When the Vienna town government could not get what it considered a reasonable price for the construction of a work space to temporarily house some of its police department, it decided the town could do the job itself. Much of the upcoming work to convert the basement of Town Hall into office space for the police department’s criminal investigation unit will be performed by the Department of Public Works, and the project will be overseen by Police Capt. Mike Miller.
“It’s a management-type job, which is what I am,” Miller pointed out.
The town had sent bids for the contract to do the work to over two dozen vendors, he said. Four attended the pre-bid meeting, and one, Golden Construction Inc., submitted a bid asking for over $190,000, which Public Works Director Dennis King said was at least $50,000 more than the town had expected to pay.
Miller, who did construction work during summers in high school and college and recently built his own home in Culpeper, volunteered to take charge of the work. He will not receive any extra compensation for this additional duty but will work it into his regular schedule.
“It’s critical for the police department to have this space, so I’ll do whatever it takes to get this done and manage my regular duties and keep everything running smoothly,” he said.
The Vienna Police Department is in the process of contracting Mosely Architects P.C. to explore options for a larger police facility, whether it be obtained by expanding the current police station on Center Street or moving the department to a new location altogether. In the meantime, several officers, particularly the investigative team, which has sometimes been forced to conduct interrogations in the station’s public lobby due to lack of space, will be resituated to the space under Town Hall.
Miller said he has already been working with the architectural firm Whitman, Requardt & Associates to create blueprints, which have nearly been finalized, and he is in the process of obtaining the necessary building permits from the county.
THE DEPARTMENT of Public Works, he said, has staff capable of doing much of the work, such as electric wiring, drywall, metal framing, plumbing and ceiling installation. Some jobs, like the installation of carpeting and climate control, will have to be outsourced.
King said he was not yet sure what jobs would be handed to outside companies and how much of the labor his staff would have the time to perform. “If we have a couple of hurricanes through here, my men might be tied up for a long time,” he pointed out.
Miller said decisions about contracting labor would not be made until the building permits have been obtained.
His own job, he said, would consist of such managerial duties as making sure the town gets a good price for the heating and cooling system and seeing to it that the framing for walls “is done in the most economic way that meets county building codes.”
He said he hopes the basement will be completed and ready to house his officers within three to four months. “Once I get the permits and all, I think it will go pretty smoothly,” he said.
“We already have a lot of the infrastructure there because it used to be offices down there before,” said King.
SINCE THEN, the basement has served as storage space, said Gina Syverson, who is the purchasing agent for the project. She said the basement was cleaned out at the end of last year, and everything that had been kept there, mostly files, has been moved to an offsite storage facility. She said the town plans to build its own facility to house the files in about a year’s time.
Expenditures for the project are expected to add up to about $100,000, although King pointed out that skyrocketing oil prices are making construction expenses difficult to predict.
Miller said the practice of taking on such projects itself is unusual for the town, but not unheard of. He noted that Cathy Salgado, the town’s director of Parks and Recreation, was similarly placed in charge of the renovation of the maintenance building at the Nutley Street Property Yard about two years ago.
He said the relatively small scale of his project makes it feasible. “If it was building a new police station, I don’t think I’d be the guy for that,” he said.
Miller said he expects that police will be stationed under Town Hall for three to five years before moving into a new or expanded police station.
Eventually, said Syverson, offices from Town Hall's upper levels will likely be moved into the basement space. “The file rooms are getting crowded,” she said.