Dresden moves forward with city hall plans

 

Story by Press Reporter Shannon Taylor

The Dresden board met Tuesday, Oct. 11 with A2H engineers, architects and planners to look over designs for the new municipal complex and Alderman Gwin Anderson made a motion to move forward to the next stage in the design process which was unanimously approved.

 

A2H stated that once they started working on the plans “out of the page” that their next step would be to start working with mechanical engineers, water systems, plumbing to fit everything in. They would be working with Henson Construction to start working on that part of the process.

 

Stephanie Kemp, one of the owners of the Flower Box located on Court Square, was present to find out what the elevation of the new complex would be so that she could make sure her building would be elevated the same to match the new complex. Kemp wanted to be at ground elevation like the new municipal complex would be and not require steps into her business. Kemp wants her building completed by the end of the current calendar year.

 

A2H discussed the site plan designs so far which included the floor plan and building outline and water and sewer. They also asked about an update on the Tony Winstead property, which Mayor Jeff Washburn and Alderman Anderson have been communicating back and forth with Winstead’s attorney, Langdon Unger, about.

 

Washburn said, “We don’t have anything positive on what’s behind this yet on the Winstead property. We do have a proposal. The proposal that’s currently on the table that was proposed by Mr. Winstead was to sell the city a parcel that starts at the Flower Box’s southwest corner and would cut straight across his property to the city’s north boundary line and give us all of that directly behind the previous city hall and behind the previous Peeler property and he would retain what is behind the Flower Box property and what was behind his hotel property. So that would give us a rectangular area.”

 

Washburn went on to say that Winstead tentatively agreed to sewer lines being ran from his property through to the Flower Box in his proposal so they would be able to have sewer service.” Washburn said that his recommendation would be that they include everything they have associated with the project including the sewer line and pay for it accordingly.”

 

As discussions proceeded, Anderson raised a concern about snow and ice being on the courtyard and that he knew of some places that put water heating underneath so that ice and snow didn’t accumulate. With that, Anderson stated, “we wouldn’t have people having trouble getting in and out of the building.” Anderson said that putting chemicals on it would tear up the concrete.

 

A2H stated that that was a consideration during the design process that they could look at.

 

Alderwoman Sandra Klutts brought up the fact that they want the complex to last for 50-100 years and that Dresden might see a growth spurt and that what if the building needed to be expanded later on-would there be room for expansion with the current design layout? Klutts mentioned the possibility of locating the Fire Department somewhere to leave more space for future use.

A2H stated that the design for the Fire Department as is has room for growth and turning into a full-time department.

 

Klutts went on to mention the Police Department and A2H pointed out that they were kind of locked with other properties the city doesn’t own.

 

Washburn stated that the costs of moving the Fire Department to a different location would drive the cost up significantly. He also mentioned that they could “probably offset that by negotiating with Keely and Vicky and buying their property and making this a courtyard for future use and we might come out cheaper. I know $300,000.00 is a lot of money, but it might be cheaper than building two separate buildings.”

 

Anderson spoke up and said, “I want to say, if we’re starting to design on property we don’t own and future looks at property we don’t own-I’m stopping it right now. I’m not doing that anymore. So we either design and work on this building on property we own or lets pick these papers up and get out of here until we figure out what we’re going to do-and that’s how I feel.”

 

Anderson also expressed that he was not in favor of building a Fire Department somewhere else because of the costs involved.

 

A2H expressed that the way the layout was currently allowed for some future growth.

 

Discussions continued and the alderman all liked the layout designs and moving forward with the next step. A2H stated that they could provide a small update on where they are with everything at the November board meeting, but that an estimated budget for the final project probably wouldn’t be ready until the December board meeting.