Beaver Dam Officials To Consider Land Purchase For New DPW Facility

(Beaver Dam) The Beaver Dam Common Council is meeting in special session Monday to consider a land purchase as part of the city’s plan for a new Department of Public Works facility. Initial estimates put the costs of constructing or repurposing a new DPW building at between $10-and-$13-million dollars. The cost of building new is estimated at 12.3-million. 

Elected officials heard a presentation last month that involved repurposing several vacant buildings including the former Nancy’s Notions, MetalFab, Apache Leasing and Evoqua. City Director of Administration Zak Bloom recommended the Evoqua building, an 89-thousand square foostructure located at the end of Industrial Drive in the Lakeside Business Park.

The $10.2-million-dollar price tag would cost taxpayers $60-per year for every one-hundred thousand dollars in property value. The purchase of the property by the city would remove $18-thousand dollars from the tax rolls. The resulting impact on property owners would be another estimated $1.43-per thousand.

The plan would be to pay for the purchase of the $1.8-million building with funds on hand and later borrow for the entire $10.2 million dollars over 20 years at 2.25-percent and replenish the city coffers. 

While the bulk of the DPW facility would move to the new location, the old location may be retained for some services. The DPW relocation was identified in a facility study a decade ago to help preserve expensive equipment and address safety issues.