Our contractor was busy at work through this past winter building a new home for Parks’ Tree and Grounds Maintenance Teams! The stick-framed building is clad with durable gray metal siding that allows it to recede into the background of the wooded site. Energy efficient air-sourced heat pumps and a high-efficiency Modine heater will provide climate control to the well-insulated office space and indoor workshop. Two cold garage bays provide space for our teams to store the large bucket trucks used to maintain our City’s trees, with some extra space in the back for storing some of the smaller equipment that help keep our Parks looking and performing great.  

Most of the building’s shell was quietly erected early last winter, after which the contractor moved inside to continue fleshing out the interior. Construction progressed along at a steady pace and was close to completion by early March, when COVID-19 and stay-at-home orders brought construction to an abrupt halt. As restrictions began to lift this spring, the contractor was able to return to wrap up final punch-list items, while working under strict health and safety guidelines.  

Next to the new building, a new double-walled fueling station will allow City vehicles to refuel without the need to travel all the way to the fueling station at 645 Pine St. This will reduce out-of-service time, mileage, and fuel-consumption for many of the City’s vehicles, such as fire trucks, plow trucks, and sidewalk plows. We expect this to create substantial cost-savings for the City while improving our level-of-service and reducing carbon emissions.  

As for the current Tree Shop, if you’ve driven past the building in the last few years, you may have noticed that the wall was bowing outward by several inches. The contractor removed and replaced the failing wall, ensuring the building can continue to be safely used by our Tree and Grounds teams. With the construction of the new building, the existing building has been gutted and turned into cold storage and garage space. The addition of the new building and stabilization of the Tree shop, will allow our team to relocate all of their equipment from the structurally–failing maintenance building at North Beach Campground. We anticipate demolishing the North Beach building in the fall, making way for future campground improvements in accordance with the Campground Siting Study and Master Plan.