Auburn narrows public‑safety facility design; staff ask council to authorize up to $43 million in bonding

City officials presented an updated 50% design and a revised costing for Auburn’s proposed combined public‑safety facility on Nov. 17, and asked the council to authorize bonding up to $43 million to preserve scheduling and contingency room while final design and value engineering proceed.

The project as shown would consolidate police and fire operations at 550 Minot Avenue and include a two‑story main public‑safety building with a single‑story apparatus bay, a separate police asset/rolling‑stock storage building and a modular fire training/burn structure. "We want a secure police section, a secure fire section, and a public section in the middle," said Andy Highland of Port City Architecture while walking the council through layout and circulation for apparatus, public entries and training spaces. Programming discussed by the design team totaled roughly 63,000 square feet across the main building and outbuildings.

City Manager Phil Croll and the design/contract team presented an updated cost history and savings analysis. Croll said the city had reduced scope items (removal of an indoor police firing range, a redesigned fire training building and other adjustments), and identified grant and earmark funding that lowers the local share. "We are looking at an adjusted total project cost of $42,589,884," Croll told the council. The presentation showed roughly $3.0 million in congressional earmark funds and about $500,000 from a fire grant applied to the project.

Contractor representative JP and the design team described value‑engineering work to reduce the footprint of the rolling‑asset/practical training building (a reduction of ~2,600 sq ft) and a simplified fire training building; the team reported an estimated combined savings in the low‑millions from those adjustments and other refinements. JP explained that structural, mechanical and code components limit per‑square‑foot savings unless larger program elements are removed, and that meaningful cost reductions required larger programmatic changes.

Councilors asked detailed financing questions: whether the city and contractor contingencies were double‑counting risk, how much TIFF (tax‑increment financing) might be applied toward debt service, and what the debt‑service schedule would look like for taxpayers. Finance staff said TIFF receipts from several projects could contribute roughly $4 million over time and that more precise bond‑sale interest‑rate and drawdown timing would be produced at the next meeting. Councilor Adam Platt urged that any additional funding discovered later be used to lower taxpayer cost rather than to expand project scope.

Next steps: staff recommended the council adopt an order to permit bonding up to $43 million at the next formal vote, while continuing final design, value engineering and a narrowed contingency plan. The council deferred final bonding action pending the finance director’s updated debt‑service projections.

What remains unresolved: final 100% drawings, firm contractor pricing, a final contingency reduction proposal, and the timing of a bond sale and drawdown schedule.