Ribbon cut on new Brentwood municipal building

Brentwood officials, accompanied by state and Allegheny County leaders, cut the ribbon to their new borough building.

A celebration of a near decade’s worth of planning took place July 22 as doors to the 10,000 square-foot building at 3735 Brownsville Road were ceremoniously opened to the public.

“There were a lot of decisions going into this,” council president Howard Smith said. “A lot of iterations if you will. It’s amazing that we were able to get this structure built … This is a great place to live. It’s nice that everyone made it out tonight and we couldn’t ask for a more beautiful evening.”

Rev. John Barker of Brentwood Presbyterian Church delivered the invocation. The church shares a parking lot with the new building, meaning about eight feet of roadway separates church and state in the borough.

“Bottom line is we help each other when it counts,” councilman Bob Pasquantonio said. “We’ve had our disagreements one time or another, but when it’s all said and done we get the job done. That’s so important. The process is more important than any of us, and I appreciate you all.”

Mayor Dennis Troy said the old building just several doors down on the opposite side of Brownsville Road was more than 100 years old and had a variety of problems – cracks in the walls, broken and uneven stairs, a broken boiler and no heat and “critters” would be found waiting for workers to arrive to name a few. Some employees had their offices deemed “uninhabitable” and were forced to move to new office spaces.

Troy said staffers relocated to the new facility in December and there has been a noticeable uptick in morale and productivity.

The new building has motion-sensing and timed lighting, upgraded security cameras, times security locks, updated phone systems and new sound and video systems with the ability to livestream council meetings.

The original plan was to have doors open by June 2020, but things changed due to the pandemic as construction was delayed several months.

Brentwood borrowed approximately $7 million in 2018 to pay for the municipal building project and renovations to the pool. A five-year financial projection shows no need to raise taxes over that time span.

In late 2017, Brentwood purchased the condemned former Snee Dairy Building and demolished the structure to make way for its new borough building.

Officials broke ground for new construction May 2, 2019.

The original construction contract was for about $4.51 million. Actual costs ended up around $6.36 million due to unforeseen site remediation such as asbestos removal in the concrete flooring of the former dairy company.

Troy said the estimated $19.2 million sale of the borough sewer lines to Pennsylvania American Water will pay for the building project as well as other debt. Brentwood is expected to close on the deal by the end of the year.

Borough officials hope to eventually demolish the former borough building and redevelop the site for retail, office space and market-rate residential apartments.

Those plans are not expected to come to fruition for a while as the EMS department still calls it home.

EMS deputy chief of operations John Balkovec said there ended up not being enough space in the new borough building for the ambulance company. It will lease space in the old site for the time being.

“The borough’s working with us,” Balkovec said. “There’s a lot to iron out. We’re looking for property or something to build a new station in. (So far) all brainstorming ideas. We have to come up with financing.”

The EMS company has 22 people on staff.