Friday, October 30, 2009

Outsourcing Municipal Building Departments

SAFEbuilt Partners with the City of Northglenn

to provide building department services

SAFEbuilt, the state’s leading provider of building department services for public agencies, has entered into an agreement with the City of Northglenn to provide all building department related services. The new contract takes effect immediately.

A public open house is being held on Tuesday, November 17, from 8:00 – 10:00 am at the City of Northglenn Maintenance and Operations Facility, 12301 Claude Court. Northglenn residents and the building community are welcome to come and meet SAFEbuilt team members and ask any questions.

On October 8, Northglenn City Council unanimously approved the recommendation to outsource the building department and agreed the change would benefit the city by saving money, transferring risk, and providing access to a wider experience and knowledge base.

“Although city staff has worked diligently to reduce costs, the economic downturn continues to impact revenue. Therefore, the option to outsource this department is a viable and a fiscally responsible alternative,” said City Manager William Simmons.

SAFEbuilt will be providing a building official, combination inspector, and a full-time permit technician to serve as a direct contact with the citizen’s of Northglenn.

Building Official Eric Pendley is an International Code Council (ICC) certified building official, plans examiner and building inspector. He has been in the building services industry for nearly 10 years.

“Our team is looking forward to working with the community of Northglenn,” says Pendley. “We partner with many communities across the State of Colorado and in addition to making customer service a priority, we already have many efficiencies built in our process to ensure consistency and to contribute to safe built communities.”

SAFEbuilt provides full-service building department services, building code plan reviews, complete project support and building code inspections for cities, towns, counties and state agencies. Government agencies often look to contract all or part of the building department function because fixed costs can be converted to variable costs.

SAFEbuilt’s corporate office is in Loveland, Colorado, with operations throughout Colorado, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana and Washington and has 60 employees. In 2008, SAFEbuilt supported over $1.5 billion in residential and commercial building valuations, performed 5,125 plan reviews and approximately 85,000 inspections.

Barry Kramer is SAFEbuilt’s Colorado Operations Manager and questions around the transition of building department services in the City of Northglenn should be directed to him. He can be reached at 970-567-0267 or bkramer@safebuilt.com.

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