ATHENS, Ohio — With a bare minimum quorum of just four members present during special session Tuesday, June 17, Athens City Council met briefly to pass several ordinances on their third readings. Included were plans to construct a new public safety training facility on Kenny Road, with the council authorizing spending of $5.08 million.
The city’s share of the project includes a road and sewer extension from the end of Kenny Drive to Elliotsville Road. The city on Tuesday approved the extension and construction of the facility through ordinances 0-67-25 and 0-68-25.
Tuesday’s special session was the last regularly scheduled council meeting until August, as Council takes its summer recess from now through the month of July.
Facility allows retirement of city sites
The original ordinance for the public safety training facility appropriated $2.9 million for the project, nearly all of which came from Ohio’s 2024 state capital spending bill. At that time, the city allocated only $400,000 from its own coffers. However, the cost of the project was expected to increase, as the initial ordinance did not reflect the Kenny Drive extension.
The new public safety training facility will be completed by Pepper Construction, which put in a low bid of $1.6 million. Under a separate contract, York Paving placed the low bid for road work at $1.38 million.
The city received funding of $2.5 million for the project through the 2024 state capital spending bill, and Ohio Department of Transportation added another $200,000 to help cover road work through a reimbursable grant. Additional revenue sources for the project include $1 million from Street Fund 220, $800,000 from Water Fund 740, $400,000 from Sewer Fund 750, and $381,000 from the Storm Sewer Fund.
Deputy Service-Safety Director Andrew Chiki said the road work will cost $847,000 less than its estimate, which pleased city officials.
All told, the new public training facility will cost $5.08 million. The project involves installation of a prefabricated burn tower to be used for fire and police training exercises for scenarios including active fires, forced entries, confined rescues, and other scenarios. An additional shared use storage building will be constructed with a secure outdoor lot, or laydown yard, for police and public works.
According to Ordinance 68-25, the new training center “will allow for decreased EMS response times to southern Athens, increased water capacity for fire protection to Elliotsville Road, Kenny Drive, and Turtle Run, and increased access to the Kenny Drive Industrial Subdivision and area businesses.”
The new training facility will also allow for the “retirement” of two city sites in their current uses. One is a storage building where Hudson Street dead-ends on Athens’ Near East Side. Chiki said it’s an old highway garage that came as a “package deal” when the city acquired the Athens Armory. The building is large enough to house trucks used for leaf pickup in the fall and winter.
“It’s in a residential neighborhood, so it’s in an odd spot for the city to have a storage garage there,” council President Sam Crowl said following the special session. He said that future uses for the property could include affordable housing units, a major need for Athens.
The second site to be retired is a storage yard on West State Street where it meets Herrold Avenue, referred to as “the bottom” by the city. The yard is a depository for items like bricks, gravel and sewer pipes, Chiki said. Looking forward, the site will be home to a new maintenance garage for Athens Public Transit.
Other business
In other third readings of ordinances Tuesday, Council:
- Approved a nearly 1-mile long shared use path for Columbus Road, to be constructed this year, at a cost of $1.8 million. ODOT will pay $1.38 million toward the project, with the city’s portion to come from Street Maintenance funds.
- Affirmed an easement granted by the state for upcoming construction later this summer of the SR 682/56 roundabout project.
- Authorized the city to submit an application for participation in the state capital improvement and/or local transportation improvement funding programs.
- Approved a special right-of-way use Permit at 75 Kimes Lane, to maintain existing signage at U.S. 50 and North Blackburn Road.
- Approved a special right-of-way use permit for 107 and 107 ½ East State Street for continued residential parking use involving an unused city alleyway.
Due to a summer recess, Athens City Council’s next meeting will be held Aug. 4 at Athens City Hall, Council Chambers, third floor, 8 E. Washington St. Meetings are also streamed online. Regular sessions are on the first and third Mondays of the month; committee meetings are on the second and fourth Mondays.
