Council approves $10 million Rockside Woods expansion, with Trakas and Narduzzi dissenting

by Erica Peterson

Feb. 12 city council meeting

Independence City Council voted to approve four ordinances connected to the Rockside Woods Boulevard North extension project, with Council members Tom Narduzzi and Jim Trakas voting against each of them.

The $10-million project involves extending Rockside Woods North to Brecksville Road and constructing a signalized intersection at Brecksville. Right now, Rockside Woods ends just beyond the Embassy Suites hotel.

“This is a major infrastructure project that has been in the city’s master planning process for decades and is finally coming to fruition,” said Mayor Anthony Togliatti.

The city needed a “catalyst to kickstart the actual construction” of the long-awaited project, Togliatti said, and that was the Topgolf sports entertainment complex that is under construction.

“Once opened, Topgolf will contribute an estimated $500,000 per year to the city of Independence in tax revenue,” he said. “So, based on the estimated tax collections from Topgolf alone, the project can be paid off in 20 years.”

Also, Topgolf is surrounded by undeveloped land, he said, and “once the new roadway is completed, development of this land is imminent.”

Council member Carl Asseff called the project a “very critical improvement for our business city, giving road access from Brecksville Road to the heart of this business city.”

Independence has committed to the Ohio Department of Transportation to extend the road, Togliatti added, which will allow traffic on Rockside Road to access to I-77 north, “bypassing the accident-prone I-480/I-77 merge.”

Council voted 5-2 to: accept the $9.5 million bid by Fabrizi Trucking and Paving Co. for the project; retain QCI Inc. for construction management and inspection services for up to $100,000; retain Donald Bohning & Associates for engineering and construction services for up to $15,000; and appropriate property for the Rockside Woods/Brecksville Road intersection.

Trakas and Narduzzi voted against the ordinances, citing concerns about what the actual cost of the project may turn out to be.

“With the base bid of $9.5 million, plus over a million dollars in engineering costs, plus interest costs and all of the soft costs involved, this project will escalate to over $14 million in the blink of an eye,” Narduzzi said. “That does not include any change orders, and if you know construction, there will be change orders.”

He described the ordinance retaining QCI, which allows the company to request more funds, as “an open checkbook for somebody. We have no guarantee cost of what the end of this is going to be.”

Trakas said the project is “already several million dollars more than was originally conceived. … I believe that we should not rush into this project without fully understanding the implications or the cost estimates to date.”

Narduzzi wants to see a “comprehensive plan on how and when we are going to pay for this project.”

Both Narduzzi and Trakas said they would support extending Rockside Woods to Topgolf. They want more study before taking the road all the way to Brecksville.

“I believe very strongly that we should take a look at this and not rush into just going plodding along as we had talked about,” Trakas said. “Other possibilities may exist, they may not; but we don’t have to go with the hardest, most-expensive route.”

Website upgrade

At the caucus before the meeting, Communication and Technology Director Kyle Collins updated council members on the progress of the project to overhaul the city’s website. In October, council voted to spend up to $30,000 with Revize Software Systems of Troy, Mich., to replace the site.

Collins said the current website has “become an overgrown bush, and we really need to trim it back. It’s messy; it’s not user-friendly.”

He is meeting with department heads to “pare down” the content on the website and make it more focused and clean.

Collins expects the new site to be live by mid-July.

Police cars

Council agreed to spend $173,608 on six 2018 Ford SUV Interceptors for the police department and up to $80,000 on the purchase and installation of equipment and graphics for them.

The department was scheduled to purchase three cars this year and projected to buy three or four cars in 2020, but Police Chief Michael Kilbane asked council to move up next year’s purchase to this year because Ford is discontinuing the Interceptor.

“They are trying to upsell into a Ford Explorer, which is a bigger vehicle and also is $10,000 per unit more expensive,” he said.

He would prefer to purchase Interceptors, he said. The entire fleet has moved over to them and they have been “very reliable,” Kilbane said.

“I sort of shy away from buying a first model year production because a lot of times they don’t work the bugs out,” he said. “We learned that the hard way with the Dodge Chargers. We had mechanical issues with them. They didn’t really fully have it ready for heavy police use.”

The department plans to retire three cruisers this year and three more next year. There is no plan to purchase cars next year, Kilbane said. The next purchase is scheduled for 2021.

“By then, hopefully the competitive police fleet business will settle down and there will be some better choices for us,” he said.

In other action, council:

• Voted unanimously to approved the preliminary plan for Quarry Lee Estates, a 12-lot residential subdivision where Lafayette and Daisy Boulevard meet.

• Voted to spend $170,000 on a 75-ton remote evaporator air-cooled chiller for city hall. Technical Service Director David Snyderburn said the current unit, which provides air conditioning for the building, is nearly 40 years old and crews are “band-aiding it all the time.”

• Voted to pay the city’s $20,000 annual membership fee to the Southwest Council of Governments, $10,000 each for the police and fire departments.

• Voted 6-1 to hire American Fireworks Co. for the July 4 fireworks displays for 2019-2021, spending $21,000 per display. Asseff dissented, as he traditionally does, saying the displays should be funded by private donations, not by the city.