NILES — City officials are discussing potential additions to the Niles City Building.

At a recent public grounds committee meeting, Councilman at-Large Doug Sollitto and 2nd Ward Councilman Aaron Johnstone, who co-chair the committee, said they plan to bring legislation at council’s next meeting to advertise for bids for a new wing on the city building.

Similar discussions took place in 2022.

“We’ll have to go out to rebid, but we already have the plans in place, we’ll just have to see how much the price has changed,” Sollitto said.

Two options for expanding the city building, 34 W State St., were discussed at the meeting. One is a 25-foot-by-25-foot addition to act as an “extended lobby area,” according to Mayor Steve Mientkiewicz. The other option is adding a full wing to the building that would include meeting rooms, new council chambers and features for better customer service.

When first discussed about two years ago, Mientkiewicz said bids for the full-wing expansion plan came in around $900,000, the lowest being $850,000, which at the time the city did not view as “fiscally responsible.”

Now, with recent bids for the 25-by-25 extended lobby expected to be nearly $400,000 or more, the public grounds committee wants to reconsider the larger project.

“I think I made my point last time when I brought this up that I think that for the money for the 25-by-25 and what we get in return for that money, I’d like to see what the number is for the full addition,” Johnstone said. “Because I feel like we’re going to get more return on our investment on that.”

Sollitto highlighted the potential city council chambers included in the full-wing addition. He said he visited the council chambers in Warren and Hubbard.

He called a potential addition to the city building “long overdue.”

“We’re so far behind times,” Sollitto said.

SENIOR CENTER

Sollitto also shared concerns about council’s current meeting site, the SCOPE senior center.

After deciding against the nearly $900,000 full-wing addition a few years ago, council chose to “Pivot … update the senior center and utilize it as Niles Senior Center and council chambers,” Mientkiewicz said.

Niles council has met at the senior center regularly since January 2022. Last year, council approved a contract with AVI SPL for the technology upgrades at the facility for $135,165.

New equipment installed at the SCOPE center includes a 160-inch screen, stationary cameras, new desks for council and administration, a new sound system, microphones for each public official and a new podium with a microphone for residents.

Sollitto does not want council to “cramp the space” of the seniors who use the center for regular activities.

“That was my concern when we started here that we would not push the seniors out,” he said.

If a potential full-wing addition were constructed and included new council chambers, Sollitto said the improvements to the SCOPE center would still have been worthwhile. He said the city should be renovating any of its buildings that need improvements.

“You can’t push the seniors out but you also have city business to get done,” Sollitto said. “I believe the SCOPE center has been a viable, great option. But I don’t think they expected it to be a permanent fixture either.”

SECURITY

Much of the discussion regarding potential upgrades to the city building come from the facility’s entryway procedure.To get into the city building, residents must enter through the west entrance, which is handicap accessible and attached to a parking lot. There is an intercom system outside the door that residents press to be let inside.

“This setup has been this way since July of 2020,” Mientkiewicz said. “People are used to it, people like it, it was an adjustment at first, but again, I receive no complaints over it. We have enhanced that lobby. We added a buzzer to buzz people through the door, and again, added the two-way interface system. We added cameras to the lobby so there’s always eyes on the lobby if someone is confused about how to use the system.”

In 2022, the Niles Police Department prepared a security assessment for the city building. In it, the department recommended using the west entrance as the main door. The report states, “The west entrance is the most practical access point given the securable door, versus the south entrance which would require a multitude of construction projects and significant cost.”

The historic front entrance is on the south side of the building and once residents come in those doors, there is a front desk with hallways to the administrative offices leading off of it. The front desk does not block anyone from going down those hallways without permission.

The front entrance is also not Americans with Disabilities Act accessible.

If the city were to go back to using the historic entrance, Mientkiewicz said the main security risk would be “no controls in place to deter an active shooter or someone looking to instill violence in the city building or the workplace.”

Previously, Sollitto argued that the building should have a full-time police officer for security. At the committee meeting, he said that option would prove to be costly for the city long-term.

ENHANCED LOBBY

According to Sollitto, a lot of residents are irritated because they don’t have access because of the enhanced security features.

Mientkiewicz said the concerns of the “small population” about entry to the city building is where the enhanced lobby and council chambers project found its inspiration.

“Because that was, at the time, nearly $1 million to build, my personal opinion was that was not responsible in regards to spending taxpayer dollars,” Mientkiewicz said. “It seemed as though council as a whole also thought that that was not responsible since they wanted to go the route of renovating the senior center and staying in the senior center.”

The mayor said to address the concerns of the residents, the project was scaled back to the 25-by-25 lobby which would “maintain safety protocol or security protocol and also be customer friendly with an actual person stationed in a payment window.”

“We chose to go back to the consultant, redesign for the enhanced lobby area, and again, the numbers which are being shared with us, the architect’s estimate is still at least half of what it would cost to go back to the original design,” Mientkiewicz said.

Mientkiewicz said the city is still planning to rebid the 25-by-25 lobby project.

With increases in construction costs, he expects new bids for the full-wing addition to be over $1 million.

“To go back to that original drawing and spend over $1 million on a council chamber room that’s going to be utilized twice a month doesn’t seem to be fiscally responsible when we have already done what we did at the senior center,” he said. “What seems to be meeting the needs of council and meeting the needs of our residents at a fraction of the cost.”

COMPARE AND CONTRAST

Johnstone said having bids for both the larger and smaller lobby projects will allow the city to make an informed decision.

“I’m not a salesman, I’m not pitching that this is the best option,” he said. “What we are talking about is having numbers as a comparison to make a better-informed decision. I’m not sitting in front of everyone saying ‘This is where we have to go,’ because that number could come in and I could have the same feeling I’m having on the 25-by-25. But I want to know what it is before I move forward.”

Sollitto said the potential full-wing addition would provide several benefits to the city.

“It serves so many different, multifaceted purposes in terms of being able to have a meeting space for committee meetings, council chambers, our own chambers, and provide customer service in a secure manner,” he said.

Legislation to authorize the administration to seek bids for the full-wing addition is expected to be presented to council at its meeting Wednesday.