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The Public Works Nerds
Rosemount's Public Works and Police Campus
A deep dive into the City of Rosemount's newly completed Police and Public Works Facility with Public Works Director Nick Egger and Oertel Architects President Andrew Cooper. They share insights on the planning, design, and construction of this $58 million, 160,000 square foot joint facility that addresses decades of space needs while planning for future growth.
• Acquisition of the 20-acre site through a three-way land swap between the city, Minnesota National Guard, and Flint Hills Resources
• The unique partnership between police and public works departments, rarely seen in municipal facilities
• Design challenges of accommodating large vehicles and ensuring adequate turning radius for snow plows and equipment
• Architectural features like roof "pop-ups" that provide natural daylight while serving as smoke control devices
• Smart technology integration with lighting systems that adjust based on natural light levels and occupancy
• Future planning considerations for department expansion and eventual site build-out
• Emerging trends in facility design, particularly the implications of electric vehicle fleets and their impact on space requirements
• The importance of designing facilities that help recruit and retain talented staff through training spaces and employee wellbeing features
Help us grow our audience by liking, reposting, or commenting on LinkedIn or other social media platforms. Reach out with episode or guest ideas - we'd love to hear your feedback!
https://www.rosemountmn.gov/925/Police-Public-Works-Campus
Hey, nerds, just wanted to welcome you to this episode about Public Works Maintenance Facilities Great episode with the Public Works Director from the City of Rosemont, nick Egger, and the President now of Ortel Architects, andrew Cooper. This is a follow-up episode from a previous episode, almost two years ago now, where I sat down with Nick prior to the construction of this new maintenance facility and talking about, you know, some of the project development process and what he was looking forward to during the construction and such, and this is a great episode following up to that. So when we recorded this, they were just getting ready to move in doing the final touches. So when I had the opportunity to tour this, the facility was empty For the most part. They were moving furniture in but there weren't any vehicles or equipment in there yet and it was really really interesting to see the size and scale of this facility empty. But, in any event, great episode on the challenges of and the opportunities of developing a joint facility with the police and got to tour some of that facility as well. Some really interesting components there and, yeah, just kind of hearing the story of how it worked out and some of the challenges that they faced during constructions and some of the opportunities that they had.
Speaker 1:I just want to add a note about this episode. Unfortunately, from a technical perspective, we did have some audio issues. It's not like it's unlistenable, but Nick Egger's audio. I don't know if his microphone wasn't working at all or if he was just too far away from the microphone, but we didn't catch it and it's kind of hard to hear him sometimes. So I know it. This bothers me, and when I'm listening to other podcasts, when the volume levels are so different between the different speakers, and I apologize for that. But it's a great episode with some great content, and so I'm just going to ask you to bear with us on this. During this one episode, we've learned some lessons and we're going to do better going forward. I promise you that. So, in any event, hope you enjoyed this episode, hope you enjoy nerding out about this great maintenance facility in Rosemont, minnesota, and we'll see you next time.
Speaker 2:Thanks, everybody, welcome to the Public Works Nerds podcast.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Public Works Nerds podcast, a public works podcast of the nerds, for the nerds and by the nerds. I'm your host, mark Culver. Today, in our third season, we are following up from a previous episode, which was season one, episode 14, recorded in August of 2023. For all of you that haven't listened to it yet, go back and go ahead and listen to that Talking with Nick Egger about the City of Rosemont's recently completed police and public works facility, we're also joined by the architect for this facility from Ortel Architects, now the president of Ortel Architects, andrew Cooper. Welcome to the podcast, nick and Andrew, and thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 2:Great to be back, Mark.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1:Well, it's just, we're going to take a few. Mark, yeah, thanks for having us. Uh, well, it's just, we're going to take a few minutes here at the beginning for both of you, just to take a little time. Introduce yourselves, you know. Let us know a little bit of your origin stories, I guess. And, um, you know, not like half hour, um, you know we're. We're not doing an origin story movie here, just just a quick synopsisis, um, but let's start with you, nick. Um, you know you're. You're actually a public works nerds veteran. Um, this is your third appearance. I think you lead the pack in in that in number. But, uh, right, who's counting? Who's counting? I think actually you might be tied with deb. Deb might still have you, but, um, but let the audience know a little bit about who you are sure, and I do like the avengers.
Speaker 2:Uh, analogy. Yeah, that's great. We'll have to think about that yeah, which event.
Speaker 2:If you were an avenger, which one would you be, anyway, later no, uh, nick agger, currently public works director here, bros, ma, I've been here since 2021, so I'm just over three years into the job right now, but prior to that I spent about 19 years into the job right now, but prior to that I spent about 19 years at the City of Hastings, where I served in a variety of positions. I was assistant city engineer at the front end way back in 2002, and then worked my way up and eventually I was a public works director there from about 2015 until I left in 2021. Also, I have recently served on the APWA Minnesota Chapter Board of Directors in all of the various roles there Secretary, treasurer, vice president past president ran that through its course and came off the board at the beginning of 2023.
Speaker 2:So recent, but uh. I am now back to private life, so to speak, and and not uh on the board of directors there anymore.
Speaker 1:Cool, cool. Well, thank you and thanks for your service on uh APWA. If you listen to the podcast, you know I'm a huge uh advocate, um of professional uh societies and and definitely encourage everybody to get involved in their professional society. And so let's go over to you, andrew, and you can end with letting us know what professional societies you're engaged with. But, uh, give us a little bit of your history, um, and how you got to where you are yeah, uh, well, uh, you mentioned I'm the president of ortel architects, which, uh, is just a fancy title.
Speaker 3:The fancy title I'm more happy to have now is public works nerd, uh, officially here with you guys, today um, yeah so 2020, 22 years ago, I started ortel architects right out of uh north dakota state and, um, you know, like most architecture students who come out of schools, we're going to do libraries and you know these highfalutin, very, very highly published projects, and never did I think I'd be designing around people in class seven and class eight heavy duty trucks and become a nerd on all the things that goes with that. Um, but, yeah so the last uh 22 years working almost exclusively in the public uh realm and with uh public works folks like Nick and you, mark, we've done a couple projects together, dating back to maple grove right yep, um, you know it's, I'm part of the aia.
Speaker 3:Like you know, the architects are, um, that's a highfalutin, um a professional organization, but, um, what takes up most of my time when I'm not working with you guys on these is I coach hockey. I use youth in high school that's we're right in the onset of it as we're recording this episode and between public works guys and hockey, that's that's my time and I love doing it. I love dedicating my time to you guys, but also dedicating my time to the kids, and you know we're all. We all have very similar experiences in dealing with that, and I just think it's something that, as you work with the public, you work in the public, you give back, and it's just something that I think it really grounds me to public works. Working with public works staffs, too, is that. It's that public service and getting into something that's bigger than just yourself. It really appeals to me and that's kind of why I've become a public works nerd. That's awesome. I love that.
Speaker 1:I love it. You're going to make me tear up here, but no, there's a lot of I think there's a lot of truth there and you know it's. It's funny. All three of us have kids that have played hockey. Two thirds of us have coached hockey. Nobody is going to want me to coach any hockey.
Speaker 1:I I, when my son was young enough, they let me on the ice and, uh, you know, wrangled up loose pucks was was about the extent of my uh coaching experience, but it was, it was just, it was great to, you know, be with the kids I I got. I was fortunate enough to coach my son pretty young at baseball and his friends and you know, really enjoyed, enjoyed that. But hockey is in all of our bloods and it's definitely all of it in all of our kids' bloods and that's a big thing here in Minnesota, obviously, too, is is hockey. So I love I've talked, I've had long conversations with both of you guys about hockey over the years and uh, love doing that. But, um, andrew, just real quick, um, getting back to you know, actually designing public work facilities. How many public works facilities? If you know the number I'd be impressed. But like, roughly speaking, how many public works facilities have you designed or worked on?
Speaker 3:The actual facilities getting built. It's going to be north of two dozen in some way shape or form Full facilities like the one you guys are in. Remodels, additions, studies are probably going to get north of 50 in the last 22 years my first project with Ortel was Fridley Public Works with Jim Kerslucher he was the assistant director at the time and John Haukes, who's now at City of Waconia, was the public works director there and we did a little office addition and that kind of came full circle a handful of years ago when we did their new facility as part of that civic campus project, and so I guess you could count that as two, one client, two projects over the course of 15 years.
Speaker 1:you know, yeah, that's great, but what's your most memorable one?
Speaker 3:The Rosemount Public Works is the most memorable one and talking to you guys, but there's some very interesting things that happened with that project. That um, and the way it came about and who the partnerships are that I know we'll get into. That makes that a really unique and very uh, memorable project from a lot of perspectives.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and I think we'll dive into some of those details, uh, here as as we go into it. Um, so let's do that. Let's talk about this beautiful facility that we're sitting in. I was lucky enough to get a quick tour, the 10 cent tour, I think, and I'll kick in another 90 cents and get the full dollar tour afterwards here. But walking through this facility and just I mean seeing the size of it, um, and I mean it's, it's still got that new facility smell. Of course you know they're not even fully moved in yet.
Speaker 2:Um, but Nick, give us a little background, some specs, um, on this public works and police facility um, well it you know, I'll kind of start at the beginning, even though I wasn't here for that, and when I say the beginning, I mean this facility we're doing uh, new facilities for each department has been a conversation that the city has had for the better part of the last 20 years. Off and on, and there there were moments where a lot of momentum was gained and it seemed like the will was there to do something and quickly that direction, and it was put on the back burner, and this happened a few times over the course of the last 20 years. But, luckily enough, back in 2021, there was finally the perfect storm of elected officials that were unified behind it. The land swap deal that we needed to make to get the land to put it on came together and the financials were all in alignment, so that led to this nearly $60 million project. It's a $58 million project that is 160,000 square feet and about two-thirds of that is on the public works side and the other third is police. So we're at roughly 112,000 square feet of public works space and the other 48 is police department space.
Speaker 2:We're sitting on a 20-acre parcel that we acquired through a land swap with the Minnesota National Guard and Flint Hills Resources.
Speaker 2:They operate the refinery that we have in Rosemont here.
Speaker 2:It's one of the largest in the country and maybe the largest in the upper Midwest, if I'm not mistaken. So they're a huge partner and do a lot of good things within the city and stepped up to support this where the National Guard by statute of regulation I can't remember what it exactly is has to have a consistent amount of land holdings within the metropolitan area. So if they were to give up anything for sake of the city acquiring property to put this building on, we'd have to find another spot of equal acreage to get in their hands, and that's what happened. Flint Hills was able to donate a piece of land out on the east side of town for that purpose. Meanwhile, the city was able to get half of this property that we're on, where there's already an existing National Guard installation maintenance facility directly to the south. The property we have here was once just being farmed Vacant, nothing on it, just being worked through an ag lease every year by a local farmer. So brand new build Greenfield, essentially right in the middle of town.
Speaker 2:It's very advantageous for us because it probably saved the city around a $2 million expense. So that's significant. So that's significant. And location was optimal for us, being in the central part of the Detsis part of Rosemont, where we can reach the developed community. But as we're growing to the east, we're going to be positioned to be able to easily reach that area of town too.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, you know you had made a comment in our last. You know, when we talked about this in a previous episode, you made a comment about how the location of your current slash current or previous facility presented some challenges with the railroad. Now I noticed the railroad is still in close proximity to this, but do you just have more options, more routes, or is there a grade separation close by, or how is that better now for you?
Speaker 2:We do. Yeah, what you're referring to with our existing campus is we've got a main line that Union Pacific operates through town and of course the rail line isn't going to move. We've got to adjust and adapt around that that we had consistently. To get to the eastern part of town, we'd have to cross a set of tracks that are right next to our city hall and existing public works campus. If you will, with this location at the new facility, we have multiple routes to get out east and one of them is a continuous collector road that does have a great separation bridge that's Connemara Trail, which we can use to get out to the eastern part of the city without waiting for trains, which does happen on a daily basis, and the police also benefit significantly from that as well.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Probably, response times are everything for police and fire and that's definitely going to be beneficial for them.
Speaker 1:So, andrew, when you saw this proposed site, how happy were you. I can only imagine. I mean, looking at this, it's pretty flat, lots of space. You don't have a lot of the constraints that you're dealing with. I know, roosevelt, we had lots of space. Uh, you don't have a lot of the constraints that you're dealing with. I know, roosevelt, we had lots of constraints. Uh, they were working on, besides the fact that it was about half this, less than half the size of this, um, but yeah, I mean, how, how much easier does that? Obviously makes it easier and I don't know what, how. I expect you to answer this, but just, you know how much, uh, do you enjoy that? And and opens up the possibilities with a site like this.
Speaker 3:I think the possibilities that are really opened up by having the flat, wide open site is the economy of the project. It's that you're getting building instead of pushing a bunch of dirt around to make something fit in. Now, sometimes grade can be interesting and create some interesting architecture, but we're talking about, you know, rocks that need to drive and turn, and doing that on slopes is tough. So when you see a wide open site and you're and it's flat, you're like, okay, now we could, we could go and we're gonna get. We're gonna get the size that is need needed. And when you're talking about a community like rosemont with uh, the growth and development, being able to get the space that's needed now and kind of that, one, one swath of the project and not having to come back in multiple phases. But even if you do have to do multiple phases, really making sure that the site is master planned in the right way. And when you have a wide open space, it makes that easier. And the the site is really interesting in terms of its geometry.
Speaker 3:The way the railroad cuts through is that, as we were looking at the site plan with uh, police and bkv as well as well, it really makes a lot of sense for where public works should go on this site and where police should go on this site, just because of you know their relative programs and the space need and how the site gets a little narrower as you get up towards the north and there's an immediate neighborhood up there and while police is a 24 hour operation, as is public works, public works vehicles are a little louder than your general squad cars, so that separation just made it. You know there's a lot of uh site things that were determined by looking at the, the way the site was laid out and everything. So it's it kind of made it easy in some respects. Uh, do that initial test fit and then just figure out how to put the things together. How do you put the building together? So one less thing to consider as you get into the full project design.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I think that's a great point to make on that is the money that you save on the grading you can actually put into the building. You know, we all recognize the fact that ultimately, it's not always the needs of the building that set the budget, it's how much money you can actually get. That in a lot of cases, sets the budget, and so to be able to be a lot more efficient with that definitely is helpful. You know, andrew, you touched on a little bit just as far as you know, you know way down the road the possibility of you know doing expansions or what have you.
Speaker 1:But you know, obviously the most important thing is trying to get this size right, and I was going to ask both of you this, and maybe we'll start with Nick and Andrew. You can pick up on it, up on it. But you know, as Rosemont is a growing community, it's it's you're kind of doing a little bit of guesswork on how much space you really need in the long run. And I know, andrew, you've worked in other growing communities where you've had to do similar things. Maple Grove is a great example of that. Um, but how, how did you get some reassurance that the size of the building was really the right size for you guys and gave you 20, 30, 40 years of space to grow in.
Speaker 2:Well, there had been multiple space needs studies done across. Again, I go back to that kind of 20-year timeframe that led us to where we are right now, go back to that kind of 20 year timeframe that led us to where we are right now, and they each revealed something a little different depending on the time at which they were done. And the uh, the, the, the folks that work on them.
Speaker 2:Um, but we did utilize those previous studies as kind of a baseline backdrop, if you will, and and stood on the shoulders of it, so to speak, in taking that and running it through a rigor and checking whether it was appropriate, given changes to our growth pattern here and sizes of equipment have evolved over the years. As we got into this final iteration, went through our existing facilities, again referred back to the more recent space needs study that had been done a handful of years ago as a way of truing things up, and we did this several cycles of just refinements and ensuring that we had all of the major items accounted for. That we have now, but looking at how many more of this thing or that thing can we fit within reason and what's the impact to the building footprint going to be as a result? That said, we realized that there were going to be budgetary parameters and you can only do so much right now that the construction market had changed dramatically over the last few years in terms of project costs for things like this. So we're really ending up with a facility that we hope sets us up to grow into over the next 20-ish years. That's what we can say right now. It may be more, maybe a little less time will tell, um, but that's the information that we have going on, and we feel it's pretty solid. Additionally, though, we do have room share, additional building footprint on the site, which is great. Again, that goes back to I think, if anything, getting a 20 acre site should be decades worth of space to grow into it better be yeah, yeah, so.
Speaker 1:Andrew, why don't you answer that question first before I ask a follow-up question on that, Like what, what, what do you think are the most are some of the considerations that most agencies maybe don't think of as they're trying to think of the future and how much space they really need, particularly in a growing community.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I guess it depends on the way the community is growing in terms of if you're expanding in land area and you're adding single family homes and roads and then you have a certain kind of vehicle and a certain kind of a piece of equipment that you're going to need to accommodate that growth and this service that your public works department needs to provide. So it changes a little bit in how you focus your vehicle assessment. We're talking about the largest possible building occupant you can have on site and it doesn't talk back to you. You have to research on what developments are with these plow trucks, backdoor jetter trucks, you know how big are they getting and understand. Then also with the community, what does the service look like? Is it plowing, is it infrastructure maintenance, water maintenance, sewer maintenance? Is it plowing, is it infrastructure maintenance, water maintenance, sewer maintenance and really looking at those vehicle sizes current and then trying to use as many metrics as possible that are determined by the community themselves, not the architect or another engineering company coming and saying you're going to grow 10% the next 20 years. It's really got to be community-based, studied. Rosemount's comprehensive plan was really well done and helped us really kind of forecast that in terms of that growth and understand what's going to be developing in the community. We're looking at really more plow trucks initially, and then how do those trucks then change and offer multiple service strategies in the future? And then saying, you know, this vehicle is going to be a certain size.
Speaker 3:Nick mentioned the size of equipment over the last 10 years. I mean a tandem truck has grown almost three feet over the last 10 years. I mean a tandem truck has grown almost three feet in the last 15 years. And so when you look at stuff like that, how does it continue to develop with emerging technologies and fleet systems? And are they going to get small? Are they going to get bigger? It's easier to plan for something that gets smaller, more difficult to plan for something that's going to get bigger. So you want to right-size but you don't want to oversize, so that now you're bumping your heads on all kinds of budgetary constraints, be at the onset and that you're allowing for that adaptability and flexibility over the next 10 to 15 years.
Speaker 3:That, if you simply just accommodate adding three more vehicles to those vehicles that are currently existing, change and how they're being serviced and how they're being implemented out in the community. And maybe you know one, two single axle plows need to be replaced by one tandem, and so you have the size of a parking space that allows that, and then you have the ability to circulate in and out. And then what does that vehicle addition mean for staffing? Because these vehicles currently don't drive themselves, so people need to service these vehicles, they need to drive these vehicles. So when you add vehicles, what does it mean for staff spaces too? Because ultimately there are vehicle-centric spaces in some parts, but people live and work in these facilities on a day in and day out basis, so that's part of future proofing as well.
Speaker 1:People spaces are a lot more difficult to adapt, to change yeah, yeah, yeah, when we, when you walk into the, the vehicle storage area and I think you said it was what?
Speaker 1:400 yards 400 feet approximately 400 feet, 400 feet, sorry, yeah, um, but 400 feet. So you know, uh, more than a football foot field in length, and it's just right, now it's just wide open space. You know, you can just kind of you walk in. It's kind of like oh, um, you just see it now, it's just right, now it's just wide open space. You know, you can just kind of you walk in and it's kind of like oh, you just see it, now it's glory right now yeah.
Speaker 1:But that you know that will fill up and it won't look as big later. But yeah, the people, spaces are a lot different. You know where you put up the walls and you have your bathrooms located in the set and the other, and so to expand that space, know from experience, both personally and professionally, when you change those spaces it's not cheap or easy. This is a tough question to ask those, particularly Nick who works for the agency, and I kind of hinted at it a little earlier in this question. But you know you just built this facility and you know we talked about, um, you know, trying to guess how much space you're gonna need in 20, 30 years. But and and Andrew, you touched on it that we've got the space to expand if need be. But I'm just wondering was there any intention with how anything was laid out or or what have you? I mean, do you, do you have in mind where additional space would go, um, if and when you need to expand as was? Was there any forethought in that?
Speaker 3:yeah, there, I'll take that nick there was. You know we did quite a few test fits, um, before the site plan that we're living in right now was actually determined and we looked at where would expansion go. Would it go east, west, north, south? I think the fine tuning of what you're sitting in now is the master plan was really a collaboration between the design team and staff to figure out how current operations needed to be adapted and how they want to live in it now and then find the logical places to expand. And so right now there's a pretty significant gap of space between the wash bay and the maintenance facility. That's open yard space and that is the logical infill place that Nick talked about. The expansion and we looked at whether that's building a initially smaller vehicle storage area was would make sense and then expanding just kind of structural bays out over the time being.
Speaker 3:Um, you know there's a cost benefit to that that, um, you might save a couple million dollars on this initial project, but that might be a couple times three on this initial project, but that might be a full times three or four if you decided to do it in five or ten years.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you know the expansion planning has to be logical and future cost effective as well. So the infill design for public works at Rosemont is a floor, a roof and one wall essentially when it gets built. So it's probably the most operationally disruptive because there's got to be stuff going in and out when that decides to get built, but it's the most cost effective from a construction perspective and there's really no such thing as being operationally friendly when you're expanding an existing facility. So the planning I think key with any project is that you're developing a master plan at the onset of the project, whether it's small office remodel or a big new 20-acre site, that you have some of that forethought at how you're going to adapt and grow and accommodate whether it's warm or cold or increased maintenance or more workshops on specialized services that the department develops. You know a master plan is the key to understanding how you're going to utilize that site in the long term.
Speaker 1:Yeah, good. So, um, talking a little bit about the actual design phase, you know for this, you decide what your footprint is going to be. You're good on that. You start getting into the design. What were some of the maybe some hurdles or challenges that kind of came up during that design and how did you overcome those, nick? Maybe from your perspective, what comes to mind?
Speaker 2:Yeah, to mind. Yeah, well, I, and I'll build a little bit off what andrew was saying in regards to future yeah, foresight on expansions and and so forth. Um, we went into the project I think I used the phrase space is king for us it really was, for police department too and so that became the criteria above all others in terms of what features we were going to have on the project. And, uh, so it. It meant that in some cases we we couldn't move forward on some of the outbuilding type features. We, we have this site set up for two cold structure buildings, but we're only building one right now. Would it have been great to have both of them right now to grow into? And we know we're set. Yeah, but that was a sacrifice that we made. I think we talked a lot about how we might want to try to cover the bulk material bins too, just to keep the elements off of them and prevent having to dig into icy sand piles or what have you.
Speaker 2:We had to trade that again for interior volume vehicle storage, and this all goes back to the fact that we have maybe we're just hypersensitive to it here in Rosemount with the conditions we have now, but there's an awful lot of outdoor storage of vehicles and other items, and we all know that the elements are going to take their toll on those, and they have with our fleets and our equipment over the years.
Speaker 2:This was our opportunity to get everything under a roof in a mostly a controlled climate type of situation uh, mostly a controlled climate type of situation and to bring it to this one location, trying multiple different sites. So, um, you know, I, I think that was the. The real motivation all along was was to just ensure that if we we, we compared the trade-offs of, is this nice-to-have feature, so to speak, going to come at the expense of sacrificing some interior storage space or push us over a budgetary limit? Make those hard decisions at this time, knowing, okay, you can't get everything you want, but you can prepare yourself for someday featuring that thing that you wanted at the time but had a different priority in place, uh, that you had to go with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah that makes sense. So, uh, any other hurdles or challenges that you mentioned, one during the tour that I wanted to maybe touch on um, as far as the that width of, or that length of, the parking lot on the exit.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know um that's a good example that went through a few iterations. This is the uh, the exit direction out of the main garage. Some of our staff had noticed the way things were laid out in our site plan drawings that it appeared that directly coming out of the garage, the way that it's set up, they'll have to make a right turn coming out. And for the biggest vehicles is that do we have enough length or space directly outside the garage door for them to swing in the case of a tandem axle dump truck or a backdoor truck? So we put that through some turning radius modeling and discovered that things were. They were on to something. It was a little tighter than we may have thought would, uh, compared to those types of vehicles. So, uh, this was a bit after project got underway and we widened the area and it did come with some some downstream effects in a way where we had to reposition parts of a uh screening wall that we have going across front and some curb lines and and pond slopes and things. We we tightened it up.
Speaker 2:But I'm definitely glad that we caught it then and didn't come into the building and then discover in our first snow plow event that oh my gosh, these guys are having to back up and do a three point turn as they're exiting for the first time, going out to do their plow rounds. Talk about, you know it would be an embarrassing moment. It would be an efficiency that we weren't going to have. So it's stuff like that that you know can pop up along the way, Just like any major project with a thousand different features to it. You're going to bump into these things and have to improvise a little bit, but this was a that was a success story yeah, yeah, I mean it's.
Speaker 1:It's like our roadway projects. You know, we design our roadway projects. There always seems to be kind of like this little detail like oh, wait a minute. Um, you know, hopefully catch it on earlier rather than later, but there always kind of seems to be a few of those. Um, andrew, do you, do you have? Is anything come to mind for you when you think about some of the hurdles and challenges, uh, during the design phase?
Speaker 3:I think I said this more than more than a couple of times during the design process. But uh, there's only so many exterior walls for people to have in a in a building. We're not. We don't have an Octagon saved facility. So right angles are the most cost effective and that usually means there's four walls and that means you only have so many exterior walls to get doors and windows and people on exterior walls. So making sure especially with a partner agency taking up one wall essentially like where can you share those doors and where can you share entries and where can you share daylight access and view access Get people in and out of the facility the right way.
Speaker 3:And Nick mentioned the turning out of the vehicle storage. You know that's a big wall that needs to be addressed for that access for both daylight and egress and access to vehicles and people. So that's always a hurdle. Everybody wants to have an outside window at times and not everything can have that. But with that hurdle there's a design opportunity to harvest daylight in different ways, which we did. There's skylights not just in the vehicle areas but also in the office areas to pull some daylighting into the locker rooms and then the interior office spaces where you may not have a direct access to daylight, coming in through a window, but you can still have it coming in from up above and over your head, and that's uh, that's a wellbeing holistic, a wellbeing issue for employees, but also an energy saving standpoint. So the hurdles, they show up and you have to find a way to jump over them or go around them. Uh, they're just, they're just obstacles, they're not, they're not complete barriers, that you use them as opportunities for every project.
Speaker 1:Well said, well said. My next question on here I don't know we kind of touched on this and I think you really went into come to mind for you as far as having to make any compromises to keep that cost within budget.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I those were the key ones that I was taking back. Um, what was some of the covered storage and enclosed storage on the periphery of the site? Um, you know, we one of the other other things and I'll kind of springboard off of when andrew was saying there with regard to natural lighting that we we did, we were pretty passionate about was, uh, letting that natural light into the garage spaces too, and we did these pretty significant features in there that are on top of the roof. They're referred to as pop-ups. They're kind of angular structural steel elements, but they have a large, clear story, translucent panel on the one side that'll let a lot of natural light in.
Speaker 2:They serve a couple of purposes and I can let Andrew talk about those, but we did not want to abandon that because we felt so strongly that natural light was important for all of staff, not only those who are office bound with mostly desk jobs, but those who were going to be out working in the shop. And you know, in Minnesota it's we're in this period right now we get the days are pretty short. Daylight is it's not necessarily there when you arrive. Daylight is, uh, it's not necessarily there when you arrive at work, and it's not necessarily there when you leave work from november through march, right. So taking advantage of where we could uh bring that in and and allowing all of the staff to get that kind of benefit was pretty important but, if they these were expensive features too.
Speaker 2:So, um, you know that played into the grander equation too of under a footprint and volume of storage. You could fit under it and you know I see that as another, another piece that we had to wrestle with for a little bit and get to the bottom line over it and deciding what was the most important thing yeah, it's, you know it, interesting.
Speaker 1:You mentioned the pop-ups because, um, when you sent me the webpage, you know, for the facility where you had all the pictures and your drone images and such um on there, uh, that was one of the features that I noticed instantly. Was that detail of that art? Well, that angled rooftop and then with that clear panel on the side, and I figured out what it was there for. Then you're bringing that natural daylight in, but I do think it really is a nice architectural detail. It breaks up the flat line of the roof. It's just something a little more interesting to look at. But, andrew, why don't you talk, maybe a little bit about some of the other benefits of that feature?
Speaker 3:So the vehicle area is very big and for building code, when it's over a certain size for that building occupancy, you need to be able to control smoke, specifically because we have vehicles that can bust and so if that event does happen, those pop-ups can collect that smoke, that noxious fume, that heat will go up. It allows public safety personnel to be able to get into the facility and not have to get through smoke at personnel level. Smoke is going up and finding those high spots, it's, it's just a collection method to allow for public safety to get in and fight the fires when they do occur. And, um, and so providing that double function, right it's.
Speaker 3:We want daylight. Uh, daylight is important, um, but what else can you make them do? And you know, we had the same getting all the way back to maple grove. We had the same issue right. So we have considerably larger pop-ups at maple table growth because we had close to 100,000 square feet of vehicle storage in that box. So breaking that up into measurable chunks within also, smoke control devices and smoke release and heat release devices can be very complicated and technical, but you don't need to know about those, you just need to know about the daylight coming in and so the staff walks through. There's a lot of technicality that went into them, but they can see their vehicles without having to turn every light on in the house. And as much as I electric light, I I love daylight even more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I'm assuming that the lighting within that the vehicle storage area is actually adjusts to the light level then too. So, like you know, in in the early morning hours you still, you have some light coming in, but not enough to light the space, so it's on a little bit. I don't know if it's at 25% or 50% level, and then that will go up or down as it gets brighter or darker correct.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's step control. There's also occupancy control. So as you walk through the facility, it's zoned in a certain way so that only a certain amount of lights will turn on. So if one person comes in at five in the morning, um, the entire 60, 70, 000 square feet of lighting doesn't turn on all at once, it only turns on where that person is walking and cool. You know, those are simple energy saving measures. Some of them are code mandated, others are just best practice and good practice. Um, yeah, cool, cool. You can do a lot with technology and you also integrate that with, you know, the daylighting, the natural features, and um, they're also very complicated to design and make sure that they're working appropriately. At the onset of a building, you know, and every building takes um about a year to figure out um, is it working properly? Was it installed properly? Um, is it really what we wanted?
Speaker 1:Um right, you know there's there's a lot more importantly there. Yeah, yeah, probably very similar to with the HVAC systemsac systems. I mean, it just takes so long to to fine-tune those um in all the different spaces in that too. So, um, all right, let's move to construction. Did you guys encounter any, uh significant issues during construction that required any changes?
Speaker 2:well, I there, there were numerous. I mean this.
Speaker 2:This project's been full of uh, you know it's like a million different decisions yeah, all along the way so there's, there's a lot of um things that we we encountered that we had to take a look at, trying to come up with a solution for, I mean, the best laid plan is it's still not a perfect plan, it's not all all gonna be everything you, you hoped and dreamed for, and smooth sailing all the way through. And, uh, I, I think I mean I'm struggling a little bit, uh, to bring up a specific one right now.
Speaker 2:Andrew might be able to help me out, but uh, because I'm I'm at a point where there's just been so much information on this thing that um, you know, I think of the totality of the project as being one big uh thing that you're constantly adapting with as you go, um, something we we wanted to try to incorporate. This is a little more of a recent component, but there was always a pretty strong desire to have a secondary access for emergencies, in case we ever had a confining event where our primary out to the front was blocked off, say with a protest or some sort of civil unrest event and you got the railroad on the backside we got a set of railroad tracks with a protest or some sort of civil unrest event.
Speaker 1:And uh, and you got the railroad on the backside.
Speaker 2:We've got a set of railroad tracks. Mind you, it's not the main line that we were talking about earlier. It's a siding track and kind of a alter alternate route for a minor railroad operator. Uh, but still you have to work with the, the constraints that are back there and the permitting and the physical topography is a little bit challenging. So that took a bit of time to work out. How are we going to get that in and through the area where it's functional? It may not be any semblance of a driveway directly out to a street. It's going to be a little bit rough.
Speaker 2:And so we had a number of iterations of how that could fit and, frankly, part of the footprint of that design does impede a little bit on where we were intending to put a second cold storage building. In the future. We may end up having to do a slightly smaller structure in the long run because of where this is located. So getting that to all fit up was kind of a challenge, but it's being worked on this fall here as we move to close the building out. So that's kind of a more recent example. But uh, andrew, you've been along for the ride every bit as much as I have. What were your thoughts on, uh, challenging items?
Speaker 3:you mentioned that it's not a construction project. If it's perfect from right from the onset, um, you know it's, it's usually kind of a death by a thousand paper cuts, but we haven't had. Um, there's no death here, it's there as you get through the construction process. There's just a lot of little constructability issues that need to be to be addressed. The site cast concrete storage bins were probably a foot too close to the cold storage building so it was really tough to kind of form up those site cast walls next to a block wall for the storage building. So there was some adjustments on dimensional quality there, making sure that we're still getting what's intended for storage out there, but making it so that somebody can actually build it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a good point to consider the exit out of the east side of the vehicle store building and you know it was, it was all perfect and master plan and it concept and schematic design phase. But as things started to develop and you're doing real dimensioning and real location of building materials and walls, things just kind of shrunk up and so addressing it real time in the field, uh, ross Anderson has been a phenomenal partner and the project and they really built the building really well with uh, their subs, and uh had their finger on the pulse of the whole time. So, um, significant issues. I wouldn't call them significant because you know it kept on addressing them with the design team at an appropriate time level, and so they never got to the point where they're really big.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'd. We'd never been at a standstill on this project. It was always intended to be about a 17 month bill in June, july 23. And we're going're gonna achieve that. Uh, we're gonna get the keys in about two weeks, so I mean, it's right on track with where it was projected yeah, you, actually, we actually you know in the in your podcast episode 14 months ago.
Speaker 1:It's funny how you laid that out. You know this was a the intended completion date and you kind of joked about. You know it's not the best time of the year to be moving into a new public works facility, which that seems to be working out okay too, but um, but yeah it's, it seems to be going right on track, so that's great yeah, I would say that the we've been real blessed and fortunate here, where, yeah, there've been a lot of little problems and challenges along like you'd get on any construction product, but we've been graced with excellent problem solvers all around.
Speaker 2:I mean, the whole team has kind of had that mindset and it changes hands depending on what it is. Sometimes Andrew's coming up with the solution that works best, other times it's members of the Krause-Anderson team, other times it was the site design civil folks, and then there again city staff too.
Speaker 1:So touch on Krause-Anderson's role in this Kind of like how you manage the construction, the project, the contract and that. So what was Krause-Anderson's role in this? They're the construction, the project, the contract and that. So what was Carl?
Speaker 2:Sanderson's role in this. They're the construction managers, so that means that they essentially supervise all of the contracts that the city still has to let with the various trades that do each of the components to the facility. So there's a superintendent who is embedded here since day one ensuring that the whole orchestra is coordinate with the design folks if there's modifications that need to be made to the plans along the way, and they're really our eyes and ears for the city staff, in lieu of a city staff member having that sort of role, which we would never want to do Right.
Speaker 2:We're not experts in vertical construction Good model to apply towards a project like this. And again, I mean, it's been just a great experience. I think I can speak for the whole city staff and project management team that we have on the city's end, between me and the chief of police and the city administrator, between me and the chief of police and the city administrator. Um, we're, we're happy with our choice that we made to have them lead the, the act of stage of the construction yeah, yeah, I've heard nothing but great things about krause anderson, so I'm not surprised that it's uh turned out well.
Speaker 1:Um, you know, you know, as we uh near an hour here on the podcast time, I wanted to turn it over to Andrew and just kind of a little more big picture industry-wide in that maybe first and foremost, given your past experiences in other facilities and maybe even the next project that you're working on, the next facility, how is Rosemont different than maybe the average facilities that you're working on? Then you know the next facility how is Rosemont different than maybe the average? Uh, you know facilities that you're working and I know there is no such thing as average. It's kind of like you know building individual homes and everything you know there. There's going to be a lot of differences with them, but but just what, what comes to mind on that?
Speaker 3:I think first and foremost it was the agency partnership with police. Um, you're not going to find a lot of police and public works. In fact you might not find any um except for Rosemont. Um police partners with city hall, uh city administration and fire, often in public safety, but um, a police and public works, uh partnership is. Partnership, is was the most unique thing with the city of Rosemont and as, as first responders, both departments, first responders to their communities, it's, it's a logical partnership. There's a lot of safety, public safety perspectives from both departments that make a lot of sense for synergies between the two. So programmatically, you know, it made a lot of sense, but there's still a lot of functionality that's different in the way you interact with the public and obviously, um, the way you're, you know, dealing with public services as a police department versus a public works department are different. So there there are infrastructure and programming designs that have to be different. Um and integrated shooting range, um with a facility, uh, very unique, with a facility very unique. So those are unique design challenges for this particular project.
Speaker 3:There are people who ask me other clients like well, does this make sense to always team with another agency? And it does, especially if another agency has access to funding that you guys can partner with each other and come together on. But it's not going to make sense for every municipality or agency. It really has to be something that needs initial study and needs camaraderie, study and needs camaraderie. Chief Dahlstrom and Nick are very fun to watch in their interactions and they're great clients and I think the camaraderie and the partnership there from just those two as well as the departments holistically made it successful, and that's not always going to be the case. So I think going through those agency partnerships, you really got to understand what the synergies are and how you can coexist. As far as you know, I'll just jump to emerging trends here.
Speaker 1:I'm just reading my mind. Now, andrew, just go for it.
Speaker 3:This is where I get my real. This is where I get my real public works nerd qualifications. So I do. I do a lot of study on on the biggest building occupant, on the trucks and the equipment and you know the big thing is alternative fuels. Right, everybody wants to know how soon can we electrify our fleet and large vehicles. It's a long ways away still. It really is. But on your medium and small vehicles it's going to be much easier and earlier to implement. But there's a lot of caveats that have to be understood with that that it is an emerging technology. When you start to put all of these electric vehicles right next to each other, and how does that work from a safety perspective, a building safety perspective and building codes are starting to address it and starting to wrestle with what happens when an electric car goes bad and overcharges and that's going to have real ramifications on building size and not just your power demand. But how big of a building do you need to accommodate some of those safety perspectives?
Speaker 1:So are you saying that future building code is going to require more spacing between the vehicles? For that so that you're not setting one vehicle on fire with another vehicle and that Correct.
Speaker 3:Huh, interesting setting one vehicle on fire with another vehicle and and that correct.
Speaker 3:Yep, oh, and that's that. That's that has. That is some real big ramifications, you know, obviously, and uh, if you have two electric vehicles, maybe they're, you know, actually taking up the space that normally four total vehicles would take because you got to separate them out that far. That's something that's still being investigated and determined, both within the electric vehicle industry and with building codes upcoming. And you know, the class seven and eight electric vehicles are. They're coming online for long haul and so pulling things, not necessarily pushing things like snow. So there's, there's some study that's going to be done there in the industry to really understand how that um impacts buildings. Um, and you get into the whole electrical demand and um renewable resources and eliminating fossil fuels from buildings and really designing architecturally buildings that have low loads from the get go. So we're not putting so much stress on our mechanical engineers and our mechanical systems to be all of the energy efficiency.
Speaker 3:Actually, how do we orient the building? How do we insulate the know? How do we orient the building? How do we insulate the building? How do we seal the building? That's something that's holistically within the architectural world, but we're talking about public works facilities, you know fire stations and similarly with a bunch of overhead doors in them. And an overhead door essentially is an operable window that leaks on all four sides of it, no matter how well it's sealed. There's air going in and out of it and we're trying to heat and condition the building for trucks. So what's the most efficient way to do that? Design that?
Speaker 3:So what's the most efficient way to do that? Design that so that we're not negatively impacting the energy demand and then increasing our mechanical systems. Mechanical work is also expensive, so it's also the thing that requires the most long-term service. So your operational costs in a facility are going to be way more mechanically and electrically than they will be architecturally. So how do we mitigate some of those with the, with the architecture of the building? That's some of the directions that um were constantly developing and enhancing, and you know that that electrification of the fleet is going to be something that really impacts that building envelope, design and size, and then it has just kind of a spiraling effect changes all the other components of the building that's interesting, do you?
Speaker 1:do? You think some of be maybe covered by um increasing your fire suppression systems? You know, so maybe you know where the electric vehicles are stored. You just have maybe a more sensitive fire suppression system or or something that is using a different technology to suppress that. So maybe you don't need as much space.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that's what building officials and fire officials are trying to investigate what's the best way to fight those fires? Unfortunately, fire suppression systems that are not water-based are also using uh forever chemicals. So right, eliminating pfos from our environment so we don't have that groundwater infiltration that causes it's always something you know it's always something.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so, yeah, yeah, that's that's. That is that is the struggle there as well, as you know. How do you service them? It sounds like on the onset, a lot of elected officials are like, oh, there's less service, because there's less, there's no engines. Well, the service is not less, it's just different and it requires very highly trained individuals. And it requires very highly trained individuals. And then you almost need you're more of an electrician than a vehicle mechanic to work on them, and so that's a completely different level of training.
Speaker 3:And so your facility, your maintenance facility, has to be able to adapt to that, provide floor space for vehicles that can't be serviced, or waiting on things, or waiting on a specialized technician to come. You need to be able to accommodate those things. And what does that mean for daily workflows? What does that mean for staff training? Do you need more space to have personal staff training areas? Or, like the conference room you guys are sitting in, are there 12 individuals going through a class on how to service, um, you know, electric battery? Um, you know, there's those things that need to happen.
Speaker 3:And uh, within the industry, recruiting and retaining talent is really difficult. But if you can tell your people that when they, when they get hired at the city of rosemont, that we have facilities to train you. We have facilities that are going to support your health and well-being, that your, your, your daily work safety is accommodated here because we have this ability, gives you an opportunity to bring those people in and keep them long term. It's a good point. It's a good point, absolutely well, hey, thanks everything.
Speaker 1:I want to thank you both. Uh, we're just over an hour now, um, so we've probably talked enough, but, uh, and I know we could we could be here all day talking about this, I know, but I think we did cover some great stuff, so so, thank you both for your input today. One last thing before we go we are here on our third season of the podcast and we'd love to grow our audience. So, if you're listening, please help us spread the word by liking, reposting and or commenting on LinkedIn or any other social media platform that you might see us on and let us know what you think of this episode and the podcast in general. We really love to get some of that feedback and we love episode ideas, so if you've got an episode or a guest idea, reach out and let us know. Thanks, everybody Nerds out.
