Elyria approves bond funding for $21 million public works complex

ELYRIA — On Monday, Elyria City Council voted to approve the sale of $21 million in bonds to fund a new public works complex. For several years, city officials have discussed the need to replace the city's existing Central Maintenance Garage, which houses several city departments along with most of Elyria's non-emergency municipal vehicles and equipment. Assistant Safety Service Director Joe Strohsack told Council in September that the city had been considering the project since 2018, and that a new facility was desperately needed to house all of the city's vehicles. In March, the city contracted Strollo Architects to refine existing plans for the facility and present something that met all the city's needs, but was less expensive than the original designs the company had drawn up in 2019. The plan that Strollo and the city landed on was presented to Council last month, and it was projected to come in under a budget of $21 million. Council voted unanimously on Monday to authorize Finance Director Ted Pileski to sell $21 million worth of municipal bonds to pay for the project. Law Director Amanda Deery said it would take 30 days after approval to finalize the bonds, at which point they would actually go up for sale. In a previous Council meeting, Pileski said that he would sell 30-year bonds to fund the project. "This was brought forward six or seven years ago and for a lot of different reasons it never moved forward," Brubaker said on Tuesday. "I appreciate City Council digging in on this project and supporting it, and Director Pileski for understanding the financial part of this. I'm appreciative of that, and I'm excited that this is happening for our employees." Project architect Annissa Neider said during a meeting in September that following approval, the Strollo team had four to six months of design work left to do. She said the hope was to go out to bid for a builder next March, and the bid and construction process would likely take a year to 16 months. Strohsack said in September that the current garage at 851 Garden St., which was built in 1972, had outlived its useful life as a maintenance facility. The city still plans to use the old garage once the new facility is complete, but only as storage. All maintenance on city vehicles and equipment and the offices currently at the old garage will be moved to the new facility. The new main facility is projected to be 88,000 square feet and will contain more vehicle storage and maintenance bays, including specialized maintenance bays for firetrucks and sanitation vehicles. Currently, Strohsack said, a number of city vehicles and pieces of equipment are left out in the elements year-round, which can shorten their useful life. With the new facility and some continued storage at the old one, he said there would no longer be any need to store equipment outside. The complex will also include a separate evidence storage building for use by Elyria police, expanded office space, a salt storage building and gas station for city vehicles. Brubaker said on Tuesday that the public works complex, a project formerly referred to as the "central maintenance garage," would be the largest facilities project carried out by the city since the Elyria Municipal Court building, which was finished in 2008. Contact Owen MacMillan at (440) 329-7123 or omacmillan@chroniclet.com.