A committee of the Aurora City Council last week moved forward a nearly $35 million project to build a new headquarters for the Aurora Fire Department after holding it for questions and discussion through multiple meetings.
It is now set to go before the City Council Committee of the Whole at its next meeting on May 6.
The proposed new fire department headquarters would go on city-owned land next to the current Aurora Police Department headquarters at 1200 E. Indian Trail Road, expanding the site into a public safety campus. It would hold not only the administration of the fire department but also a relocated Fire Station 4, moving it from its current location at 800 Michels Ave., and space for the Aurora Emergency Management Agency.
The building is expected to be two stories, roughly 29,800 square feet and hold four bay doors for the building’s firefighting side, according to past reporting. Significant site work is also expected, including new parking areas, entrances and exits to the site and a plaza.
The Aurora City Council’s Building, Zoning and Economic Development Committee previously approved resolutions establishing a public safety campus subdivision and setting a plan for the site.
Over three meetings in the last few weeks, the Infrastructure and Technology Committee has been reviewing two more resolutions related to the project: one to approve the $29.5 million construction of the new Aurora Fire Department headquarters, and another that roughly doubles the dollar amount of a contract with Cordogan Clark of Aurora for architectural, design, engineering and construction services to a total cost of around $2.2 million.
In total, the project is expected to cost the city $34.9 million, according to a presentation given by Aurora’s Chief Financial Officer Chris Minick at an April 15 meeting. Additional costs include the purchase of technology and furniture for the new headquarters as well as utility connections, builders risk insurance and contingencies.
The contract with Cordogan Clark is proposed to be increased because the amount was negotiated as a percentage of the construction cost, which rose from an original estimation of around $15.5 million to its currently proposed amount.
The estimated price to construct the project rose because of inflation and the scale of the project, which increased in part because a space for the Aurora Emergency Management Agency was added to the proposed building, Aurora Assistant Fire Chief Mike Kaufman told the Infrastructure and Technology Committee at its April 7 meeting.
He said the building is expected to last 50 to 70 years, and that staff has done a lot of work to make sure the department’s needs and future growth were considered without unnecessary spending.
The proposed new combined fire department headquarters and fire station offers a number of benefits, Kaufman said at the April 15 committee meeting, which include reduced response times for area residents, rooms for fire department training and events, secure fueling areas for fire and police vehicles as well as more office space for the Fire Prevention Bureau, which would take over the current fire department headquarters at 75 N. Broadway downtown.
A previous study found that the upper northeast quadrant of the city was lacking in fire station access, and the relocation of Fire Station 4, as well as other recent fire station projects, is meant to address that issue, he said.
The proposed new fire department headquarters building was designed to support “emergency response, staff wellness and operational safety all within a modern, daylight-filled environment,” according to Lauren Kiley, who is the Cordogan Clark architect for the project. She told the committee on April 15 that the building will also house the city’s Emergency Operations Center, which doubles as a storm shelter so the Aurora Emergency Management Agency can continue its work during emergencies.
Emergency Management Coordinator Natalie Wiza, at that same meeting, said her agency has grown in staff as the city has grown, but that means the agency has outgrown its current location in the Aurora Police Department’s headquarters. The new location in the proposed fire department headquarters was designed with real-world threats in mind, she said.
Plus, the space was designed to be flexible to respond to future threats, according to Wiza.
Funding for the project would come through general obligation bonds, according to Minick. He said at the April 21 meeting that the city needs to take out bonds anyway to fund other planned projects, so adding on the new fire headquarters building will only increase the average taxpayer’s monthly bill by roughly $3.
According to his presentation, the city would either need to take out bonds for $55.5 million without the proposed fire department headquarters or $87.0 million with the headquarters. Over 30 years, that means a yearly city payment of either $3.6 million or $5.7 million, respectively.
So, the monthly impact of the bond sale on a $300,000 house would be either $4.81 without the fire department headquarters or $7.53 with it, a difference of $2.73, Minick’s presentation showed.
Plus, the city is already obligated to spend $3.5 million towards the fire department headquarters project for architectural and other fees, Aurora Chief Management Officer Alex Alexandrou said.
Ald. Ted Mesiacos, 3rd Ward, has taken issue with details of the project across the three meetings that the Infrastructure and Technology Committee held in April. In particular, he has been critical in the process of designing the new fire headquarters and the lack of City Council involvement in that process.
He was the only vote against the two items at the April 21 Infrastructure and Technology Committee meeting. While other aldermen on the committee had a number of questions, they still voted to continue moving the project through the approval process, and it is now set to go before the City Council Committee of the Whole on May 6.
Leigh McMillen of Leopardo Construction, the city’s construction manager on the fire station headquarters project, said the Aurora City Council has until May 29 to lock in the price of construction. After that date, the bids that came into the city from contractors may no longer be honored, especially in light of new tariffs, she said.
rsmith@chicagotribune.com
