City of Foley Opens New Public Works Campus
Alabama city cuts ribbon on a new facility to house its public works fleet operations.
Source: City of Foley ↗
An Alabama city whose municipal fleet has grown from 142 to 520 vehicles opened a $17 million public works campus July 27, replacing a facility that has served Foley since 1991.
Mayor Ralph Hellmich framed the scale of the change directly. “When this old one was built, the population of Foley was 7,300,” Hellmich said. “We now have more than 30,000 residents. The public works staff has grown from 25 employees to over 100 people in these facilities. The fleet expanded from 142 vehicles to 520 vehicles.”
The 14-acre Foley Public Works Campus at the intersection of North Poplar Street and East Section Avenue comprises five buildings housing the Public Works, Engineering, Sanitation and Street departments. A garage area of approximately 16,000 square feet supports maintenance of the full municipal fleet, which includes public works vehicles, police and fire units, and cars and trucks from other city departments.
All five buildings are rated to withstand winds up to 160 miles per hour, and two natural gas generators will sustain operations through electrical outages. Hellmich said the hardened site gives the city a staging point before and after storms. “We now have a place for our employees to be safely housed during a storm, so they can get back out and get it cleaned up quickly afterward,” he said. Fuel storage capacity at the new campus extends the city’s on-hand supply from just over seven days to three to four weeks.
Hellmich said the previous site could no longer accommodate the service growth of recent years. “Public Works now maintains more than 40 miles of sidewalks alone, expanded streets and drainage,” he said. “We now have dedicated drainage crews, tree trimming crews, and road building crews. All of that has been done in the last few years because of the needs of our city.” City officials expect the new campus to meet Foley’s public works needs for the next 30 to 40 years.
Foley’s sanitation operation runs five trucks on four-day routes, collecting residential garbage from 23,000 green cans each week. Approximately 40 percent of Foley households participate in the city’s recyclables collection program. The city did not disclose the funding source for the $17 million project.
