Facilities, Grounds and Cemeteries opens new administrative offices

posted on: 12/28/2020

Beginning Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2020, the administrative offices of the Facilities, Grounds and Cemetery Division of Community Services will be located at its new headquarters at 145 Court St.

Those seeking to schedule funeral services or have other cemetery related questions should either visit 145 Court Street or call Facilities, Grounds and Cemetery (FC&G) administrative offices at 516-6480. Other FC&G administrative inquires, such as tree complaints, should also be directed to the new administrative offices.

FG&C is responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of four city cemeteries, the interior and exterior of 21 city buildings and facilities, 20 public parks, traffic signage, and maintenance of traffic signals at 31 intersections. Since the 1990s, FC&G has used Ricker Memorial Chapel and a nearby building for operations. It has also utilized the 1888 receiving tomb for dry storage.

The new, 12,000-square-foot FG&C building is built at the eastern edge of Pine Hill Cemetery, accessed at 145 Court Street. The entrance is located near the Back Road, Court Street and Middle Road intersection. Construction of the $2 million building began in February. The project was added to the six-year Capital Improvements Program (CIP) in fiscal year 2019. The project went out to bid in the spring of 2019, and the City Council selected Careno Construction as the winning bidder in July of 2019.

The need for new FG&C office space dates to at least the 2000 update to the Master Plan's Community Facilities and Utilities Chapter, where it stated the FG&C buildings had "far exceeded their useful life cycles." The 2009 Chapter reported the buildings as "substandard" and that "a new or replacement facility should be considered a priority." The 2018 Facilities, Grounds and Cemeteries Master Plan found the buildings "in poor condition and both spatially and functionally" but "architecturally interesting and worthy of renovation."

Through the CIP planning process, there are plans to rehabilitate and return the Ricker Memorial Chapel to its original use: funeral services. Design work began this fall with design work with anticipation of bidding and construction to start next summer. There are also plans to renovate the 1888 receiving tomb so it can be a cremation mausoleum.

The Ricker Memorial Chapel was a gift to the City from Mary Abby (Ham) Ricker, who died in 1906 and left money in her will to construct the chapel in memory of her daughter, Mary Edith "Mamie" (Ricker) Gallagher, who died in 1895. It fell out of use as area funeral homes began offering similar services, according to city history, and fell in disrepair. The City made repairs in 1967, including the addition of a heating source. After many years of being vacant, FG&C began using it as an administrative office in the 1990s. The brick tomb mausoleum was built in 1888 to store the bodies of those who died during the winter months when the ground was too frozen for burials.

For more information about the new building, contact Community Services' Facilities, Grounds and Cemeteries Division at 516-6480.