Lake Elmo officials move into new $12.7 million city center

Mary Divine, Pioneer Press
·2 min read

The new Lake Elmo City Center is open to the public, and officials are planning an October gathering to celebrate its completion.

The new $12.7 million project, completed last month, includes council chambers, offices for city staff and Washington County Sheriff’s deputies and a fire station.

“We’ve been working out of a construction trailer for 16 months, so we’re very happy to be in the new space,” said City Administrator Kristina Handt. “This new building will allow the city to more efficiently work together to serve our residents and businesses.”

The city council voted in 2018 to issue bonds to buy the two-story Brookfield Building, 3880 Laverne Ave., just across the parking lot from the old Lake Elmo City Hall. Construction crews gutted the building “down to studs and rebuilt everything and added on the fire-apparatus bay and the council chambers and community room,” Handt said.

Staff had outgrown the former 1980s-era city hall on Laverne. From 2014 to 2018, the city spent $33,000 a year to lease office space for staffers who didn’t have room to work in city hall, Handt said.

The new building nearly doubled the size of city hall, to 9,315 square feet, and was built to accommodate expected growth in the city; the city population of 13,500 is expected to top 18,000 by 2030, Handt said.

New fire station

The city’s new centralized fire station, located in the same building, has five drive-through bays plus sleeping rooms, a kitchen and other living space for the firefighters.

The 22,000-square-foot fire station means the city can transition to a fire department with 24/7-staff coverage in the building, “rather than relying solely on paid, on-call firefighters responding from home,” Handt said. The Lake Elmo City Council next week plans to hire four additional full-time firefighters, bringing the department total to eight full-time firefighters and 23 paid, on-call, she said.

The new fire station also means the city could close both of its other fire stations. The one at Sunfish Lake Park is now being used by the city’s public works department, and the one on Laverne Avenue will be sold next year, Handt said.

An open house of the new Lake Elmo City Center will be 9 a.m. to noon Oct. 14, with a ribbon cutting ceremony at 9 a.m. The event will feature tours of the facility and refreshments, Handt said.

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