Cottage Grove board approves police station site plan and directs geothermal heating; asks for more solar cost analysis

Trustees on Feb. 17 approved a site plan for the Village of Cottage Grove’s proposed police station at the corner of Progress Drive and Bonney Road and directed the project team to proceed with a distributed ground-source (geothermal) heat-pump heating and cooling system for the building’s mechanical systems.

Enberg Anderson and JDR Engineering representatives presented mechanical, plumbing and electrical sustainability features under consideration for the single-story, roughly 27,800-square-foot building. Tim Meeker of JDR described the geothermal approach: “vertical bores into the earth, probably anywhere from 300 to 500 foot deep each,” forming a closed-loop bore field under the parking area to serve ground-source heat pumps. Meeker also described dedicated outdoor-air systems with energy recovery for ventilation, radiant-floor low-temperature heating in the garage and sallyport, LED lighting with occupancy sensors, and electrical provisions for electric-vehicle charging.

After detailed discussion of cost, carbon and grant opportunities, Public Works recommended “option C” — a distributed ground-source heat-pump system — and the board directed Enberg Anderson to proceed on that lane. Trustees asked staff to return with more complete cost and incentive analysis for rooftop photovoltaic panels and a solar domestic-hot-water system before the board decides whether to include either as bid alternates. Project consultants said they are working with Focus on Energy and other programs to identify incentives; one estimate cited during the meeting suggested a combined tax-credit potential across systems could be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and a solar-hot-water estimate on the order of $50,000 was mentioned as an initial ballpark figure. Consultants also noted an estimated simple payback for photovoltaic arrays in the preliminary study of roughly 13.6 years, subject to market pricing and incentives.

Board members stressed the strategic distinction between building-system choices that are difficult to change after construction (the heating/ventilation system) and roof-mounted photovoltaic arrays or solar domestic hot-water systems that can be added later if the board declines them during initial construction. Trustees voted to proceed with geothermal equipment as the primary mechanical approach and asked staff to return with: - Detailed photovoltaic and solar-hot-water cost estimates, grant and tax-credit analyses, and possible consultant support to pursue federal and state incentives; and - Focus-on-Energy and Dane County energy-office contacts to refine incentive and lifecycle numbers.

The site plan itself — including public parking, secure parking, a fenced secure compound, and a public meeting room and lobby shown on the plans — won board approval in a separate motion. Trustees directed staff to prepare final bid documents and to return for authorization to award construction contracts and for borrowing approvals once bids are received.