City advances funding, plans to upgrade Police Headquarters

By ALEXANDER POPP alex@appenmedia.com

SANDY SPRINGS, Ga. — The Sandy Springs City Council approved a measure for updated designs and cost analysis for expansion of the Police Headquarters and Municipal Court complex.

At a special called meeting of the Sandy Springs Public Facilities Authority Feb. 7, the City Council approved a $50.7 million budget for the project which will expand the current police headquarters at 620 Morgan Falls Road. Officials said the expansion will add new space for the city’s municipal courthouse and room for future growth for Public Safety services.

Plans presented at the meeting show the project will add about 24,000 square feet of space to the existing property, with a large outdoor plaza and a stylized screen wall façade, which will mirror other city building aesthetics.

As part of the project, the city will also construct a new fleet maintenance building off Roswell Road, said Charlie Whiting, director of commercial preconstruction at Reeves and Young.

Whiting said an updated budget estimate for the project shows the Public Safety and court building will cost about $36 million to complete, and the fleet maintenance building is expected to cost $3.4 million. Another $11 million will be spent on design fees, contingencies and other expenses.

A “police auxiliary building” which was originally proposed as part of the project, will be completed at a later date. Project designs have also left room on the property for future expansions, like the police shooting range training center and Fire Station 1, he said.

Sandy Springs Director of Facilities Dave Wells said with the new budget and designs in hand, construction will start in June, and substantial completion of the project will come sometime in 2024.

However, Whiting said the main constraint will be a long lead time for materials, which they are already trying to get ahead of.

“We’ve got a long lead time, when we place an order,” he said. “What used to take eight weeks could take 30 to 50 weeks.”

Sandy Springs Police Department officials did not immediately respond to Appen Media’s requests for comments on the project.

Recycling grant application

Councilmembers also unanimously approved a $1.25 million application for the Environmental Protection

RENDERINGS

Renderings presented to the Sandy Springs City Council Feb. 7 show how the Police Department Headquarters on Morgan Falls Road will be expanded. Officials said the new facility will one day include the city Municipal Courthouse and room for future expansion.

Agency’s Solid Waste Infrastructure for Recycling Grant Program, which would fund upgrades at the city’s recycling center and a new recycling program aimed at underserved communities.

Sandy Springs Sustainability Manager Catherine Mercier-Baggett said if the grant is awarded to the city, it will run for three years and wouldn’t require any financial match.

With the grant funding, Sandy Springs and the nonprofit group Keep North Fulton Beautiful, would complete much-needed upgrades on the city’s recycling facility on Morgan Falls Road.

Mercier-Baggett said the recycling center opened in the 1980s, and the city’s 2020 Master Plan identified more than $1.5 million in upgrades needed at the facility.

“The site has not really changed since the closure of the landfill,” she said.

Proposed upgrades to the recycling center include resurfacing and stormwater management work, new fencing, signage, landscaping, containers and other new equipment.

Mercier-Baggett said the second part of the grant would pilot a mobile recycling program for multi-family apartment complexes in underserved communities. Of the 90-plus apartment complexes in Sandy Springs, only 18 advertise recycling services, she said.

“That’s where we have our most vulnerable populations and also where there is less access to recycling,” she said

The pilot program would require purchasing a heavy-duty truck with two special recycling trailers and employing two part-time Keep North Fulton Beautiful employees responsible for driving the truck and performing education outreach work.

While the council approved the grant application, several officials said they had concerns with how the mobile recycling program would work.

District 5 Councilman Tibby DeJulio said the city has always avoided taking “one-time money” for programs with recurring expenses.

“By having one of these trailers and going ahead and buying a truck and hiring some drivers … those are ongoing expenses, where we won’t have that grant money to last more than a year or two,” DeJulio said. “No question, our recycling center needs to be upgraded ... As far as these mobile trailers, which is going to be an ongoing expense, I’m just not sure of that.”

However, Mercier-Baggett said the pilot program would run throughout the grant period and would be funded by “at-cost” fees paid by the apartment complex after the grant expires.