Chief Ken Cardinale, right, attends a city council meeting last March in Chehalis.
Chehalis Public Works Director Trent Lougheed talks during a city council meeting Monday evening in Chehalis.
FILE PHOTO — Bob Spahr and Dennis Dawes attend a Chehalis City Council meeting in March.
The Chehalis City Council on Monday approved with a 6-1 vote funding for engineering and architectural services for the proposed new fire station near the intersection of State Avenue and Chamber of Commerce Way.
The council approved the use of $160,792 to begin phase one of a three-phase strategy. The architecture firm selected for phase one of the project is Rice Fergus Miller, Inc.
“This is kind of going to be a three-phase project,” Public Works Director Trent Lougheed said. “The first phase would be what we’re proposing tonight, which would include the site feasibility, preliminary design and public education and outreach. So this will pretty much take us to the vote for when we request funding for this project.”
Additionally, the council approved $42,292 to be allocated from the general fund to the public facilities reserve fund to fully fund phase one of the project.
“The total cost of this project is $160,792, then we add $30,000 for the earnest money that's needed, so the total amount that’s needed is $190,792,” Lougheed said. “We have $148,500 in the public facilities fund, so if you take that $148,500 and subtract it from the $190,792 that we need, that’s where we come down to the $42,292.”
“And it’s a tad complicated because of the ($190,792), $30,000 was included in the budget amendment, so that’s why it looks a little odd,” City Manager Jill Anderson said.
The $160,792 approved for phase one will be paid to Rice Fergus Miller, Inc. for time and materials.
“This is not a lump-sum project, so if we get into this and find some fatal flaw, everything stops until we figure out what our next steps are,” Lougheed said. “This isn’t like we are just writing them a check for this. There will be periods within this project where we can adjust, add, subtract.”
Lougheed broke phase one down into four tasks: property validation, fire station programming and preliminary design, planning report completion and presentation and community engagement.
Currently, the city is in a 90-day due diligence period for their primary choice, the State Avenue property, where they can back out of the agreement at any time and will have until the middle of May to validate the site’s feasibility under the existing contract, Anderson said.
Validating the site’s feasibility will include topographic, boundary and utilities surveys, a geotechnical assessment, a preliminary civil engineering design, research and confirmation of zoning and land use limitations and opportunities, among other services.
The second task — the preliminary design — is what sold Fire Chief Ken Cardindale on Rice Fergus Miller, Inc. over the field.
“One of the components that I can tell you was important to me, especially after building my own home recently, was a component in their design process,” Cardindale said. “When they’re designing a room, whatever we decide that is going to be in that room, they lay that out in advance.”
“So instead of just looking at blueprints … we can actually see how much space will be available when we put all of those components in, and that was very important to me,” Cardindale added.
For now, the State Avenue property is the primary choice for the new fire station, but if something were to compromise that location, the City’s backup plan is the Les Schwab property on Market Boulevard.
Councilor Daryl Lund was the only member of the council to vote against the proposed plan of action for phase one on Monday.
The Chehalis Fire Department has been operating out of the Lewis County Fire District 6 station on Jackson highway for more than a year and a half following accidental asbestos contamination at the station in downtown Chehalis. Further study of the 90-year-old structure led to city staff deeming it unfit for future use by the fire department.
