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With a smooth ground and foundation-friendly slope, the Roseburg City Council brandished gold-painted shovels Monday and deemed the downtown site of a future public safety center worthy of a groundbreaking.
The new police and fire station headquarters, located off the east side of Southeast Stephens Street between Douglas Avenue and Diamond Lake Boulevard, has been years in the making. But passers-by will soon see the beginnings of one of the city’s largest public works undertakings as construction of the $12.27 million building is slated to start.
“It’s been a long, long time since we’ve taken on a project of this magnitude,” Mayor Larry Rich said at the evening ceremony.
A few dozen people gathered under a large tent, out of the light rain, for the event.
City Manager Eric Swanson said the big party has yet to come, however, with construction expected to be completed in early summer 2009.
Swanson thanked the Roseburg Area Chamber of Commerce for being instrumental in drumming up community support for the new public safety building.
Currently, the Roseburg Police Department is renting cramped facilities on Jackson Street, with storage spaces spread around town, and the dilapidated fire station on Rose Street is falling apart.
The city had announced it will use urban renewal funds to pay for the 50,000-square-foot public safety building. It will have three separate floors and a storage building.
The building will have a meeting room that can accommodate up to 100 people at a time, which will also double as an emergency operations center.
It will also include living quarters, training facilities and numerous rooms accommodating various functions.
On the outside, the building will have 76 new trees planted around it and more than 1,000 shrubs and perennial plants.
A parking area will provide 65 spaces for regular staff and 33 spaces for police vehicles; 23 of those covered.
And the building will have a “green design,” which will include a bioswale of trees and shrubs built and planted along Deer Creek to absorb storm water for filtering before the water makes its way into the South Umpqua River.
“It’ll be different than putting a storm pipe into the river,” Swanson noted.
• You can reach reporter Adam Pearson at 957-4213 or by e-mail at apearson@newsreview.info.
The new police and fire station headquarters, located off the east side of Southeast Stephens Street between Douglas Avenue and Diamond Lake Boulevard, has been years in the making. But passers-by will soon see the beginnings of one of the city’s largest public works undertakings as construction of the $12.27 million building is slated to start.
“It’s been a long, long time since we’ve taken on a project of this magnitude,” Mayor Larry Rich said at the evening ceremony.
A few dozen people gathered under a large tent, out of the light rain, for the event.
City Manager Eric Swanson said the big party has yet to come, however, with construction expected to be completed in early summer 2009.
Swanson thanked the Roseburg Area Chamber of Commerce for being instrumental in drumming up community support for the new public safety building.
Currently, the Roseburg Police Department is renting cramped facilities on Jackson Street, with storage spaces spread around town, and the dilapidated fire station on Rose Street is falling apart.
The city had announced it will use urban renewal funds to pay for the 50,000-square-foot public safety building. It will have three separate floors and a storage building.
The building will have a meeting room that can accommodate up to 100 people at a time, which will also double as an emergency operations center.
It will also include living quarters, training facilities and numerous rooms accommodating various functions.
On the outside, the building will have 76 new trees planted around it and more than 1,000 shrubs and perennial plants.
A parking area will provide 65 spaces for regular staff and 33 spaces for police vehicles; 23 of those covered.
And the building will have a “green design,” which will include a bioswale of trees and shrubs built and planted along Deer Creek to absorb storm water for filtering before the water makes its way into the South Umpqua River.
“It’ll be different than putting a storm pipe into the river,” Swanson noted.
• You can reach reporter Adam Pearson at 957-4213 or by e-mail at apearson@newsreview.info.
