Concerned with increasing cost estimates to repair and renovate the water-damaged 34-year-old Public Safety Building, the borough assembly wants to explore a new option to see if it would be less expensive: Permanently move as many tenants as possible into the old hospital instead.
“I’ve been driving this,” Mayor Steve Prysunka told the borough assembly at a workshop Tuesday evening.
He said the borough needs to figure out what it would cost to remodel the hospital into space for the police and fire departments, state courts, jail, federal Customs and Border Protection and other government offices.
Would it cost less to turn the hospital into a Public Safety Building, the mayor asked, and maybe move other borough offices into the building, such as city hall staff and assembly chambers. And what would the borough do with the city hall and public safety properties if it moves out.
Another option would be to move offices into a remodeled hospital, while repairing enough of the Public Safety Building to keep only the fire department there.
“There are a lot of moving parts,” Assemblymember Anne Morrison said.
Fully occupying the hospital would also require extensive work, Wrangell Capital Facilities Director Amber Al-Haddad told assembly members. The hospital was originally built in 1967 and remodeled and expanded in 1974, 1988 and 1994
The SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium, which had been operating the hospital, turned back the building to the borough in April after SEARHC completed its move into its new Wrangell Medical Facility.
The borough is looking at a cost of at least $15 million to repair water damage and rot, update mechanical systems and rebuild structural components at the Public Safety Building. It has no cost estimates yet for how much to reuse the hospital.
The municipality has been looking at using the empty hospital as temporary housing for Public Safety Building tenants during the renovation project, but it would cost the borough about $100,000 a year to keep the hospital heated, dry, insured and usable until it is needed. Al-Haddad said the public safety rebuild probably would be a 2022-2023 construction job.
The Public Safety Building has needed major renovations for years, and though a rebuild would be expensive, the replacement cost has been pegged at double the renovation.
The borough owns city hall, the public safety and hospital buildings and land.
“This is an important discussion for the community to have,” the mayor said as he introduced the idea of pivoting to the old hospital as a new home for public safety and city offices.
The borough will work to get more information for the assembly, including an estimate of what it might cost for engineers to provide a complete view of what would be required to rehab and convert the hospital for a new use, Al-Haddad said.
In addition to costly asbestos removal, the building could require replacement or upgrades to its mechanical, electrical, plumbing, data and sprinkler systems, she said. Depending how much work would be required to accommodate the operational requirements of new occupants, particularly security needs, and redoing floor plans and walls, it could mean “basically gutting that building,” Al-Haddad said.
Basic office space is not as much of an issue at the hospital as is more extensive remodeling for court, police and jail facilities, Borough Manager Lisa Von Bargen said. “That’s where the significant renovations will need to come,” she said.
“It absolutely could house people right now,” Al-Haddad said. After the borough determines operational, security and other needs of potential new occupants, the administration will get the information to the engineers to prepare an estimate for a more thorough analysis of the work required.
Von Bargen said more detailed information on the condition of the hospital building and the cost of converting it to a new use will help answer the question, “if the building is truly beyond its useful life” and needs to be demolished.
The contract engineering firm will look at several options for Public Safety Building tenants and use of one or both buildings and report back to the borough.
Wrangell could find itself with property to sell, depending whether the Public Safety Building is abandoned, totally rebuilt, or only partially rebuilt and used; depending whether the hospital is converted or becomes surplus property; and depending whether staff move out of city hall to a remodeled hospital.
Whatever isn’t used should be sold, Morrison said.
“This is going to be a major, major project for the community,” the mayor said.
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