New Ann Arbor court building will be nice for police too
The new court building, which will also house the Ann Arbor Police Department, is shaping up nicely. Let’s not kid ourselves - this building wouldn't have been built specifically for the police department. It is only being built because the district court is being kicked out of the county courthouse, due to “overcrowding.”
I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth, but I am skeptical. The standing joke among officers, who had worked under four or five different police chiefs, was to predict when the new chief would assure the troops a new police station would soon be built.Â
The new Ann Arbor police-courts building is coming together.
Ryan J. Stanton | AnnArbor.com
Congratulations to my friend and former boss Chief Barnett Jones. He won the game of musical chairs, and his seat will actually be in a new building soon.
The Ann Arbor Police Department really needed a new building. According to a recent AnnArbor.com article: “City officials note the police department is located in a part of city hall originally designed for storage space and is badly deteriorating. Oftentimes after it rains, the ceiling leaks, and employees have reported air quality issues and black mold.”
All of those statements are true. I worked in the basement of city hall for 13 years, where the floors flooded in the bathroom and onto a set of detectives’ offices when it rained. Many times, my peers and I were dripped on as we walked up stairs to briefing in the morning. Several times, I was victimized when rain water percolated through two floors of asbestos, dust, mold and God knows what else to drip into my piping hot cup of coffee on my way up to briefing.
A small chunk of deteriorating concrete dropped on one officer's noggin while he climbed the stairs. Luckily, he was uninjured.
To protect us from these vile torrents on the stairway, the city installed a 6-foot by 4-foot sheet metal funnel under that ceiling leak. The funnel channeled the rainwater through a clear plastic hose into a five-gallon bucket on the stair landing. Â
In fact, dozens of various sized buckets were cleverly concealed under other leaks between the roof of the exterior mezzanine and the drop ceiling. The appearance of these buckets was only revealed if they overflowed or broke through the drop ceiling. Â
One small rain barrel landed on a detective’s desk, which luckily was vacant at the time. These buckets weren't emptied - they were just left to evaporate between rains. I am no biologist - in fact, much to the chagrin of my parents, I transferred out of University of Michigan Pharmacy School after my sophomore year - but might those evaporating buckets have created a mold problem?
Those of us in the basement were more concerned with the radon and possible asbestos levels in the stagnant subterranean air. The other detective supervisors and I agreed to be the last out of the basement when the city told everyone to move because of the elevated levels.
This was done to avoid panic in the troops, and also because after 13 years in the basement, a day or two more wouldn’t make much difference. Besides, I quipped to one concerned officer, “After 13 years you get used to your air being extra chunky - perhaps it even adds a little fiber to my diet.”
Lock it up, don’t leave it unattended, be aware and watch out for your neighbors.
Rich Kinsey is a retired Ann Arbor police detective sergeant who now blogs about crime and safety for AnnArbor.com.
Comments
Michigan Reader
Mon, Feb 22, 2010 : 9:31 p.m.
@RUKiddingme---It's an expansion of the EXISTING city hall--the old building is owned by the city--they will keep it, and use it--the city is leasing space in the county courthouse a few blocks away, and the county won't renew the lease when it expires--the county will use it(the county space) for their own purposes, because they're having severe budget problems of their own. The city of Ann Arbor owns the land the old and new buildings are on. They're just going to vacate county property at the county courthouse.
RUKiddingMe
Mon, Feb 22, 2010 : 7:33 p.m.
Am I understanding correctly that the new building is partly so that the city is no longer paying the county for a lease on the old building? Does that mean when the new building is done no city staff will be using or paying for the old building? And the city owns the new building and the land it's on? And does anyone know the plans for the old building? Will it remain vacant? Be demolished? Purchased from the county as part of the Green Belt?
Lokalisierung
Mon, Feb 22, 2010 : 6:59 p.m.
I wouldn't doubt it...it's been needed for a long long time. I tihnk also when Oates came in is when the first economic downtwon started and they rteally started tightening that budget. Which woul dmake sense since it was around neil berlin's time.
Michigan Reader
Mon, Feb 22, 2010 : 6:22 p.m.
I always thought, and still do, that former Chief Dan Oates left Ann Arbor because he was promised a new building by the city before he was hired, and the city never came through. I think he kept his reason for leaving quiet, by request of the city administrator. Pure speculation on my part, I'm no insider to city hall.
Lynn Lumbard
Mon, Feb 22, 2010 : 4:05 p.m.
Bear, I thought you were joking at first with "Your welcome" I assume you meant you are welcome= you're welcome
Lokalisierung
Mon, Feb 22, 2010 : 2:54 p.m.
The old facilites for Police were god awful! If the people complaining about the building would have taken a tour of them I don't think there'd be as much complaining.
Bear
Mon, Feb 22, 2010 : 2:46 p.m.
Your welcome. I always believe that a well written article should be well edited and proofread. Not nitpicking, it is a foundational belief. That said, thank you for the acknowledgement. i can really relate to the officers plight in the old building, I work at at a place that has a similar system for leaky roof control. Innovative, inexpensive, but in the end, inadequate. But to tell you the truth, I hope the finished building looks much better than it appears to now, because as it is, it is, in my opinion, ugly as sin.
Bear
Mon, Feb 22, 2010 : 11:47 a.m.
"vial torrents on the stairway" Ahem.... you mean 'vile' don't you?
Buzz
Mon, Feb 22, 2010 : 11:46 a.m.
Ryan I am not disagreeing with you. If you renovate City Hall I am betting it would cost a lot more anyway. City Hall is a pit.
logo
Mon, Feb 22, 2010 : 11:45 a.m.
The votes to go forward on this building were made before the banking crisis hit. But then, the building was needed anyway so it probably doesn't matter. As the author notes, it has been talked about for many years. The police were put in a storage space back when the Larcom building went up with the intention of building a new police station and then they never did. The courts had to move, the County is bringing the Juvenile Courts into the space in their courthouse. It makes a lot of sense to put the police and courts on the same foundation. They found that an older building could not be retrofitted to meet the strict security requirements now in place for courtrooms. It is good to see the city is still accomplishing things even in this economy and this has minimal impact on the city's operating budget.
Lifelong A2
Mon, Feb 22, 2010 : 10:45 a.m.
Thanks, Det. Sargeant, for this firsthand insight. This new building is long overdue. I remain perplexed by the few political nay-sayers who still complain that this building was un-necessary.
Ryan J. Stanton
Mon, Feb 22, 2010 : 10:39 a.m.
@Gene Rye The city appointed a task force headed up by City Administrator Roger Fraser a few years back. Read the task force's report here. It looked at a wide range of options, including just renovating the existing city hall and continuing to lease space elsewhere for city operations. City officials found the expansion/partial renovation option to make most sense. @Buzz As my last story pointed out, annual debt payments are set at $1.86 million for 30 years, about $735,496 of which is being covered by discontinued leases. The Downtown Development Authority agreed to take on $520,000 of the remaining cost, while $374,180 is coming from revenue from antennae sites and $225,000 from court tickets. On top of that, there are hundreds of dollars in added operational costs (largely utilities) that will be a hit to the general fund budget and could be offset by position eliminations, ironically, in the police department.
Buzz
Mon, Feb 22, 2010 : 10:30 a.m.
The money that was being used to pay rent for building space will now be used to pay the "mortgage" on the new building. At least that it was I have read from the NUMEROUS articles about why they are building this building.
grye
Mon, Feb 22, 2010 : 10:17 a.m.
The new building will probably be very nice, but considering the current budget woes, did anyone look at the possibility of renovating an existing building or lease a facility?