, Staff was fortunate to have the City Council award a Contract to provide a <br />"temporary" fix to the need for office space by installing the current PW Office and also <br />installing a new exterior and roof to the vehicle storage building to provide another <br />heated environment for our vehicle storage. <br /> <br />Observations: <br /> <br />Over the past few years it has become increasingly noticeable that the Public Works <br />Campus is becoming utilized and it seemed evident that we are in need of some long <br />range planning for the site. Before the Public Works Department enters into any . <br />discussions about what type of "permanent" facilities will be needed in the future, we felt <br />the most important"question to ask was whether there was enough land available in the <br />present location for all future maintenance and operations.' . <br /> <br />Early in the research to provide an estimate of the amount of gross space (acres) that <br />would be projected for Public Works Maintenance and Operations (Streets, Parks and <br />Utilities), a couple of things became apparent. One was that projecting the amount of land <br />area needed using square footages of warm and cold storage, offices, outdoor storage, <br />parking, sedimentation ponds, Police impound, landscaping, drive lanes and accesses etc. <br />was a complex exercise - and one requiring a lot of assumptions. The other matter that <br />became apparent was that there was a lot more similarities in how different city's <br />conducted their respective maintenance operations than dissimilarities. <br /> <br />Staff also learned that the City of Brooklyn Park conducted a fairly detailed survey of <br />suburbs with populations near 50,000 (50k), for their public works analysis in 2004. <br />These cities were; Apple Valley (46k), Blaine (45k), Bloomington (89k), Burnsville <br />(61k), Coon Rapids (63k), Eagan (66k), Eden Prairie (55k), Edina(50k), Maple Grove <br />(50k), Minnetonka (52k), and Plymouth at (67k). <br /> <br />Brooklyn Park's findings were that the only significant difference in these cities was the <br />ratio of full-time staff to seasonal. However, the 'full-time equivalent' was generally <br />consistent. Further into staff's research, we met with Brooklyn Park and Coon Rapids' <br />staff and learned that both of these cities felt that gross acreage they had were adequate <br />for their present and near-term needs. Both had 29 acres of land for the maintenance and <br />operations needs of streets, parks, '~d utilities as well as a police impound. <br /> <br />-10- <br />