Public Safety and Maintenance Facility Project

Current planning for the new PSM anticipates the new building will house five key City functions: Police, Public Works and Maintenance, the Emergency Operations Center, IT & GIS, and the Customer Service Team.

The benefits of co-locating these departments include: improved operational and emergency response coordination, efficiency in co-locating protected and secured parking, significant overlap in common space needs, large spaces driven by specific departmental needs can be shared, and housing key public safety and emergency response capabilities in a building constructed to Risk Category IV that can continue operations after a significant seismic event.

For more information on programming needs of the building, see the presentation from the February 4th City Council planning session.

In the fall of 2024, Mayor Nice, Councilmember Weinberg, and the PSM design team toured Police Department facilities in Shoreline, the University of Washington campus, and Kirkland. The team heard about both successes and “lessons learned” from the construction or renovation of these police facilities to help inform work as we plan for our new facility.

The design team and Councilmembers Anderl and Jacobson toured the Kitsap County Public Works facility in December of 2024. This tour focused on their office space and training space layout, ingress/egress for large vehicles and equipment, covered storage, lighting, security, and staff amenity spaces.

The project team will continue to learn from comparable sites and neighboring agencies as the design process progresses.

At the May 21, 2024 City Council meeting, City staff presented an update to the Public Safety and Maintenance Building design process.

At the March 1 Planning Session, City Council directed the City Manager to begin planning for a new Public Safety and Maintenance Building (PSM) on the current City Hall Campus (see AB 6420). This new facility will replace the existing Public Works Building and provide a new combined home for the City’s Public Works teams, Police Department, Emergency Operations Center, and IT & GIS.

Staff and the City’s architectural consultant team, Northwest Studio, have conducted workshops with the staff teams expected to be housed in the future PSM building to inform the ongoing design work. The pre-design work considers the spaces needed in the building, in addition to how the spaces are best organized to achieve efficient workflows, to plan for future growth, and to accommodate changing space needs over time.

The presentation also included an overview of Risk Category levels in building design. The risk category of a building reflects the relative resilience to natural disasters and other building failure risks. The new PSM building is intended to be a Level IV Risk Category Building. Risk Category IV includes buildings that are essential in that their continuous use is needed, particularly in response to disasters. Police stations and emergency vehicle garages, Emergency Operations Centers, public works staff areas, and equipment necessary for emergency response, must remain operational during and after major disaster type events.

The presentation concluded with a commitment to continue the work with Police, Public Works, EOC staff, and IT & GIS to gather feedback on design concepts and proposed building programming and workflow. City staff are preparing to return to the City Council in June to present preliminary design and siting concepts for the Public Safety and Maintenance building, including early cost estimates.

Read the materials here and view the presentation here.

In early 2023, the City of Mercer Island began working on Facilities Conditions Assessments to guide future investment decisions for City facilities and the development of a Long-Range Facilities Plan. These assessments include Mercer Island City Hall, the Public Works Building, the Mercer Island Community and Event Center Annex Building, the Luther Burbank Administrative Building, the Mercer Island Thrift Shop building, and the former Tully’s Building. The assessments were to be used to prioritize a comprehensive plan to maintain, repair or replace these buildings to ensure City facilities can deliver municipal programs and services for the next 50 years.

In April 2023, and in the midst of beginning the Facilities Conditions Assessments, an asbestos contamination was discovered in the City Hall/Police Station facility. Staff was immediately relocated from the building while several months of testing took place in the building. Testing resulted in asbestos detection in several locations in the building, including in the HVAC system. No airborne asbestos was detected during air quality tests.

City staff and outside experts worked extensively to identify solutions to address the asbestos contamination and evaluate the best path forward for City Hall. Two scenarios for re-occupying the City Hall building, either fully or partially, were evaluated for timeline, preliminary costs, and impact to City operations. Unfortunately, the cost of both scenarios to re-occupy City Hall exceeded the benefits due to the age and condition of the building and the City Manager was directed to permanently close City Hall. Please find more information about the asbestos discovery and closure of City Hall here.

Due to the emergency closure of City Hall, FCA work was reprioritized to meet the most pressing needs. Given the age and condition of the Public Works Building, the City Manager directed staff and consultants to complete a FCA for this building, while pausing assessment work on the other buildings.

The assessment identified multiple systems that are failing or in need of significant repair or investment. This information was presented to the City Council on February 6, 2024 (AB 6402).

Combined with the City’s urgent space needs for teams displaced by the City Hall closure, the City Manager recommended that the Council prioritize the Public Works Building for replacement, and to address the critical need for permanent police facilities. Council’s direction allowed the City Manager to proceed with building this new facility on the existing campus. Preliminary programming and designed work commenced immediately with Northwest Studio, the architectural firm already on board for long-range facility planning.