The draft for the 2016-2021 update of the town’s Capital Improvements Plan estimates this year’s cost of all the planned projects at $20.9 million, but that cost does not include five large capital projects that are included for future years.
Those are:
1) $5 million to build and equip a new fire station. Fire Chief Ron Early and the board at the Wake Forest Fire Department have two capital goals. The first is to put a staffed ladder company with another of those big ladder trucks at an existing station in 2020. The second ladder company is needed because of all the tall buildings in town, Early said. Also, he wants to build a sixth station somewhere about FY 2023 and 2025.
“We are evaluating growth trends and response times through the town and based on those trends it will be necessary to add an additional station on the north/east or east side of town As part of our evaluation process, we will be able to determine the best location and timing of when the station will need to be constructed.” The new station and the new ladder truck (estimated at $1.3 million) will be paid for in part by the town’s fire impact fee, which is currently being studied.
2) $21 million for a new police department building, which is planned for the north side of Centennial Plaza. The Wake Forest Police Department has outgrown the recently renovated main station on South Taylor Street behind town hall. The department has resorted to renting space in town for satellite stations. No funding is projected for the five years the update covers.
3), 4), 5) $6.5 million for a new community center south of the N.C. 98 bypass, $15 million for a community and aquatic center in downtown, and $8 million for the third phase planned for E. Carroll Joyner Park. Parks, Recreation and Cultural Resources Director Ruben Wall is not projecting any funding for these three in the current update.
6) $8 million plus or minus to enlarge or move the town Operations Center, home to Wake Forest Power, street crews, auto repair, purchasing, and leaf and yard waste collection. This one is not out in the fuzzy future but in today’s planning because the center on Friendship Chapel Road is full to over capacity and a fire that damaged one of the auto repair garages on the night of Feb. 17 is not helping. There is a study underway to determine whether to expand at the present site – if there is enough land – or to buy land elsewhere and relocate.
So now we turn to what is in the CIP update the Wake Forest Town Board will discuss at a work session March 8 at 5:30 p.m. in the town hall ground floor training room. Visitors are encouraged; the easiest access is from the ground floor entrance on South Taylor Street.
This year, the first under Town Manager Kip Padgett’s leadership, Finance Director Aileen Staples has added a short overview of the public art ordinance which directs that 1 percent of a capital project’s eligible cost is allocated to the public art commission which is charged with adding public art in town.
Padgett has projected that the town’s investment in rehabilitating and renovating the Ailey Young House will continue through the five years at varying levels but at $37,500 for the coming fiscal year. He looks forward to improving the downtown streetscape to the tune of $2.5 million in FY 2020-2021 and he includes repairs for the leaks at town hall at an estimated $190,000 in the next fiscal year with lower amounts varying from $40,000 to $25,000 in future years.
Those repairs are listed under Asset Maintenance, a long list of repairs and renovations to park buildings, other town buildings, streets and greenways. There is the Flaherty Park dam repair, $500,000 over three years; the Ailey Young Park restroom renovation, $30,000; replacing the Kiwanis Greenway bridge, $349,000; and the $5 million project he announced at the retreat, annual street maintenance, $825,000 each year.
Each section has a sheet showing all the requested projects, which have already been winnowed down from a longer list, with separate sheets for each project with a picture, a description, possible alternatives, operating impact and comments, and breakdown of the projected costs over the five years with the funding sources. A separate line notes the amount allocated for public art in the eligible projects.
The mayor and commissioners will probably look at the two sheets listing the projects for this year by need and importance. Of the 14 now listed as most urgent, two are for upgrading or new software, one is for security alarms, cameras and door access at town buildings, one is $25,000 for the ongoing roadway lighting project and 10 are for asset maintenance, including the town hall repairs, repairing the Flaherty Park dam, road repairs, improvements at the Wake Forest Reservoir which the City of Raleigh is returning to town control, and improvements at the Smith Creek soccer center with restroom facilities, revised parking, a new greenway loop on the east side, playground facilities, stream restoration and new plantings of trees and landscape beds.
The second section includes many projects that are going forward with the funding from the 2014 bond issue but they are listed because the bonds have not yet been sold. The projects not funded by bonds on this list include new pickleball courts, stream restoration in Miller Park, Renaissance Centre renovations and the Ailey Young House rehabilitation.
A copy of the CIP is available at town hall if you want to look through it before the public hearing on the board-approved CIP.
