Chaska council OKs negotiating contracts for new Municipal Service Building with Ortell and RJM

The City of Chaska City Council on Monday authorized staff to negotiate contracts with Ortell, an architecture firm, and RJM, the city's construction manager, to design and manage construction of a new Municipal Service Building.

City staff presented the recommendation after an RFP process. Elise (city staff) told the council the RFP was issued Jan. 29, 13 proposals were received by the Feb. 19 deadline and a pre-proposal meeting drew about 40 attendees. Staff narrowed the field to five firms and interviewed them in late February before recommending Ortell and retaining RJM for construction management.

The move is the next step in a multi-stage schedule staff outlined. Elise said the city hopes to negotiate and sign contracts within roughly two weeks, complete space programming and schematic design soon after, proceed with design development in June–September, finish contract documents Oct.–Jan. 2026 and begin construction in early 2026. She also told the council the project will go through the normal planning-review steps — concept plan, preliminary and final — before construction.

Elise said staff prioritized firms with public-works experience, an integrated design-and-construction approach and the ability to meet budget targets (one evaluation factor was completing the project within about 3 percent of budget). She also said the city toured four existing public-works buildings (Andover, Blaine, Channing Henson and Woodbury) to inform the selection and that city teams from public works, electric, water and sewer, mechanics and planning reviewed proposals.

Andrew Hoover, who introduced himself to the council as president of Porto Architects and representing Ortell in the presentation, described his firm's long focus on public-works facilities and said the firm was “really excited” to work with Chaska staff. He added that Ortell's work aims to make industrial and maintenance facilities more usable and better suited to staff who work in them.

Council members who spoke in the discussion praised the quality of Ortell’s portfolio and RJM’s experience on the city’s public safety project. Council Member Shevlin moved to authorize negotiation of a contract with Ortell; Council Member Benesch seconded. Council Member Hatfield moved to authorize negotiation of a contract with RJM as construction manager; a second was recorded as well. Both motions passed by voice vote.

Staff also explained site selection and reuse plans: the new Municipal Service Building will be located at the southern end of the industrial park (near — but not on — Sunset Park). Elise said the city determined the current MSB site would be expensive to redevelop because of wetlands and power-line relocation costs; the city intends to retain the existing facility for seasonal or overflow storage rather than selling it for redevelopment. She noted there are roughly six residences on the west side of the proposed site that designers will consider in the project’s context.

The council did not discuss a specific contract value or construction budget at the meeting; Elise said budget adherence was one of the selection criteria but did not provide a final project cost. Funding sources were not specified on the record.

Directions and next steps recorded on the meeting record: staff will negotiate the two contracts (architecture/engineering and construction management), return to the council with negotiated agreements and bring subsequent design submittals and planning-review items to the council and planning commission as required.

The council’s approvals move the project into the formal design phase; council members said they look forward to design work that fits the surrounding context and to continued staff oversight during construction.

Votes at a glance: two separate authorizations to negotiate contracts — one with Ortell (architecture/engineering) and one with RJM (construction management) — were approved by voice vote. The meeting record does not include a detailed roll-call tally for those specific motions.