The same architectural firm (The Carrell Group of Hopkinton) that designed the proposed public safety building for Mendon also designed the same type of facility for the town of Seekonk MA. The Seekonk building was occupied in the fall of last year. We feel a comparison of these two projects poses some questions for the voters of Mendon.
The numbers are interesting:
Area Square Miles - Seekonk 18.4 - Mendon 18.3 (Virtually Identical)
2004 Population (rounded) - Seekonk 14,000 - Mendon 6,000 (Mendon 43% Smaller)
Median Family Income (2000) - Seekonk $56,364 - Mendon $71,164
Cost of construction - Seekonk $6,000,000 for 24,000 Sq Ft- Mendon $7,500,000 for 18,700 Sq Ft
Cost per square foot - Seekonk $250 - Mendon $400 (Mendon 38% More)
Square Feet per Citizen - Seekonk 1.70 - Mendon 3.10 (Mendon 55% Bigger)
Ask yourself these questions:
How do you get a nearly 40% increase in the cost of Mendon's building in 2 years? Gold Toilets? Inflation, even in the building industry hasn’t put up those numbers since 2004.
Why does Mendon require 55% more space per citizen? Crime Rate... Hardly! Go to the state crime stats on the web and compare. Mendon is Camelot compared to Seekonk. Seekonk borders on East Providence RI with a major interstate highway and 2 exits inside it's borders.
Maybe it's the fire danger that requires so much more space per citizen. Guess again, Seekonk has many older wood frame multi-family housing units and large commercial buildings. Most of Mendon's housing stock has been built within the last 25 years.
It would be helpful if someone from town government would post some answers to these and all the other questions posed by us and our visitors. But then again they ignore the blogs hoping they will go away… Not a Chance.
HG
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17 comments:
Couldn't agree more with needing to compare.
Remember we are building on land we own. Seekonk had a court battle with the abutters of the first location. Not sure if that negatively impacted their costs.
Just because the cost for Mendon's proposed Safety Building went down does not make it a bargain.
Like the idea as well. Just want to point the land might be ours, but paying for it has not been done to my knowledge... Still 3.5 million outstanding...
As always, when using statistics to analyze a set of numbers, there are a myriad of ways to use the numbers presented to perform an analytical analysis. Take for instance, the comparison of square footage between the Seekonk Public Safety building and the proposed Mendon Public Safety building.
The previous analogy questioned the size of the proposed Mendon Public Safety building, by compared the two buildings based upon the respective population of each town. Hanging Gardens came up with numbers that indicated the Mendon Public Safety building was 55% larger than the Seekonk building on a per citizen basis. While this information is sound based upon population demographics, it doesn’t tell the whole story.
As noted above, the two towns share almost identically sized geographic areas, at 18.3 (Mendon) and 18.4 square miles (Seekonk).
What we need to remember here is that the public safety officials need to cover and protect every square mile of town. If there is a brush fire in the woods, or a lost child in the woods, they can’t say we don’t respond to that because nobody lives there, they have to respond to the incident and handle it in a professional manner. They are responsible for protecting the entire community of Mendon, all 18.3 square miles.
Based upon that information, the Seekonk Public Safety building (24,000 square feet/18.4 square miles) provides 1,304 square feet of building for every square mile the public safety officials are responsible for protecting.
The proposed Mendon Public Safety building (18,700 square feet/18.3 square miles) provides 1,022 square feet for every square mile the public safety officials are responsible for protecting.
It looks to me that the proposed Mendon Public Safety building has been very carefully crafted to efficiently meet the needs of the town for current and future needs.
AHG
Hey AGH,
Was that post practice for the town meeting? You’re going to put people to sleep with that stuff.
After reading it for the second time I felt like the AFLAC duck after he met Yogi Berra.
You toss out the red herring of building size relative to square miles. It is obvious to a middle school math student that Seekonk would require a larger building because it has 60% more people than Mendon. DUH.
Your ramble with all the verbiage and numbers is simply a ploy to get the reader to focus away from the real issues. Is it the correct solution and of course… Why the hell does ours cost so much more than theirs???
Hanging Gardens
The ability to react to an emergency has nothing to do with the size of the building they respond from.
However the size of the building should correlate with the poulation of the town/city.
The question is as HG points out why is the cost so high for something with less sq ft in only a years time?
Why does the paper mimic the 30,000 sq ft building?
Why aren't the back-up to the pro-safety building people's truths posted?
How come all of the equipment we allready own doesn't fit in this building that will serve us so well into the future?
What is the overhead when we keep the other two buildings open?
How do we expect everyone to keep digging in their pockets for half-baked plans that get rolled out one by one? (Ex: Safety
building,school overrides,cemetery, water, new schools,library, town hall or town hall repair,Hartford Ave East etc...)
We need to step back and plan all of these properly, truthfully and openly.
What does the square footage of the building have to do with protecting the square footage of the town? I don't get it??!!?! And I read it several times too, Hanging Gardens. The more important point is that this building will not even house the equipment that we currently have. How will it possibly be suitable for future growth? How can this building, as the architect contended in the Milford Daily, be the only one we will ever need?
figures don`t lie but liars can figure / we were supposed to recover 50% on the kelly property shaheen cutler obrien liar liar we are going to develop fino land liar liar we need the town to pay for our nextel phones but we won`t use them for confrence calls that can`t be traced when shaheen gets through with sticking it to mendon after selling his timber and developing his land we shall see who has the last laugh i`ve watched this incestous crap for thirty years unless you get involved it will never change one who knows
chief chief needs the tonka garage with power lift for all his toys just think he must have been deprived as a boy with matchbox cars and tonka toys he keeps acquiring all sorts of new stuff such as golf carts atvs motorcycles police cars shiny red trucks suvs now he wants us to pay 8+ million to house them wicked pissa
Grants pay for the motorcycles, the pick-up truck, and the ATVs. Why don't you stop talking about stuff you don't know about?
The first thing you do is find a media outlet and spread your misinformation, and next thing you know people begin believing it because they read it over and over and over. That's what happened in Nazi Germany.
Every story has two sides. I had hoped that these blogs would present both, but they have just degenerated into name calling, innuendo and some outright lies.
Well we asked for some back-up for the facts on the pesticide issue and we got reassurances but know documents posted.
We see that one side doesn't like Ernie.(After being encited by Kevin on the other blog)
The other side can write their name and hates people attacking Ernie.(The old fire dept staff and town moderator are ok to attack though)
Now back to focus.....
Do you think the safety building is the best solution for this town?
Do the costs seem justified?
I urge everyone to go vote tonight on how you feel about this proposal.
I will be voting NO.
The comparison to Nazi Germany is a pathetic comparison at best. Their seems to be a lot of questions here unanswered and the rest are opinions here not facts.
ANYONYMOUS SAID: "The first thing you do is find a media outlet and spread your misinformation, and next thing you know people begin believing it because they read it over and over and over." That's exactly what Ernie and the BOS did to the former fire department members. They bashed them at every turn in every media outlet until their poison was perceived as truth. Interesting you should use that analogy. I guess it's only a viable option when it can further your agenda.
Perhaps some truth to the statement that "Every story has two sides. I had hoped that these blogs would present both, but they have just degenerated into name calling, innuendo and some outright lies". However, this is is to be expected when none of the Mendon officials contribute to the conversation. This forum could be used by the officials to educate the citizens that voted them in. This could also be used as a platform for those with their name on the ballot. Need we remind you that you represent us and you have accountability to us? If you have info to provide.....it's your obligation to do so. Any GOOD official will usually accommodate. Try sending Marie Parente an email sometime.......
Simply stated...I can't support something that will cost as much as this does, won't accommodate our current assets and is larger and more expensive than it needs to be. There is a better solution. Our elected need to find it.
Where is the other blog?
The other blog is here:
http://www.mendoncommentary.blogspot.com/
Enjoy!
The cost of the Mendon PS Building is $316 per square foot.
"These contaminants detected in the soil may present a risk to human health and the environment and therefore, a full risk assessment must be conducted...prior to development of these properties.."
Is this included in the square footage cost???
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