PROJECT OVERVIEW

After many years of study and planning, followed by approval of a $25M bond issue by the voters in November 2022, the City has now commenced the process to design and construct a new Fire/EMS, Police, and Administrative Services Facility to replace the current Municipal Building. This project will be a multi-year undertaking, requiring approximately 30 months to complete. Related capital investment projects include infrastructure improvements to Glendale Avenue at and south of Goodale Boulevard, a new Parks & Recreation Facility at McKinley Field Park, and limited revisions to the site and facilities at 1016 Grandview Avenue after it is vacated.

PHASING

In December 2022, the City began working diligently with consulting architecture, engineering and construction teams to develop drawings and specifications for both this new facility and a new Parks and Recreation building (the existing Grandview Center must be removed to accommodate the City’s new Municipal Campus). Both projects are anticipated to commence construction in mid- to late 2023, and all phases of work are anticipated to be complete by mid-2025.

The existing Grandview Center at 1515 Goodale will remain in operation until the new Parks and Recreation facility at McKinley Field Park is open, while Phase One of the new Fire/EMS, Police, and Administrative Services facility is built directly to the south. When the new Parks and Recreation facility is open in late 2024, the existing Grandview Center will be demolished to make way for the access drive to the new fire equipment bays and the public parking plaza, and the Municipal Campus project will be completed.

When the new Fire/EMS, Police, and Administrative Services Facility is ready to be occupied, those City departments will be relocated from their current home at 1016 Grandview Avenue to this new campus, and the “top of the hill” site will be returned to Wyman Woods, as part of the City’s park system. In early 2024, the City anticipates launching a Parks and Recreation Master Planning process with broad community engagement to determine the future use and character of the land and facilities at 1016 Grandview Avenue, including the current fire house. Last undertaken in 2007, the anticipated 2024 Parks and Recreation Master Plan will also include identifying desirable and necessary future investments to all other City parkland, recreation facilities and programs, and greenspaces.

ENGAGEMENT

This facility will house the City’s core safety service and administrative departments and functions. Department leaders from Fire/EMS, Police and the Administration, along with City Council leadership, have been actively involved with the architecture and engineering teams to help shape this project to meet functional and service delivery needs. Additionally, the following representative groups and processes have and are informing the design of this project:

• Residents and Planning Commissioners participating in the Mixed-Use Corridor: Goodale West Area Planning process contributed important considerations regarding development within the City’s parks district while also recognizing the adjacent contemporary commercial character of this evolving region of the City, which this building will anchor.
• An ad hoc Design Advisory Board was convened by the Mayor to assist with identifying the overall design direction for the project, composed of resident architects and landscape architects.
• The Parks & Facilities Advisory Board has been consulted multiple times during the design process, focusing particularly on the site plan and its related integration with the community through development of greenspaces and public spaces.
• Finally, the City’s Planning Commission, who is empowered to review and approve both site development plans as well as architectural design, has and will continue to review this project as they do for every project in the City. Planning Commission’s first review of the project occurred on February 15^th, 2023, and final review will occur May 17th, 2023. Case documents can be found here under "Building & Zoning Documents / Planning Commission." The Commission welcomes public comments, which may be submitted here when a case comes up for review.

PROJECT DESIGN

Preliminary aspirations for the City’s Municipal Campus garnered from extensive study by the design team, City leadership and the community engagement process to date include:

• respecting and improving the City’s “green gateway” and parks district;
• creating an inspiring civic presence for our community that incorporates welcoming, easily accessible public spaces, with adequate parking and generous landscaping;
• developing a design that will serve and celebrate the diverse functions housed within it;
• developing a design that is both distinctive as well as appropriate, both for its new context in the City’s commercial corridor as well as for Grandview Heights as a whole;
• developing a design that engages the City’s legacy while looking forward to the dynamic future ahead for Central Ohio;
• contributing to a forward-focused transformation of the nearby parcels along the Goodale Mixed-Use Corridor, just north of Grandview Crossing.

While the City’s small park and recreation facilities share certain architectural features inspired by the craftsman tradition of many of Grandview Heights’ homes, the City’s new Fire/EMS, Police, and Administrative Services Facility is a larger institutional building that is “one of a kind” in the City, in terms of its uses. Additionally, the district in which the new Municipal Campus is located is historically industrial and commercial, versus the residential neighborhood that surrounds the existing Municipal Building. Architecturally, nearby commercial and industrial buildings tend to be more contemporary than those across the City as a whole, featuring simple forms and employing a variety of façade materials, including stone, brick, stucco, glass, concrete and metal panels.

These considerations and many more have informed the design proposals developed by the architects, as they sought to develop a flexible design that could be responsive to the many different needs of the various City departments, while aligning within the available project budget.

FAST FACTS

PROJECT COST: $31M

SIZE: 36,500 SF

COMPLETED: Expected Early Summer 2025

PROJECT ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN LEAD: Erdy McHenry Architecture

MUNICIPAL BUILDING SUBJECT MATTER EXPERT: Mull & Weithman Architects

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS: MKSK