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[Southsider2k12]

How long do you think it will take the Park Board, er City Council, to appove a new expensive building for the Parks Dept? Maybe the mayor should tell them what he told YMCA, "If I help you, then I have to help everyone..."

http://thenewsdispatch.com/main.asp?Sectio...amp;TM=54108.65

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Michigan City, Indiana www.michigancityin.com Monday, March 03, 2008


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home : local news : local news
3/3/2008 11:32:00 AM Email this article • Print this article
Police, Parks Have Building Options
City seeking the best places to situate the two departments in need of new facilities.

Jason Miller
The News-Dispatch

MICHIGAN CITY - City officials understand the need to build new homes for the police and parks departments.

And most feel the best place to put those new homes is in the same places they now sit.

"We're looking at building on the site we currently have (for the police station) and for the park building, I think the best thing to do is keep both where they currently are," Mayor Chuck Oberlie said.

The city has retained a pair of design firms to look at both operations and judge what the best course would be for both.

The police station at 102 W. Second St. was built some 40 years ago as a bomb shelter. It is too outdated to keep up to date technologically, Chief Ben Neitzel said last month.

And the parks department office - built as a bathhouse in the first half of the 20th Century - is falling apart. According to city councilman and former Park Board President Joe Doyle, it is no longer adequate.

"They just need new space," Doyle said. "There's so much that goes on in here and the building just isn't good for that any more."

The Michigan City firm Fanning and Howey has already met with police officials and is currently working up proposals, Oberlie said. The Valparaiso and Chicago firm Design Organization Inc. is likely to meet with park officials soon.

The hiring of the firms last month is another step in what is turning into an aggressive North End redevelopment plan foretold by Oberlie in January.

The city is designing traffic pattern changes on Franklin Street and has stepped up legal efforts to acquire a few remaining properties along Trail Creek and Michigan Boulevard.

Oberlie noted former Mayor Sheila Brillson looked, six years ago, at building a new police station with an added space for the shared police and fire training facility.

The training facility has since been located in a former fire station on Michigan Boulevard near Carroll Avenue.

"There are so many situations in the city that we haven't been able to solve," Oberlie said. "It's time we look at some of these things that need to be fixed."

The city had earlier mentioned moving the park offices into the soon-to-be vacant Naval Armory on Lake Shore Drive at the Franklin Street bridge.

The state decided last year to get rid of the building and city officials were interested in taking control of it. Oberlie said, however, while there may still be interest in the building, it's likely not to become a home for the parks department.

"I don't believe the armory is in play right now," he said. "We're looking to build a bathhouse and concession stand at the beach and it makes sense to put (the office) there. Right now the space needs at both facilities are being analyzed and hopefully soon we'll have design footprints and estimated costs."



Contact Jason Miller at jmiller@thenewsdispatch.com.