On the agenda (page 58 of materials) for tonight’s Decatur City Commission meeting: awarding a $1,792,000 contract to D.A Edwards and Company of Atlanta for improvements to Decatur’s Fire Station #1.

The entire budget for the renovation is set at $2,340,000, which includes a 10% contingency $225,000 for new furniture, fixtures, etc, and $143,000 for LEED and construction administration services.

You may recall that  these projects are being paid for with partially federally subsidized Build America Bonds that the city took out late last year.

According to Deputy City Manager Hugh Saxon’s letter to the City Manager, D.A Edwards also recently built fire stations in Athens-Clarke County and Union City.  The building is being designed to meet LEED Silver – and perhaps LEED Gold – standards.

Mr. Saxon projects that the project will take between 10-12 months to complete.

If that generic plan name in the post title has you thinking that the Decatur City Commission is planning to regress back to its ideas of the early 1970s and redevelop all of Decatur ala Le Corbusier (Dammit!  I said more towers! More giant, lifeless parks!), you can rest assured that this public hearing has nothing to do with anything like that.  (Does anyone have first hand accounts about some of the towers the city wanted to build around Church Street in the 1970s that freaked the population out and sent the then-City Manager packing?  I’d love to hear some of those.)

Instead, this public hearing concerns the city’s plan to designate two city properties as “urban redevelopment areas” so they are eligible for financing through the Federal Government “Build America Bonds”, which include a 35% subsidy from the Fed on interest paid.  The two properties under consideration for redevelopment using the program are the Fire Station #1/Rec Center property between Sycamore and Trinity, and the Public Works property on Talley Street. You can read through the proposed plan HERE.

So, if you have issues, joys or concerns to express to your commissioners about either of these projects, clear your calendar for Monday, December 6th and be heard as a member of the public.  (I assume it will take place BEFORE the city commission meeting, but I’ll have to check with the city – as the press release does not specify.)

There had originally been talk of including the undeveloped “Trinity Triangle” site in the redevelopment area, but City Manager Peggy Merriss tells me that they decided not to include it at this time, and can always go back and add it later “if it makes sense”.