Parks Ground Crew Can Spread Out In New Centralized Facility

By John Voket

It used to be when Parks Superintendent Carl Samuelson needed a piece of heavy equipment on a particular job site, even something as basic as a lawn mower, he might have to send a truck to Dickinson Park to hitch on a trailer, then drive to Treadwell Park to get the mower, then drive back to his location. But those days of inefficiently shuttling equipment and supplies from one overflowing storage facility to another, are over.

During the past few weeks, Mr Samuelson and his crew of ten have been rehabilitating vast areas within the former Fairfield Hills laundry and fire station to serve as a base of operations for the entire Parks and Rec ground crew. But according to Mr Samuelson, a central location and ease of access are only a couple of the reasons why this new facility will benefit his entire department.

“We’ll be saving a lot of money in fuel, time, and wear on the vehicles because we’ll be able to start from one place, where all our equipment and supplies are stored. We’ll be improving the value and lifespan of equipment that we used to have to store outside in the elements. And we’ve got a brighter, cleaner, safer environment with the room to do more specialized projects that might otherwise have to be sent out and done at extra expense,” Mr Samuelson told The Bee this week.

Some of those special projects include creating special signage for the various town parks and trail systems, now under the Parks and Recreation Department’s management. On Tuesday, Mr Samuelson’s crew was partway through a project painting various interior doors that would be reinstalled in park buildings in time for seasonal occupancy.

“If we wanted to do this kind of simple project before, we’d have to pull vehicles outside and use an entire garage bay,” he said.

Walking from one cavernous room to another, the parks superintendent pointed to pallets piled high with mulch, fertilizer, turf builder, lime, seeds, and five-gallon buckets of field line paint.

“In the coming few weeks, we’re planning to build heavy-duty vertical storage racks like you see at the big home warehouse stores,” he said pointing up toward the 20-foot high ceilings. “Now that we have the space to warehouse supplies without fear of them getting compromised by weather, or taken, we have the ability to save a lot of money by buying the supplies we use off season and in greater quantity.”

He pointed to pallet piled with bags of concrete mix.

“If we had to run out and pick up a bag or two of that concrete as we needed it, it would cost us $4 a bag, but a pallet full will last us the entire season and we paid $2.25 a bag because we have the dry interior room to store it,” he said. “Before we had this space something as basic as those five-gallon buckets of line paint used to cost $9 each; we’re able to get them now for $6.60. It may not seem like a lot of difference, but when you add up dozens of buckets of paint every year, and all the concrete and all the seeds, it is going to add up to some real money saved.”

Some of the other features the building offers are usable showers, locker and bathroom space for both male and female employees, a freight elevator (currently disabled), space for reception, utility and administrative offices, a new heating system, space for a lunch and common area, and additional exterior space for secure storage of supplies like gravel, clay, and topsoil.

While the Parks and Rec Department will eventually occupy about 60 percent of the structure, the remainder of the space is being used for storage by the Board of Education. In the coming months, Mr Samuelson hopes to create a drive-through garage bay by removing a large rear window and replacing it with a floor to ceiling overhead door.

Besides the money saved by warehousing quantities of supplies, Mr Samuelson pointed out the capital funds that can be reallocated from an anticipated new building project.

“Before we got in here, we were looking at a $200,000 cost for architect and engineering plans, and $1.4 million for a newly constructed building,” he said.

“And with all the new fields planned for Fairfield Hills, and the probability we’ll be taking over some of the maintenance responsibilities there, we’re nice and close by,” he added.

He said the department was in desperate need of 10,000–12,000 square feet of space. Once the basement areas on Trades Lane location are utilized, Mr Samuelson feels the recycled laundry facility will more than fill the bill.

“We’ve got what we need right now, and we’ll be able to take on other renovations as needed, so we can phase them in as our budget will permit,” he said. “This building definitely offers us a lot of options.”

Parks and Recreation Commission Vice Chair Edward Marks said his board was thrilled about partnering with the Board of Education to secure the space on Trades Lane.

“We were in a position where we were out of space for our personnel,” he said. “And in the winter you could see from the limited space we had at Treadwell Park, we used to store a lot of the equipment outside, which contributed to significant and premature deterioration.”

Mr Marks said the department had been looking at expanding storage and maintenance space for several years, but neither plans to add on to existing facilities, nor existing building on the Fairfield Hills campus offered viable options.

“We’re very excited about this building,” Mr Marks said.

He said in the next few weeks, he and fellow commissioners would tour the renovated facility to determine what other short-term needs Mr Samuelson has, and begin looking at other ways to enhance the exterior storage opportunities that the property may afford to the grounds staff in the future.