Arnold will update the elevators in City Hall and in the Police Department and repair damage at the clubhouse and golf cart garage at Pomme Creek Park, which previously was a golf course.
The city will pay Ascent Elevators of St. Louis $290,000 to replace nearly all of the elevators’ control systems, and the city will pay Mills Construction of St. Louis $30,150.81 to repair the roofs on the park buildings that were damaged by a tornado in March. Dave Crutchley, Parks and Recreation Department director, said the city’s insurance will cover the cost for the roof repairs, adding that the insurance company approved hiring Mills Construction.
City Clerk Tammi Casey said Ascent was the only company to bid on the elevator project. Arnold had budgeted $275,000 to modernize the elevators when the 2025-2026 budget was approved in August.
James Pogorzelski, interim Public Works director, said a meeting was scheduled for Wednesday, after the Leader deadline, to schedule the elevator updates.
Crutchley said work at Pomme Creek Park started Nov. 14, and the roofs were expected to be completed this week.
City Council members voted 7-0 on Nov. 6 in separate votes to approve the two projects. Ward 1 Councilman EJ Fleischmann was absent from the meeting.
Elevators
Bill Lehmann, Arnold’s finance director, said the elevators are original to the municipal building, which was built in 1989. The building, at 2101 Jeffco Blvd., is home to City Hall and the Arnold Police Station.
In March, Arnold paid $18,151 to fix the elevator on the City Hall side of the building.
“Earlier this year, we had to shut down the City Hall elevator unexpectedly,” Lehmann told the council Nov. 6. “It cost $18,000 to repair. The money is an issue, and so is the lack of access, especially for ADA reasons. It was decided that this has been on our budget planning process for two to three years to basically wholesale, not the car or the shaft, it is primarily the electronics and other components to bring them up to date.”
Pogorzelski said it took six weeks to have a new circuit board and main leveling valve installed for the elevator.
“It is an old system,” he said. “The parts are limited. The parts are getting hard to find, and they are outdated.”
Ascent will not replace the elevator cars or shafts, but it will install modern operating equipment.
According to council documents, the control and leveling systems, hydraulic power units, door operating controls, clutches, electronic safety edges, interlocks, closers, car and hoistway hangers and rollers, toe guards, pit ladders, operating panels, directional lanterns, communication devices, hall call stations, wiring, conductors, traveling cables, piping, troughing, and operating switches and devices will be replaced in both elevators.
Pogorzelski said it is expected to take about 18 weeks for the parts to be delivered, and the modernization project is expected to take about nine weeks to complete.
The elevator in City Hall goes from the basement to the second floor, but the Police Department’s elevator only travels from the basement to the building’s main floor.
Pogorzelski said Ascent is expected to only work on one elevator at a time, and people are able to enter and exit through locked doors on the main floor between City Hall and the Police Station. However, when the City Hall elevator is being worked on, the top floor will only be accessible by stairs.
City Administrator Anthony Traxler, who started working for Arnold on Oct. 30, said it is time to modernize the elevators.
“I have been in it when it jumps around a little bit,” he said. “It has reached the point of obsolescence. They are replacing all of the electrical components, but they are keeping the car and things of that nature. There is definitely a need for it.”
Pomme Creek Park
The roof, four skylights, siding, gutters and downspouts will be replaced on the clubhouse, and the roof, gutters and downspouts will be replaced on the garage at Pomme Creek Park, 1 Golfview Drive off Jeffco Boulevard, according to council documents.
The buildings were damaged when a March 14 tornado touched down near Clayton Huskey Road north of Hillsboro and went into Arnold. The tornado traveled 25.3 miles with a maximum wind speed of 115 mph, according to the National Weather Service’s St. Louis office.
Crutchley said it took eight months to schedule the repairs because the city first had damage done to the roof of the bathroom at Ferd B. Lang Park, 1820 Old Lemay Ferry Road, fixed, and it was difficult to schedule companies to look at the damage to turn in proposals to the insurance company.
“Everyone was busy, and we took care of the bathrooms first,” he said. “It took a while to get companies out there to get a price on it. There are still a lot of homes being repaired in Arnold.”
Crutchley said the city has primarily used the clubhouse and garage for storage since closing the golf course in 2019. He also said the clubhouse’s restrooms are still in use, and the building is used during the annual Pocus Pomme event in October and during the Little Kickers soccer program that are held in the park.
In 2007, the city bought the golf course, which before that had operated since 1992 as the privately-owned Pomme Creek Golf Course. The city paid $3.15 million for the property, buying it from Arnold accountant and developer Dan Jones. The city spent nearly $900,000 to improve the clubhouse at that time.
Along with that initial nearly $4 million investment, the city paid $3,013,598 to operate the golf course during the past 12 years, city officials have said.
Crutchley said the city needed to repair the buildings because the structures are still in good condition, and the clubhouse and garage may be modified to allow for more frequent use.
“There is nothing wrong with them,” he said of the clubhouse and garage. “If we don’t keep up with them, we won’t have a choice and have to tear them down. They are in good condition. We don’t want them to start deteriorating and falling apart because I think there is a use for them.”
Crutchley said Arnold still needs to replace a fence near the back of Ferd B. Lang. He said the fence line was damaged by trees that fell during the tornado.
“Half of the fence was torn down,” he said. “That is a job in itself, literally every section of it has trees and vines growing through it. That will be a job probably toward the end of winter. We will need to cut all of that vegetation back and put a new fence up.”