WEST FARGO — The city of West Fargo could be looking at a more than $25 million price tag to renovate the existing City Hall into an expanded police headquarters — which is more than what the city paid to build a brand new Fire headquarters in 2023.
The West Fargo City Commission on Monday, Feb. 5, voted unanimously to approve the hiring of consultants RLE to plan and design the expansion project at a cost up to $250,000.
RLE is a full-service architecture, interior design, marketing & building forensics firm based in West Fargo. RLE also works with Wold Architects and Engineers, which is based in St. Paul.
RLE and Wold representatives were part of the
city’s Building Exploratory Committee,
which studied options and costs for a new City Hall and expansion of the police headquarters in 2022 and early 2023.
While the committee planned to present the results of the building study at a public meeting in February last year, city commissioners on the committee instead
relayed the information among themselves
and formed a plan to consider leasing space for city staff offices.
, or the north building of the WEX Health Inc. campus for an annual cost of upwards of $725,000 per year. The building will house city staff, while the commission approved allowing the police headquarters to expand at City Hall.
City Administrator Dustin Scott on Monday said it made sense to continue the partnership with RLE and Wold instead of asking for general bids at this time. Both RLE and Wold have already studied the needs of both city staff and the police department, and have also worked extensively with Police Chief Pete Nielson, who served on the Building Exploratory Committee.
In a memo to the city, RLE estimated the renovation of City Hall, 800 Fourth Ave. S., would cost about $25 million — $19.5 million in construction costs and $5.5 million in soft costs.
The architect and engineering fees for the entire project would range from 7% to 10% of construction costs based on the complexity and scope of remodeling determined during the schematic design phase with a range of $1.365 million to $1.95 million in schematic design fees.
“This is helpful for a transparent look at what the final consulting costs will look like,” Scott said Monday.
The costs would outweigh that of the recently completed
, which opened in November last year. Construction of the building cost $18.5 million after it was initially estimated to cost $10 million. The building’s price ballooned after several economic factors shot prices up following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Numbers presented Monday, however, are all preliminary estimates. City leaders only approved the contract with RLE to execute the design schematic phase of the project at an hourly rate not to exceed $250,000. Once the study is completed, the commission can decide if it wishes to move forward with expansion plans and at what cost.
Commissioner Mandy George reminded those in attendance that the funding for the study will be provided by the public safety sales tax fund.
The city implemented a half-cent sales tax in 2023 to be used exclusively for West Fargo fire and police departments. Scott said the city expected to receive about $3.8 million in public safety sales tax in 2024 and currently has “a little over $2 million.”
“We do have the money to finance this,” Scott said.
RLE estimates it will have cost estimates for the project around March.
Wendy Reuer covers all things West Fargo for The Forum.