The Melrose Messenger

Town Hall Meeting About Public Safety Buildings Draws Excitement and Concerns

On Monday night, the City of Melrose hosted a Town Hall-style meeting at Melrose High School to present plans and receive feedback from the community on the first phase of the public safety buildings project.

The meeting was led by Mayor Jen Grigoraitis; City Planner and Project Manager Denise Gaffey; Police Chief Kevin Faller; Acting Fire Chief John White; and Glen Gollrad and Cassie Plunkett from the architectural firm Dore and Whittier. Other members from the Public Safety Facilities Advisory Committee as well as Ward 3 City Councilor Robb Stewart and Superintendent Adam Deleidi were present in the audience.

In November 2023, Melrose voters chose overwhelmingly to support a debt exclusion to replace and renovate the city’s four public safety buildings - the police station and all three fire stations - none of which have been significantly improved in decades.

The first phase of this project will include building a new police station in a new location and rebuilding Engine 2, the fire station on Tremont Street. Initial planning suggested the former Ripley School in southeast Melrose as the location for the new police station. However, the City of Melrose recently announced that, after further consideration, the Public Safety Facilities Advisory Committee had unanimously voted to build the new police station at the former Beebe School site instead.

The city cited three factors as reasons the Beebe site would be a better choice than the Ripley: proximity to the center of the city; cost, with engineering surveys finding that at minimum $1.5 million would need to be spent on blasting rock ledge at the Ripley site to have sufficient space for the police station; and the fact that the SEEM Collaborative is currently using the Ripley School, while the Beebe School will be vacant when the permanent Melrose Public Library building on West Emerson Street reopens in early 2025.

The Beebe School closed as a Melrose Public School in 2003 due to enrollment numbers that would have made running six elementary schools too costly. In the 20 years since then, as enrollment has risen and the five current elementary schools have grown more crowded, discussion has periodically arisen about the potential for reopening the Beebe School as a sixth elementary school.

The Beebe School was brought up during discussion around the override vote that passed in April 2019. Then-Acting Mayor Gail Infurna explained that passing the override would allow the Melrose Public Schools budget to replace income from renting the Beebe School to the SEEM Collaborative so that options could be considered for its use. A feasibility study was done in 2021 that concluded that it would cost at least $6 million to bring the building up to code, and a full renovation, including abatement for asbestos and replacing the roof and windows, could cost as much as $14.5 million.

At Monday night’s meeting, Mayor Grigoraitis expressed that, following this study, “a funding source was never identified or secured” and that increased costs in construction since the study was completed would mean those costs would be at least 20% higher. Because the City of Melrose does not have the funding that would be needed to turn the Beebe into a functioning school again, she stated that it has “no identified use after January 2025” when the library returns to its permanent building.

Gollrad, one of the two architects present, explained that his firm had been selected by the City of Melrose to do a study for the public safety buildings in 2017, six years prior to the debt exclusion vote, and that their earlier work had allowed his firm to “fast start the current version of the project.” He praised the Public Safety Facilities Advisory Committee, which includes both city staff and residents, as a “stacked group of really talented local folks who have their heart and soul invested in the project.”

Gollrad explained that his firm has been working on schematic design for the police station and Tremont Street fire station, collaborating with members of the police and fire departments to ensure that the buildings are “right-sized but also allow for future growth.”

The Tremont Street fire station is designed to be larger than the current building, in part because it will need to serve as a temporary flex space during the renovations of Engine 1 on Main Street and Engine 3 on the Melrose Common in Phases 2 and 3 of the project, respectively. Plunkett, the other architect present, described their intention of creating a “welcoming space” in the public lobby area, while also ensuring that there would be plenty of space for fire apparatus, including those that would need to be housed there during the other renovations, and living space for the firefighters.

Moving on to the plans for the new police station, Gollrad said, “we quickly saw that, if possible, the Beebe site was advantageous.” While the police station itself wouldn’t be much larger than the current Ripley building, rock blasting would be required in order to make the site large enough for parking and circulation. The Ripley site has “relatively low maintenance neighbors with the cemetery next door,” Gollrad joked, “but we’d need to be sensitive to the folks who live up the hill.” He also pointed out that the city would “save time and money by being able to start the police project on schedule… it’s a lot of money that doesn’t need to be spent if we can avoid it.” However, he acknowledged, “it’s not the bill of goods that was voted on.”

Reviewing the site plans, Plunkett explained that the police station would have a similar footprint and height to the current Beebe School. Similar to the new fire station, the public spaces, which include the lobby, a large training and community room, and a conference room on the 2nd floor, are intended to be “warm and welcoming” with large glass windows, “creating a sense of community and transparency.” The building would also fulfill the requirements of an active police station with more secure spaces out of the public eye, including holding cells on the first floor.

Police Chief Faller expressed his appreciation for the Melrose residents who voted overwhelmingly for the public safety buildings project: “I can’t underscore what that 60-40 vote means to our departments. It showed us you care about us and it’s huge to know that.” He explained that the new police station is “something we’ve needed for a long time, and it’s something we’re going to need for a long time. We’re not building for 2027, we’re building for 2047, 2057. Why is it so big? That’s what we need now, and that’s what we’re going to need in the future.” He also pointed out that the design does not include a firing range, which he acknowledged had been “a concern on social media.” He described the firing range as “a want, not a need” that was “cut out a while ago,” potentially saving $4 million in construction costs.

With regard to the Beebe site, he said the location “should alleviate 98% of concerns from the last time we met. We’re excited we’re going to be close to everyone.” He also emphasized that the police “will be good neighbors.” Unlike firefighters, who are based in their assigned fire stations until they are sent out on a call, police officers are “out in the street, ready to respond,” so they are unlikely to “go flying out of the police station with lights and sirens.”

Chief Faller also expressed his hope that the Beebe location’s proximity to the Milano Center would create “almost a campus.” The “huge community room” can seat 50 people, and can be shared with the fire department as well as anyone else in the community who wants to use it.

A number of residents of the Beebe neighborhood spoke at the meeting, expressing their concerns for what felt to them like an abrupt shift in plans from the Ripley site to the Beebe. “We have felt in the dark,” said one neighbor. Another expressed her “disappointment that it’s starting from this place of mistrust from the get-go,” sharing that it was only thanks to Councilor Stewart “coming and finding us on a random day that we tripped over this information.”

The residents described their neighborhood as “tight-knit” and raised concerns about construction noises and debris, increased traffic and parking needs, lighting at night, losing green space, and the aesthetics of what various residents called “unfriendly,” “scary and brutish,” and “an urban police station, not a neighborhood building.”

At the same time, residents expressed cautious optimism about having the Melrose Police Department (MPD) as their new neighbors. “I really love this police force, and the community aspect,” one resident shared. “I don’t think our kids have ever had a lemonade stand where a police officer hasn’t shown up and given them a $20 bill.” “I want to reiterate how close this community is,” said another resident, “and we would love to welcome you to the neighborhood.”

Chief Faller was able to alleviate some concerns about the holding cells within the building, sharing that currently the MPD “very rarely holds anyone for a significant period of time or overnight.” When someone who has been arrested can’t be brought directly to court or released on bail, the MPD often partners with the Middlesex Sheriff’s Office to use their facilities. Another resident expressed concerns about someone who has been let out on bail walking around the neighborhood at night, since this location is farther from the 137 bus stop than the current police station is. Chief Faller shared that while people who are released on bail are “generally picked up by someone,” officers will also provide rides when needed.

One question that remained at the end of the night was how building the new police station on the Beebe School site would affect the ongoing discussion about school buildings and school population. “Is the city saying that we no longer need that space? That what we have is adequate?” asked one resident. “If we give up a school site, will we be forever OK with being a five-school community?”

Mayor Grigoraitis responded that the school population has not returned to where it was before the pandemic, and she said, “candidly, there has been no planning for what to do with the population.” The mayor recently reconstituted the School Building Master Plan Committee, which had not met since 2019 (early in Paul Brodeur's tenure as mayor), in order to “understand opportunities for growth and assess where we go next for the schools.”

“So we might in essence be shooting ourselves in the foot?” the resident asked.

“It’s absolutely a need, we need to talk about the schools,” the mayor responded, “but we have the funding for this project and we need to do this now…I do not anticipate coming before you and asking you to build a new school.”

Posted September 26th, 2024