City owned site to become training area for DPW

An overhead view of 1300 Cleveland Avenue showing where the training area would be. Residential properties are north of the site.

A city-owned industrial site in a residential neighborhood is about to become a training site forpublic works workers. 

The city council Tuesday approved the city using 1300 Cleveland Avenue as a training site for new workers in the Department of Public Works. 

Public Works Director Eric Lindman told the city that right now, there aren’t many great places for the department to train staff, and that means they need to train on the job. That’s a problem because mistakes on a job site can be costly. Using 1300 Cleveland Avenue as a training site would allow those workers to train without any mistakes costing the city money. 

The city-owned property, which once housed the city’s business incubator, saw some controversy when the city requested proposals for the site. City Council Members such as Tom Kilian at the time said the site hadn’t received enough environmental testing and ultimately the city council opted to do more testing on the site before trying to market it. 

Some council members raised concerns about disruption to the neighborhood, but industrial uses are already going on at the site and the spot they would train is quite far away from any houses, so it shouldn’t be a problem, city staff said. Training would also only be during the day.