City to consolidate public works

The City of Shelton is planning to move its congested public works yard from behind Loop Field and Evergreen Elementary School to a wooded 5-acre site that houses Well No. 1 at Shelton Springs Road and North 13th Street.

The "laydown yard" would just be the start for the transformation of the triangle-shaped piece of land just north of Mason General Hospital.

"All public works would be combined in one center," Public Works Director Jay Harris told the Shelton City Council on Jan. 17. The project would be conducted in three phases over the next nine years.

For 75 years, the city's public works yard has been on 2.6 acres at 1000 West Pine St. The yard is home to fleet repair, water and street operations, parks supplies, facilities maintenance, diesel and gas fueling station, employee and fleet parking, and materials storage.

"The problem is it's a couple acres shy of room we need in which to correctly operate," Harris said. "We have a bunch of people, they're housed at the wastewater treatment plant, so the goal is to build a larger facility, not immediately, but over an extended period of time, we'll work our way into it."

Phase one includes clearing, grading, gravel, fencing, stormwater, a paved entry, utility stubs and hard lighting. Phase two includes paved parking, paved and gravel equipment storage, covered storage, an administration building shell, a maintenance shop, fueling and a generator.

Phase three entails the completion of the administration building shell, completion of the covered storage areas, a vactor dump station, salt bins, relocating the fuel to the north, additional laydown areas and additional heated storage.

Williams Architecture completed a planning study that was presented to the City Council in June. The council is scheduled to vote at its Feb. 7 meeting on awarding a $145,410 contract to the firm to further design the public works maintenance yard project.

The planning study concluded that the facility should have a minimum lifespan of 50 years; be at least 5 acres; be able to accommodate 37,000 square feet of buildings for administration and maintenance; and be "seismically capable to be immediately occupiable after a magnitude 8.0 earthquake and serve as the City Emergency operations center for all man-made and natural disasters." The site also needs to have multiple access points and be centrally located to the community. The proposed site "met all that criteria," Harris said.

The site won't need a lot of security, Harris said.

"It's hard to leave with a manhole in the middle of the night, right?" he said.

Mayor Eric Onisko asked about plans for the current public works site.

Harris said it could be used for parks and facilities storage for the city, or perhaps event parking for vendors at Loop Field activities.

The city had also considered expanding the current 2.6-acre facility to meet immediate needs. The drawbacks to that proposal, outlined in the city report, include having to take 2.5 acres of property from Loop Field; the $800,000 in federal and state grants for Loop Field improvements that might have to be repaid; and the high groundwater table on the site. The hillside above the property might slide during heavy rain or an earthquake, and the existing buildings are not seismically reinforced, the study states.