Council pares its $1B project list

Mar. 18—The last two phases of Gilbert Regional Park, a police crime lab and a fire fleet facility made the rough cut for funding as the Town Council scaled back high-priority capital projects to $650 million from the original ask of $1.07 billion.

Trail projects and a police community office in the Heritage District were some of the projects to be postponed until future funding is identified. The Fire Department kept intact the wish list it gave the council last year.

"The first half of today was about some very important quality-of-life decisions that we needed to make for this community," Town Manager Patrick Banger told council members at a financial retreat March 11.

He said many of those issues would involve "legacy decisions that future leaders and residents of this community are going to look back and be very thankful for the work you've done today."

He said all those items "are just incredibly important to the quality of life" and are of a "time-sensitive nature" because "we are absolutely in the last decade of build-out."

Parks and Recreation Director Robert Carmona in a December retreat originally presented 19 projects for council's consideration totaling $723 million. He presented a prioritized list of 10 projects last week for funding based on most impact to the community.

Those projects included Phase 2 and 3 of regional park at an estimated cost of $194 million; Phase 2 of Desert Sky Park for $104 million; trail lighting, $26 million and the Riparian Education Center, $13 million.

Carmona said the Riparian Education Center was added to the list because "it's a requested amenity throughout Gilbert," and staff felt it was a good candidate for private-public partnerships and grants, which would help pay for its cost.

Carmona said that the Riparian Preserve, with over 300 bird species, is one of the most popular attractions — if not the most popular — in Gilbert, drawing visitors from around the world.

A $38 million recreation center for south Gilbert also is on the funding list. The cost dropped from $69 million because it's proposed to be a hybrid of the Freestone Recreation Center and McQueen Park Activity Center, according to Carmona.

Recreational amenities are not keeping up with the growth and demand in Gilbert with programs at overcapacity and playing fields overused, leading to deterioration, Carmona said.

He noted that the southern half of Gilbert, where all the growth is, lacks amenities while those in the north are aging and need attention.

The department's proposed amenities were the result of input from 60,000 people who gave feedback for the Parks & Recreation Master Plan.

Public safety lists revised

Fire Chief Rob Duggan wanted funding for all 10 of his projects, including $11.8 million for a remodel of the fire administration building — the chief's No. 1 priority; $24 million for a fire fleet maintenance facility and $20 million to rebuild Fire Station No. 4. The 24-year-old station is an ideal site to locate a Hazmat unit and an ambulance for better response times, according to Duggan.

He deferred remodels of seven fire stations to improve their function to Fiscal Year 2030 instead of Fiscal Year 2025.

Police Chief Michael Soelberg's highest priorities were Phase 2 of the advocacy center at a cost of $42 million; a new San Tan Police substation, $85 million; expansion of the public safety building, $9.8 million and a crime lab, $77 million.

He proposed delaying the downtown community office and Phase 3 of the Advocacy Center, which would provide for meeting and training spaces.

Councilman Jim Torgeson, however, voiced a hard no on the crime lab. Gilbert Police currently contracts with Mesa Police's crime lab for $720,000 a year.

Given the cost to operate the proposed crime lab at $4.2 million a year, the town was looking at an annual $3.5 million increase on what it's paying now for forensic service on top of the $77 million needed to build the facility, Torgeson said.

"Yes, you would be increasing your cost," Soelberg said. "But the tradeoff is that ability to run your own lab, set your priorities, be fully independent and functional without having to rely on what we fear could happen in the future."

He pointed to 2018 when the town was looking to build its own training facility.

"At that time Phoenix and DPS and Mesa all said, 'you don't need your own training facility. We could provide you your academies,'" Soelberg said. "By the time we opened our training facility, Phoenix PD had closed their academy to outside agencies. Mesa just this last year went Mesa-only, at least for the time being, based on the amount of hiring they're doing.

"So it's that fear of the unknown but making an investment in our community of nearly 300,000 people to make sure that going forward we can continue to control our destiny and provide the best services for our victims."

Torgeson noted that under the agreement with Mesa, that city must give Gilbert a five-year notice before severing the contract.

"We can easily build within five years if we get stuck at that point," Torgeson said.

Soelberg agreed that was possible but said the concern was if "we know we eventually will get to that point I would rather invest the money now at a lower cost than doubling that cost five to 10 years down the road."

Possible joint effort

According to Susanna Struble, assistant town engineer, inflation and the labor and material shortage have driven up construction costs in Gilbert and across the country.

She said that the 50-acre public safety training facility cost the town $65 million to build in 2019. Today that same facility would cost $122 million, an 88% increase, Struble said, adding that the cost for a simple construction escalated 54% from 2020 to 2024 and for a complex project, costs shot up over 60%.

Banger said he met with Chandler's interim police chief, city manager and assistant city manager to discuss a possible joint crime lab.

He said that Chandler had about $50 million available to bring to the project. The city passed a bond in 2022 to fund the forensic lab, which had an original price tag of about $38 million.

"It's very early on in the discussions but they are definitely opened to that conversation," Banger said. "They are ready to begin design on the facility and want to get going."

He said if Gilbert wanted to partner with Chandler on the project, council would need to make the decision quickly.

"The crime lab from our perspective would need to move ASAP in my opinion," said Mayor Brigette Peterson, who noted she was not a fan of the project. "They want to spend their $50 million. Anybody agreeing to join with Chandler, know that becomes a priority for us immediately."

Assistant Town Manager Leah Rhineheimer added that there are "some very specific and very known risks that are associated with being dependent on another agency for our services."

She said that as crime trends increase, so does the volume of evidence that needs to be processed by the Mesa lab.

"Mesa's ability to take on external partners such as ourselves becomes more restricted," she said. "They have to prioritize their case load, their evidence processing first.

"We also know that they are taking on additional agencies besides Gilbert, which further jeopardizes the ability for us to be able to process our evidence in a timely (manner) as possible."

She added that the lead time associated with designing and constructing a crime lab and getting it accredited took easily five years but to do that the town needed the funding first.

Torgeson said he was open to the lab if Chandler was a financial partner.

Councilwoman Yung Koprowski agreed to move forward with the crime lab "with the intention to partner with Chandler so it's a multi-agency facility."

Councilman Chuck Bongiovanni also said he could support moving ahead with the crime lab if another agency joined in.

However, Bongiovanni noted, "Messaging-wise, I don't know how a second safest city in America needs a crime lab."

The chief responded that a lab would help the town maintain that ranking.

Koprowski also supported recouping some of the capital costs from agencies that want to contract with the crime lab.

Chandler spokesman Matthew Burdick said the city had one exploratory discussion so far with Gilbert officials "to see if a jointly used facility could be an option to consider in the future."

"This is just one consideration among several possibilities that Chandler and Gilbert could consider as we both plan for the future of our forensic science capabilities," he said. "Further discussions and evaluations will be needed before any concrete plans are established either way."

Peterson and Councilwoman Kathy Tilque both wanted to see Phase 3 of the advocacy center funded for construction now instead of later.

"I would do the whole advocacy center one time," Peterson said. "We've seen in the past four months that the advocacy center is needed more than ever."

Although Phase 3 is an accessory unit of the facility, Peterson said she wanted to see site finished.

Nearby residents have been complaining about the site, located at Civic Center Drive and American Heroes Way, that has sat vacant with mounds of dirt left by a failed nonprofit project. "It has been sitting with that fence around it since 2016 when the dirt was dropped on that land," the mayor said.