ROCHELLE — On Tuesday, the City of Rochelle and Rochelle Municipal Utilities held a ribbon cutting for their new operations campus at 1030 S. 7th St. The facility houses RMU’s electric and water crews and the city’s engineering department.

The city purchased the building from Johnson Tractor in June 2021 and has been working to create a shared campus for its utility and engineering teams since. The facility combined departments to create synergies and increased collaboration in an effort to provide a better experience for residents and customers.

RMU Superintendent of Electric Operations Blake Toliver said the building has undergone two rounds of improvements to fit it to RMU’s needs. The city paid $1.3 million for the building in 2021. Engineering for the second phase cost $158,500. The total budgeted amount for the project was $900,000. The city council approved a $251,984 change order for the renovation work in March.

Toliver said the second phase of improvements included the addition of locker room and break room areas, an office expansion, drainage improvements, the addition of water services, and changing door configurations for easier access to equipment. 

“There's been quite a bit that's gone into this second round of improvements to the building,” Toliver said. “We're collectively proud of how far this building has come since we purchased it. For anyone that was in it when it was Johnson Tractor, you'd know there's been some major changes in this building since we took ownership.”

Toliver thanked the city council and City Manager Jeff Fiegenschuh for their support of the project and contractors Larson & Larson Builders and architects Willett, Hofmann & Associates for their work. He also thanked RMU employees for their patience during the renovations. 

“They were displaced for a long period of time,” Toliver said. “There were multiple break room shifts and moving from building to building as the construction progressed. We're finally all back in the same building and everybody is getting settled in.  We thought it was an appropriate time to do a ribbon cutting and let everybody else see what we've accomplished down here.”

Toliver said the main office area upon entering the building saw the addition of five offices and a collaborative workspace in the center. A kitchen, bathroom and copy room were added in the first renovations to the building. A main desk area features computers for timesheets, work orders and training along with a message board and screens for supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) of RMU electric and water systems.

Fiegenschuh spoke at the ribbon cutting and thanked the mayor and council members for their support for the project and city and RMU employees for carrying it out. 

“We've owned it for three years,” Fiegenschuh said. “It's taken some time to get to this point. I want to thank all of the staff that worked out here because I can't imagine working in an environment where things are shifting and changing and you're trying to do your job and there's noise and everything else. Thank you all for your patience. This is our forever home. It's a great facility and I appreciate everybody's support.”

Mayor John Bearrows spoke at the event as well and said he’s excited about how it has and will improve RMU’s service. RMU line crews previously worked out of a facility between the train tracks in Rochelle which occasionally saw trains stuck on both tracks. 

“I really feel like the most important thing that happened as a result of this was the service to our customers,” Bearrows said. “Our linemen staff previously could have been between the railroad tracks where they could get stuck between trains. This solves that problem and creates better service for our customers. We talk about our outage downtime and recovery time and this helps with that. We can be proud of this. People who are customers of bigger electric utilities may wait a lot longer to get their power back on. I just want to say thanks to all the staff at RMU because we take great pride in the service we provide our residents.”