Written by the reviewer from the ASR + docket; [verbatim-ASR] = quoted machine transcript; [paraphrase] = reviewer's wording, not a quote.
0:02 We will call Committee of the Whole to order.
0:08 First I will move to approve the minutes of the February 9th Committee of the Whole without
0:12 the necessity of reading.
0:14 Motion's been made and seconded.
0:20 And that motion passes.
0:22 So tonight our main objectives for this evening, we have all of the bonds, notes, legislation
0:32 that, you know, the finance department and our bond council has asked that we, whichever,
0:41 whatever we're adopting, that we get it done by the next full council meeting, which
0:44 is our next meeting in March, which means we need to get it out of Committee of the
0:50 So that's our main work tonight.
0:54 So on the docket we have all of the bond legislation, and then we also will be getting
1:00 a presentation planning, obviously.
1:05 So what I want to make sure we do is save some time.
1:09 Assistant Director Boss, how long do you think your presentation is?
1:14 I'm going to try to keep it at like 10, 15 minutes or less.
1:20 So that'll give us time to deliberate about the ordinances as well as if anyone has questions
1:28 about any of the other bonds, ordinances, besides the City Hall stuff.
1:34 So with that, I will turn it over, I'm assuming, to Assistant Director Boss.
1:50 Madam President, members of the council, thank you again for allowing me to come before you
2:06 and walk you through what I've got and what you've got in front of you is really
2:12 slides 13, 14, and 15, but if it's okay, I'm just going to jump to here.
2:33 If you remember from last time we left off at this slide, slide 12, it's just kind
2:39 of the basic analysis of alternatives eliminating status quo, option one and option three with
2:45 the community health center.
2:47 So it really leaves us down to option two and option three.
2:51 So what I wanted to do was hopefully just recap some things, provide some additional
2:58 perspective, then stop talking and let, answer questions and further deliberate.
3:06 Because again, this is a broad high level scope kind of view at it and it's really,
3:11 it's a view to what's the end, what's the end state that we're shooting towards.
3:15 There are lots of ways that you can get here and we can talk about all those different
3:19 ways of getting here, but ultimately what is the end state that we're working towards.
3:27 So slide 13 and I'll just go kind of top to bottom down here and I wanted to provide
3:36 you the hard copies there because I know they can be hard to see on the screen.
3:42 So as we reviewed last week, for priority one, which is providing the police and
3:47 courts the increase of renovated space to meet their needs, both options work.
3:52 I think one of the few, the only change to the previous slides that I made was on
3:58 the assumptions and I added another assumption just based on our discussion
4:02 last time and further thought was that we talked about and I wanted to assume
4:08 just in planning that the council offices currently on the first floor in
4:12 that lobby, they do need to move in order to create the space for that lobby.
4:18 Now they can stay in this building, they could move to another building,
4:21 that's all part of the planning process, but I added that to an assumption.
4:27 But for priority two, looking at that, you know, while achieving priority one,
4:31 consolidating and improving the functionality of the administrative
4:34 apartments, I'll just walk down kind of through the criteria there from top
4:40 So we talked about departmental location and functional space and I know that
4:45 there's concern about the additional space in the Board of Ed building
4:49 under option three versus the kind of flex space under option two.
4:55 So that additional space, that flexibility, I view that as an advantage of that
5:03 There are and there will be, regardless of the direction that you go, you
5:08 know, the Weber Murphy Fox space study, it was a snapshot in time.
5:16 So any design effort, once you actually get into the detailed architectural
5:21 design effort of trying to determine space requirement things, you need that
5:26 inherent flexibility and adaptability to go back through each department,
5:31 talk to the new people, some departments have gotten bigger like ours,
5:35 some departments have stayed the same, but it's going to be another re-
5:39 baseline of functional space requirements.
5:42 Now, in the assumption, I provided kind of that minimum for the administration
5:47 of just to allow us to kind of objectively look at each of these options.
5:51 So, but that may flex up, it may flex down, I have a feeling it's going to
5:56 flex up just when you start thinking about things and the other thing that
6:00 was not included in any of those FIT studies was storage space.
6:05 There was no IT space in either new building.
6:10 And then there's the decision that has to be made about where is council
6:15 offices and the auditorium going to be.
6:18 So in my view, looking at this, flex space is an advantage and having more
6:24 space is an advantage.
6:27 When you look at option two, it is more limited because obviously if you
6:32 want to include more space, you have to create a larger addition on the
6:36 front of the building.
6:39 How large that is, I can't tell you.
6:42 I will show you a guesstimate here in a little bit of what just one kind of in
6:48 terms of looking at cost, a size that might be within that range.
6:54 But just staying within the option two right now, you're locked into not a
6:58 lot of adaptability with the administration all on the third floor.
7:02 And any changes that you make to that to try to accommodate any design
7:06 flexibility or things that come up in that design process is going to take away
7:10 from police and further complicate that design effort of having the
7:14 administration maybe not on the third floor, maybe it's on the third and the
7:18 How do people flow through it?
7:19 Or people have to now flow through the police department to get
7:23 It just becomes more complex unless you make a larger and larger addition
7:27 on the front of the building.
7:30 And that obviously as it cascades down through these other criteria adds
7:34 complexity, it adds time, it adds cost, all of those things.
7:40 In terms of points of service, we talked last time option three is the one right
7:45 now that consolidates the administration into one building.
7:49 Option two retains the annex.
7:50 It retains those two points of service.
7:53 It's part of the staff surveys that went into that.
7:54 I know there's lots of folks that work in finance and the water and the
7:58 tax building that don't like being at the annex.
8:00 They want to be consolidated.
8:01 They want to be in that one location.
8:04 And again, the only way to rectify that, and that's what I put under here, I'm
8:07 just calling option 2A.
8:09 2A would be the larger addition on the front of the building.
8:14 So the only way to accommodate that is through 2A.
8:18 And that, again, you can design that.
8:20 You can design a larger building in order to divest the annex.
8:24 But as you start talking about the next one in terms of parking, and we
8:28 talked about the complexity and the demands at both locations for parking.
8:35 Option three does provide an advantage, and objectively it accommodates that same demand
8:42 across two different sites.
8:44 So it distributes the demand across two sites.
8:48 Option two and option 2A would retain all that parking demand on this location.
8:54 And if you went to 2A and you divested the annex, you're losing that parking lot.
8:59 And even though it's only a handful of spaces, it is a handful of visitor spaces
9:04 and some employee spaces that would then have to be accommodated on this site.
9:09 So you're trying to accommodate the same parking demand with fewer spaces.
9:14 So objectively, it's not as much of an advantage as option three.
9:20 And then the last line of time, complexity, and then getting into costs and sustainability.
9:26 Both options will require some form of temporary relocation.
9:30 It just has to happen through the construction process.
9:34 You got to move folks out in order to start working on spaces either way.
9:39 Option three involves the renovation of two existing buildings.
9:44 Option two involves the renovation of an existing building along with new construction
9:49 and an addition on an existing building.
9:51 Again, two, 2A, all depends on size.
9:55 There are complexity, time, and sustainability implications between, you know,
10:01 adaptive reuse of existing buildings, new construction.
10:05 There's unknowns with new construction in terms of, you know,
10:10 once you start breaking ground in front of this building, what's there?
10:14 What's there that we don't know about?
10:16 And I mentioned last time all the unknowns that we found just in about a 20-foot space
10:23 on Lakewood Heights at Winterhurst in terms
10:25 of when you start breaking ground, how many unknown things you find.
10:30 There are obvious differences in terms of cost per square foot
10:32 between new construction and renovation.
10:34 I'm going to talk a little bit about cost, but those are just some of the kind of, again,
10:39 top-level considerations as you kind of work your way down through the criteria
10:45 that we've laid out for this prior priority.
10:47 The timeline at the bottom, that is, again, that's Weber Murphy Fox's estimates
10:53 that I've just put on a timeline to show you.
10:58 So that is eight months of design.
11:00 Is it going to take eight months of design?
11:03 That's what they estimated.
11:04 That's what I have right now in front of you.
11:07 Again, the only consideration I put under, you look at option two, is that,
11:12 and we know from our own experience, any time you add on to a building,
11:16 you add on boards and commissions.
11:18 Renovating the interior of a building does not necessarily require ABR to review that.
11:23 Adding on to the exterior of a building requires ABR review, could require variances
11:29 from the Board of Zoning Appeals any time you change the footprint of the building.
11:32 I'm just throwing that out there.
11:34 It's additional things, an additional consideration of when you go
11:37 from renovating an existing building to adding on to a building could add on time,
11:44 and that's part of that complexity that I talked about.
11:47 But you can see just the inherent differences between new construction
11:50 and the estimates for renovation.
11:53 Their current estimate for the renovations are shown there,
11:56 and that accommodates the design, renovation, and then both of the green
12:01 is a transition or that shifting from the temporary locations
12:04 and then getting everybody back into their new locations there.
12:07 So I jump to the next slide.
12:13 We'll talk a little bit about cost.
12:17 So what I have here is just the Weber-Murphy Fox and the PMC numbers
12:22 that I believe you've all seen before in those documents that came through,
12:26 I don't know how many months ago, when we looked at this.
12:30 So what I've tried to do is I'm calling this a scope of cost.
12:34 This is a high-level range of when you have any time you got more
12:38 than one person doing estimates, you start getting into a range of costs
12:43 to try to compare a range of costs between these two options,
12:46 and then take a stab as best I can to provide what would be the cost difference
12:52 under an option 2A or a larger addition,
12:55 what would be that increase in terms of scope.
12:59 So looking at option 2, as you start in that table on the bottom right,
13:02 just working your way from top to bottom.
13:05 Option 2, we had estimates from both consultants.
13:09 Weber-Murphy Fox and PMC, they both did an estimate, same scope.
13:14 It was that 5,400-square-foot addition on the front of the building.
13:18 You got a range from 25.5 to 30.9 million dollars for that option.
13:27 Now what would 2A look like?
13:29 Now what I did to get to 2A, I tried to keep it as simple as possible
13:34 just to give a scope of, you know, we know it's going to cost more
13:38 when you increase the size of an addition, but how much more,
13:41 and what is that in terms of this very high-level scope of cost look at.
13:46 What I did was I took that space at the annex that was
13:50 in the Weber-Murphy Fox, it's like it's 4,700-some square feet.
13:55 It's the second like group as you go down.
14:01 They accounted for that space in the annex to be renovated at a rate
14:04 of like 167-some dollars per square feet.
14:11 So it was a cost of about 790,000 dollars.
14:14 So what I did was I subtracted that because you're not going
14:17 to do that anymore.
14:18 We're going to divest the annex and we want to build a bigger addition.
14:21 So I took that cost out from that, I think it was the 25.5, subtracted that,
14:31 and then took that space requirement for the annex and added it
14:35 to the addition to get a new footprint.
14:47 But what I can tell you is that it adds the space requirement
14:51 from the annex that we were going to renovate into the new addition.
14:55 So you could bring all those folks over and accommodate those needs
14:59 with some design flexibility and some potential adaptation room in the future.
15:05 Because it's a three-floor building, that adds the size of that footprint
15:10 to the first floor, the second floor, and the third floor.
15:12 So it does provide more space for police,
15:15 which was something that we were looking for.
15:18 But it gives you a new footprint of that addition of just over 10,000 square feet.
15:24 So it's roughly, it would be roughly about twice the size
15:27 of that addition that was proposed.
15:29 So again, is it too small, is it too big?
15:32 It's an estimate to provide you a scope that would show if you wanted
15:37 to build an addition on the front that would most likely accommodate all
15:42 of the needs so that you could divest the annex.
15:45 You take that additional square footage and I use the new construction
15:51 per square footage rate, trying to keep this as simple as possible.
15:55 You end up with a cost increase of about $7 million
16:00 that you could add on to that cost.
16:03 So that, again, this is like fifth grade level scope.
16:10 You end up with a range of a larger addition of about 32 to, I'm sorry,
16:18 I can't, it's almost 38 or 37 million dollars.
16:23 So somewhere in there, again, high level scope of cost, throw it on the wall
16:31 to see what a larger addition may add to that scope.
16:35 Option three, we have the numbers from PMC and then we have a number
16:40 from Liberty, obviously there's a range there.
16:45 So PMC looked at the renovating all of City Hall, a light renovation,
16:51 so you're assuming the administration is moving out, $15.5 million
16:55 to renovate all three floors for the court and the police.
17:00 And then there was the estimated cost to renovate the Board of Ed building
17:04 from both PMC and from Liberty.
17:07 So that provides us another range there, 32 to roughly $39 million.
17:14 So when you kind of line those things up, if we're trying to do the same things
17:19 that I talked about in the previous slide, it's pointing you towards an option 2A
17:25 of a larger addition to accommodate the space that you need to divest the annex,
17:30 consolidate the points of service all down,
17:33 albeit there's challenges with parking and everything else I talked about there.
17:39 From a high level, from the moon range of, or a scope of cost,
17:46 you're roughly at 32 to 37, $39 million for either option.
17:53 That's just from looking at the numbers that were presented.
17:56 So take it at face value.
18:00 So I will wrap up and summarize here.
18:04 It just, it's been a lot of information.
18:07 There's a lot of information in these slides.
18:08 That's why this slide deck just kind of builds on itself.
18:11 I don't take slides out.
18:12 They're all there for your review.
18:16 Objectively, when you look at this, from my standpoint,
18:20 you look at the criterion advantages, the timeframe,
18:25 and that very high level scope of cost, I believe that option 3 still,
18:31 it provides you more advantages than either option 2 or 2A.
18:36 That is looking at it objectively.
18:39 From a subjective standpoint, and I know you've heard this from other folks before,
18:45 I also concur and I believe option 3, it is a opportunity, whatever you want to call it,
18:51 and I'm not into hyperbole, but how many times in the history of the city has you had
18:57 to have the opportunity to shift City Hall to a new location?
19:01 They've done it once.
19:02 They've done it from Lakewood Park to here.
19:05 Arguably a generational opportunity to take City Hall and move it,
19:12 consolidating all of its administrative functions in one location in the heart
19:16 of the city, not someplace that's a mile from the center of the city,
19:21 that's further away from two-thirds or three-quarters
19:24 of the residents of the city from everybody else.
19:27 You have the opportunity to centrally locate this City Hall.
19:32 You have the opportunity to create a contemporary justice center,
19:36 reusing and adaptively reusing this building.
19:39 Those are the subjective, tugging at your heart, reasons.
19:44 Objectively, though, going back through all these slides, I tried my best to kind
19:48 of lay that stuff out, and the numbers are there, and again, it's a high-level comparison.
19:56 So I feel like this comparison would stand up to if you wanted to dive deeper into 2A,
20:05 nothing about the criteria that we reviewed is going to change unless you build
20:09 that addition on top of a parking garage.
20:12 You're not going to add spaces to this in terms of parking.
20:17 There's lots of ways that you can skin that cat, but I believe that this comparison,
20:21 this analysis would stand up to any kind of modifications of 2 or 2A.
20:27 It is simply a locational thing.
20:29 There are physical limitations about this location, and that's objectively why
20:35 that I will recommend option three.
20:37 So I will stop there.
20:40 If you have any questions, I appreciate your time.
20:48 We appreciate you putting all this together.
20:50 This is the, I think, kind of data-based analysis that we were initially looking for,
20:56 so it's helpful to have.
20:58 Councilmembers, questions?
21:01 Councilmember Striebeck?
21:05 Thank you, Mr. Boss, for all this information.
21:07 This is very good and very helpful.
21:09 And I did have a chance to look at the slides today, and at one point,
21:12 I saw something about the administrative square footage being lower than what they have here,
21:20 and I'm not sure where that was, but I just wanted to make sure that that was consistent
21:24 with the surveys of the employees that were held.
21:29 But I don't think, I don't know that I saw any of those surveys.
21:33 We get those are, when we talk to department chairs and say, all right,
21:41 Director Mahoney, what kind of space do you think you're going to need in the next 10 years?
21:46 And we see that in order to fit everybody into the new Board of Education building,
21:53 that they're going to end up with less space.
21:55 And I just wanted to make sure that those numbers jibed
21:58 with what we're seeing with the surveys.
22:01 That's my understanding, Councilmember, is that, so this was the slide when I originally went back
22:07 through the alternative versus priority one.
22:09 And what you can see in that, the central line, the administrative department line,
22:13 that's the function, like the functional offices, rooms, meeting spaces that was called out.
22:19 That is in the Weber-Murphy Fox space study that was based on the surveys that they did
22:25 with the administrative heads and the members of each department.
22:29 Yeah, actually, this is the exact one I was looking at because it looks
22:32 like we're losing quite a bit of space.
22:35 308, obviously, and I think that's what I talked about last time, is there's this wide range
22:41 of functional spaces between even the same consultant looking at the same requirements.
22:47 Obviously, when you squeeze it, you know, the administration on the one floor
22:51 of this building, you go from option one to option two, so there's less space.
22:56 They're trying to do their best to fit it out there.
22:58 The 18308, I think, is closer to, and there was interviews and a fifth study done
23:04 by Liberty as well as over at Murphy Fox for the Board of Ed building, again,
23:09 informed by the interviews with departments and folks, and I think that was literally
23:15 because they were looking at, as that fit plan had, there was anticipating a lot
23:21 of kind of an adaptation and flex into that space, but they made the best efforts,
23:25 I think, to apply it to the first and the second floors of that building,
23:28 not necessarily the basement of that building.
23:30 Some past plans we've seen that they used some of that basement space,
23:36 but this was the most recent one, I think, that you all saw, and so that's why,
23:41 through this process, looking at that variance, I had to make that assumption of saying
23:45 that given all this, I think it was 19,600 was kind of the minimum floor
23:51 that we were looking for to get out of that, just knowing that when you get
23:58 into the actual design process, people will ask for more space than what a third-party
24:05 consultant may be like, well, they can accept that, or we've gotten more employees
24:11 in our department than when this was like a year and a half ago or whatever,
24:15 and so that's why I used that floor, minimum floor assumption,
24:19 and then put value on the ability to flex, if that makes sense.
24:24 And then that 18308, does that include moving the auditorium
24:31 and the city council offices there?
24:34 That leaves them here.
24:35 And that, because I, because you can do it with either option two or three,
24:39 I kind of left that out of it, and so that, yeah, that new building,
24:44 that flex space, I think that I talked about in this option, like that 17,000,
24:52 that's the majority of, you know, the basement and some other spaces
24:57 in that Board of Ed building that if you wanted to move council offices,
25:01 which in one of the earlier additions, they accommodated for council offices,
25:05 they had them in there, they had them out, it depends on,
25:08 you had that option to make that decision, either stay here or move
25:11 to a new location, and moving to a new location, that's why I've highlighted
25:16 option three, Board of Ed, is the one that has the flexibility to shift spaces
25:21 around to accommodate that, so that you could hopefully get a space
25:25 that is similar to what you have now, and you're not getting shoehorned
25:31 into a smaller, you know, hearing room or something that you feel
25:34 is not going to accommodate the number of people that you want.
25:42 Other councilmembers questions?
25:43 Councilmember Evans?
25:45 Just one question, a comment.
25:47 Can you go over again where exactly the parking for the BOE building
25:53 that you factored in is, I know some was on site, and then also just a comment
25:58 that it's been shown that there is an addition on the BOE building,
26:02 so that would have to go through boards and commissions as well.
26:05 Yeah, you're right.
26:10 So the parking I reviewed last time, and again, this is an eye chart,
26:15 but I tried to do the best to get down to some granularity.
26:20 So as you kind of work your way down through, the center,
26:24 the central column is option two, the far two columns on the right is option three
26:30 with Board of Ed and Community Health Center there.
26:33 So what I did was I did a, from what I understand, the spaces on site.
26:40 Now, the ones that are in, the numbers that are in red,
26:43 hopefully you can see that on your screens, those are in red
26:46 because they don't exist now.
26:48 They haven't been built or they haven't been designated.
26:52 The spaces on site here are in black because they exist.
26:57 And so, and then the other thing that I accounted for in these was just
27:02 like any development, any business, you can, under our parking code,
27:08 claim credit for, because we'd like to be a walkable community,
27:13 you can claim credit for municipal off-street spaces within 1,000 feet.
27:16 I know a lot of people don't like to walk 1,000 feet,
27:21 but I did want to accommodate 500 feet and 1,000 feet.
27:26 So I did a count on the municipal parking off-street spaces
27:30 that are available within 500 and within 1,000 feet.
27:35 And so this is where option three has an advantage.
27:38 It's in the heart of downtown.
27:40 There are multiple parking lots within 1,000 feet
27:43 that the city does control and issue permits for.
27:47 And if you had to, we could issue permits to employees.
27:51 We could issue permits to folks that are there, but I wanted
27:54 to accommodate those spaces because we allow others to do it.
27:59 It's part of our code.
28:00 And so that the first kind of dark box A, line A there,
28:05 gives you the total spaces in the area, that I will say,
28:08 within 1,000 feet of the site.
28:12 Board of Ed, community health center, very limited
28:15 in terms of the spaces that are on-site currently
28:22 They do accommodate.
28:24 The third line down from the top is the visitor spaces.
28:27 So currently we have 22 visitor spaces here marked
28:32 They could both accommodate 22 visitor spaces
28:36 Their lots are big enough for that.
28:38 So you could retain the same number of visitor spaces.
28:41 That visitor spaces is viewed to be, right now,
28:47 sufficient for City Hall, based on the number
28:51 I know it's a crush here.
28:55 And that's, I think, due more to employees
29:00 With few exceptions of those high-demand elections
29:04 and maybe council nights, when most of the employees
29:09 But as you work your way down from that total spaces,
29:13 line A, line B shows you the open spaces.
29:17 The biggest challenge being located in this location
29:20 with parking is that there are so many police
29:23 and service vehicles that take up those spaces.
29:26 And there's 85 spaces is what I got from both police
29:31 and from fleet in terms of the number of vehicles
29:34 that they routinely have to park in the open spaces.
29:39 So that reduces what I'm calling the estimated open spaces
29:43 in line B down to 186 for option two.
29:47 And because you don't have police or those service
29:50 vehicles permanently stationed or you wouldn't
29:53 under option three, it does not reduce the number
29:58 And then you look at the number of employees
30:00 that routinely park on a daily basis here.
30:03 And that gets you down to line C.
30:06 And so you can see that the estimated number
30:09 of employees, the administrative employees, that's 74.
30:13 The number of public works folks, the number of police
30:16 that are here on a shift, the number of council office
30:18 employees and the court employees.
30:21 So that's about 200 people competing for 186 spaces.
30:26 That's why I have a hard time finding a parking space
30:30 when I get here in the morning.
30:32 And so looking at option three,
30:37 objectively fully understand that the on-site parking
30:41 is limited, but the area parking is equivalent
30:50 And the only reason that, when we were talking
30:52 about the community health center, which I then ruled out
30:54 in a later consideration, is so high,
30:58 is because it will be adjacent to the brand new
31:03 downtown development parking garage.
31:06 That those 269 spaces that that parking garage provides,
31:11 those are the estimated number of open spaces
31:14 that are not going to be directly allocated
31:17 towards residential units in that parking garage.
31:21 So I consider that fair game.
31:25 But really focusing on Board of Ed option three,
31:28 it's the column, the option three column to the left.
31:32 191 spaces, those are the lots immediately behind
31:36 Starbucks and then the lots to the north of Detroit
31:41 behind Geiger's all the way across.
31:43 There's two lots, a lot of spaces, a lot of permits
31:47 that could be allocated towards employees
31:49 or whoever to offset the move of 74, 69 employees
31:55 to that area that you would be taking that demand
31:57 from here and moving it over to that location
32:00 and then managing it.
32:03 So hopefully that answers your question.
32:09 I just, the concern with me there is, I mean,
32:12 we have, you know, our retail and commercial spots
32:17 are, a day doesn't go by when we don't hear about parking.
32:20 And if we are gonna start allocating, you know,
32:23 a hundred some spots in our downtown retail lots
32:25 to City Hall employees, I think that's going to be
32:29 a sticking point for a lot of folks.
32:32 So I think we should keep that in mind.
32:37 Councilwoman Hamilton-Steiner.
32:39 So can we go back to the parking slide?
32:43 Because I just want to understand exactly just,
32:47 I guess what I'm looking for is the number
32:50 of actual onsite that would be for the daily visitors
32:55 to City Hall and then of those,
32:58 that number that's estimated,
32:59 is that inclusive of ADA parking spaces
33:03 or is that exclusive of ADA parking spaces?
33:06 Because then that number would essentially decrease
33:10 to the number that would be available for everyone else
33:13 that is not needing an ADA accessible spot.
33:18 So these numbers are inclusive of ADA.
33:22 ADA is always included in your counts.
33:25 So I count them just like any other space.
33:28 So how would we be able to figure out all others
33:33 if I'm making sense and how, in my mind,
33:36 how I'm looking at this?
33:37 So I am not a pro ag expert by any means,
33:40 but having 22, say we have 22 designated visitor spaces
33:45 out of the 38 at the Board of Ed building.
33:49 So I believe that anytime you have more than,
33:53 I think it's 25 parking spaces,
33:56 this is where ADA comes in there.
33:57 It determines the number of those spaces
34:00 that have to be ADA.
34:02 So given 38 total onsite,
34:05 I think that's a requirement for two ADA spaces,
34:08 one of them being van compliant.
34:11 So we would have a van compliant space,
34:15 a regular ADA space,
34:17 and then 20 additional visitor spots.
34:22 So that would be roughly equivalent
34:24 to what we have here at City Hall.
34:27 We have ADA spaces in the back.
34:32 But again, having 22 visitor spaces
34:35 at the Board of Ed building
34:36 versus having 22 visitor spaces here
34:39 is 22 visitor spaces that are purely dedicated
34:43 towards the administrative functions
34:45 at the Board of Ed building,
34:46 not being competed with by people
34:49 that are trying to go see the police and pay a ticket,
34:51 go to the court, all those other things.
34:54 That kind of all goes into this calculus,
34:57 even though it's pretty high level.
34:59 And I wouldn't necessarily do that,
35:03 but you could designate all 38 to be visitor spaces
35:06 because it doesn't exist.
35:07 But this is strictly meant to be a rough area comparison
35:13 of A, B, and C based on anticipated visitor demand,
35:18 existing spaces that are available onsite
35:21 in the area versus staff.
35:23 So what's left over and how much staff
35:26 do you have to manage?
35:27 We would anticipate you have to manage 69 staff
35:31 versus 33 daily visitors.
35:34 So how do you do that?
35:35 It's not 33 people all at once.
35:38 So is 22 spaces too much?
35:43 I think by the numbers here,
35:44 there's a lot of ways that you can skin that cat
35:47 and then still have sufficient parking
35:49 for visitors coming to City Hall.
35:54 Councilman Evans' point,
35:55 I understand parking complexity downtown, it's tough.
36:01 But there are more spaces there to manage
36:05 than there will be here.
36:06 That's the objective point.
36:13 Other council members question?
36:15 Council member Bote.
36:19 Thanks, Madam Chair.
36:21 Thanks, members of the administration.
36:22 Mr. Boss is always great analysis.
36:25 One question and a couple of observations.
36:28 First, why does this analysis assume
36:31 we're divesting the annex?
36:34 That's to allow us to consolidate two points of service
36:39 down to one, which is an efficiency thing.
36:44 It's one of the guiding principles of this effort
36:47 and it's what the employees want from those surveys.
36:51 We've managed that.
36:52 Folks don't like working on the annex.
36:53 They wanna be with their department
36:55 and we can design that to be better.
36:59 Okay, what I'm driving at is there's space there
37:02 close to existing City Hall,
37:05 whether for an existing building,
37:08 for parking in that space
37:11 or for making that space something else.
37:14 We're talking throughout the analysis of alternatives
37:17 about space constraints.
37:20 Seems to me that putting that variable into play
37:24 rather than taking it as a given
37:25 that we're gonna divest that.
37:28 If you wanna turn it into a parking lot,
37:30 again, that's an option that's available to you.
37:33 You're not gonna get very many spaces out of it,
37:35 but I would consider what you would potentially get
37:41 in terms of a sale of that property
37:42 and development of that property
37:43 from a pure sale point and tax production
37:47 into the future versus creating another municipal lot
37:51 sitting on Detroit.
37:53 Well, there are a couple of different options
37:55 that could be considered
37:57 and I'm glad that there was an employee survey
38:02 about what the feedback of the employees,
38:06 but if we're talking about financial
38:09 and space constraints and complexity constraints,
38:11 it's likely that not everything in the survey
38:14 is gonna come into play, right?
38:17 So it's great to have as a goal consolidation,
38:24 but maybe we're not gonna be able to afford that
38:27 or maybe we don't afford it in one full phase
38:31 and in fact option three is not consolidation,
38:35 So we seem to be of a couple of different minds
38:42 I'm not following your counsel on the split.
38:45 So we're not consolidating all operations
38:48 in option three, we're splitting.
38:51 We're consolidating all of the administrative functions
38:54 with the exception of human services at Soya Cove.
38:57 Yeah, I understand.
38:59 There's still two different locations,
39:02 two different sites.
39:05 Not following your counsel.
39:06 Okay, option three proposes two different buildings
39:11 with lots of city hall operations
39:13 and lots of city hall employees.
39:15 It proposes a justice center with the police and courts
39:18 at this building and the administration consolidated
39:22 at the board of that building.
39:22 I think we're semantics here.
39:25 I mean the justice center is part of city government,
39:29 in fact it's a crucially important part
39:31 of city government.
39:33 Public works garage is still gonna remain
39:35 on this site, et cetera, right?
39:37 So public facing administrative functions.
39:40 I understand that, yeah.
39:43 So, but we're having a conversation about,
39:53 you know, on the terms that you're defining.
39:55 I guess I'm inviting us to reconsider those terms
39:59 and the parameters and it doesn't sound
40:01 like the administration is interested in moving off
40:04 of how you're thinking about it, so.
40:09 I just did my best, Councilman,
40:11 to look at this objectively as anybody would.
40:14 Okay, I appreciate that.
40:16 We're not, I'm not trying to get argumentative.
40:18 I do think it's unrealistic to think that the parking
40:26 at option three, the downtown space,
40:28 we're gonna have employees, presumably,
40:32 walk in all weather for a pretty long distance
40:35 from the parking garage or public lots behind
40:39 the first federal lake road or something is equivalent.
40:43 That's a pretty long haul, so I think that objectively
40:46 is not a fair comparison to be blunt
40:50 and it also contemplates, you know,
40:54 changing the footprint of the Board of Education building
40:58 from front green lawn to a lot of hardscape
41:02 and for the gain of some spaces, which is good,
41:05 but it's not realistically robust enough
41:09 to serve what we envision, I think.
41:14 So, okay, well, again, I'm trying to engage
41:18 in a dialogue here, not into a contentious debate,
41:21 but I'm sharing some of the way I'm kind of thinking
41:24 about the question, so, I'm sure.
41:28 Mr. Storie, together.
41:29 Yeah, Chair Storie.
41:31 Thank you, Madam President.
41:33 In response to Councilman Bullock,
41:34 I think one of the basic premises
41:36 that we started with 14 months ago
41:38 was we wanted to be in a central location in a hub.
41:41 As it relates to the parking downtown,
41:43 we've had discussions with other property owners nearby
41:46 and I'm not fully confident, but I'm pretty confident
41:48 that we'll be able to negotiate spaces
41:50 within walking distance of our Board of Education site.
41:53 The last part of this is also equally important to me.
41:56 You know, Chris Ronane famously said at a speech
41:59 two years ago, praising Eric Wobser for the Sandusky move,
42:02 saying that's why he hired him as his Chief of Staff
42:05 was because he saw the city hall move
42:06 in downtown Sandusky as a way to mobilize
42:08 to get 150 people that were on the outskirts of town,
42:11 put them downtown, have them park, have them walk,
42:13 have them go to the restaurants,
42:14 have them go to the bars, it activates downtown.
42:17 Ned Hill, all those people,
42:18 that's like one of the core tenants
42:20 you learn at Living College Urban Affairs.
42:22 That's one of the primary things
42:23 that we've tried to drive here to you guys.
42:25 Whether you agree with us or not,
42:27 one of the drivers of the marijuana
42:28 was she wanted us to be not on the outskirts of town,
42:31 downtown, and that's what this was always about.
42:35 Vice President Baker.
42:37 Thank you, and to Chief Storrs' point,
42:39 I mean, I think at least I see the vision
42:44 of the Justice Center and activating downtown.
42:50 You know, but we're weighing options
42:51 and we have budgets and we have decisions to make,
42:53 right, and so that's where,
42:55 that's certainly a compelling vision
42:56 and I don't necessarily disagree with it.
42:59 But as I go through this chart, which by the way,
43:01 thank you, Assistant Director Storrs,
43:03 thank you, Assistant Director Boss.
43:06 A lot of information to get at four p.m. on a Monday
43:08 as I'm trying to get my kids' dinner and then come here.
43:12 You know, but going through some of the things,
43:15 and this is, ultimately this is still a lot of information
43:21 and a lot of different cooks in the kitchen.
43:23 You know, there's Webber Murphy Fox,
43:25 there's PMC help coalesce some data.
43:28 Assistant Director Boss helped coalesce some data.
43:30 Liberty has some data, some of which they shared.
43:35 And I understand, you know, it's under this,
43:38 it's retain flexibility for space.
43:43 17,000 square feet of space is a lot of space.
43:47 You know, that's nine Lakewood houses,
43:51 I don't know, eight Lakewood,
43:52 depending on the size of it.
43:56 And I'm trying to wrap my head around what,
43:59 from an administrative function the city could do,
44:04 or would it be beneficial for us
44:06 to take on the additional costs
44:07 associated with that extra space?
44:10 So I understand the concept of having room for flexibility.
44:15 That's like an extra office here or there.
44:18 How do you be, as a department, right?
44:22 And I live it every day at my current employer,
44:26 where we expanded in, you know,
44:29 an office space in certain locations
44:31 is more valued than in annex or offsite locations.
44:35 What are we doing with 17,000 extra square feet?
44:43 I think the predominant things, you know,
44:45 just that are missing from this storage, IT,
44:50 inherent design increases that are gonna happen
44:53 when every single administrative,
44:55 oh yeah, well, we have a new employee,
44:57 we have two new employees,
44:58 we didn't account for them
44:59 when we talked about this 14 months ago.
45:03 And then there's the city council decision.
45:06 So that 17,000 space, there's square feet,
45:10 sounds like a lot, but it's not gonna be a lot
45:12 when you go through an actual design effort
45:15 People are gonna spread out
45:17 and they're gonna find the space that they need.
45:19 There are inherent limitations in that building
45:21 to come up with the service delivery that you want
45:25 in terms of tax and water on the right spaces
45:28 and how you design that.
45:32 Meeting rooms and like in a hearing room or an auditorium,
45:39 I don't feel like it is a monumental amount of space.
45:44 It's almost the amount of space we have currently
45:46 for administrative offices.
45:50 We have approximately 18,000 square feet.
45:52 That's, and I'm not trying to,
45:55 this is not intended to be argumentative
45:57 to Councilman Bullock's point,
45:59 just trying to understand.
46:02 And then that's just hard for me to wrap my head around
46:05 in a world in which most,
46:10 particularly white collar style,
46:12 now I understand a consultant at KPMG
46:18 or Deloitte is not the same as someone who handles
46:20 customer interaction in public at the water
46:23 or income tax department.
46:27 But they're not super different
46:30 in the sense of the kind of standard amount
46:32 of square foot you would want for them.
46:34 I don't foresee us growing an admin staff,
46:38 particularly as you look into the future
46:40 of kind of white collar work,
46:43 maybe 10% up or down, right?
46:46 I can't see into the future with AI and everything,
46:48 but I could see our on the road folks increasing, right?
46:52 Our public works, our police,
46:54 our folks that are out there in the city doing work.
46:58 And that's where I'm having a challenge
47:00 with this 17,000 extra square feet.
47:04 Some other things, more high level,
47:07 Councilman Bullock talked about,
47:08 I mean, there is a way in which,
47:11 you know, I think there's a benefit to phasing.
47:17 And that's where, but this is,
47:19 I'm trying to see through what is kind of
47:21 a cloudy outlook with all the information we have.
47:25 I'm trying my level best to manage
47:28 all of these competing demands.
47:31 But when you look at phasing,
47:33 it's the same thing when you think about,
47:35 you talk to hospital systems about how they build.
47:41 And so the idea is, is you phase projects
47:44 so that all of your stuff don't kind of like
47:46 come obsolete at the same time.
47:48 So you're constantly on like a capital maintenance plan,
47:53 And so that's where I see some benefit
47:56 of studying this campus more to understand
47:59 how we could phase and renovate in place
48:01 and have swing space.
48:03 And I think we've become,
48:05 and it's almost like we suggest something on this dais
48:08 and then we're told why we can't do it,
48:10 but we're also not design professionals.
48:12 So we don't, you know, I can't say whether
48:15 an addition on top of the municipal court
48:19 would be good or feasible or not.
48:21 Does that work with the current construction?
48:23 I don't know the steel bearing of that building.
48:27 But I do know that there's a flat roof
48:28 that you look out from Public Works.
48:31 The front, you know, maybe it's an option,
48:34 I haven't seen someone run it to ground.
48:37 I haven't seen it be explored beyond.
48:40 We don't think it's gonna work.
48:43 So I do think that there is a benefit to phasing
48:45 also from a financial standpoint.
48:47 Right now Lakewood's income tax collections are strong.
48:51 Property tax collections are strong.
48:56 Also looking out through the fuzzy world
49:02 we could lose that in two years.
49:05 I certainly know the school district
49:08 and my employer that relies on property taxes
49:12 for our funding is very nervous about that.
49:16 So the idea of phasing provides you some ability
49:19 to not take a chunk all at once.
49:25 The other thing, and this is where, you know,
49:27 it's the Councilman Bullock's point.
49:29 You know, we understand that the folks that are in,
49:32 in the annex would like to be,
49:36 in City Hall would like to be consolidated
49:38 with their colleagues.
49:39 And I think that's a noble goal for them to have.
49:41 And I think that's a noble goal for us to aspire to.
49:44 I do think when you look at your cost estimate chart,
49:46 you're basically saying $800,000 to renovate the space
49:50 to give them nicer workspace,
49:53 renovated, modern, sleek workspace,
49:57 versus $7 million in additional expenses
49:59 to make the addition bigger out front.
50:02 So to me, you want to aspire to give employees
50:06 what they want, but when the cost benefit is times 10,
50:11 you know, there's just budgets, right?
50:14 And so that's where, you know, you try your best
50:18 and we're the fiscal agents of the city
50:20 and we try our best to see through
50:22 the funding challenges and the cost estimates
50:26 we're seeing to try to help and do what we can
50:30 to get these employees better workspace.
50:33 And it just, but to me, if I looked at something and said,
50:38 we can either spend $800,000 to give you modern,
50:41 more updated workspace, or we send our budget
50:44 up $7, $8 million to build a bigger addition on site,
50:47 to me, that's a no-brainer.
50:49 You renovate their current space.
50:53 But I'm absorbing a lot of this information right now.
50:56 But I still think that I'm having a hard time,
51:03 and this is where we're gonna do something
51:05 with this bond anticipation notes, legislation, right?
51:07 I think I'm gonna have a hard time understanding
51:10 what we do with 17,000 additional square feet of space.
51:14 And I still don't feel like I have really good
51:18 visibility in what we can do on this campus.
51:21 And Mr. Boss, I want you to know
51:22 this is not an indictment of you or your work product
51:24 because I think you're excellent.
51:26 And I think that you've done as good of a job
51:29 as someone who is Assistant Planning Director
51:33 and has other obligations beyond being
51:35 an outside consultant with just this project.
51:38 So I wanna say that I very much appreciate
51:44 With those, so one, I don't know what we do
51:47 with that extra square feet in a world in which
51:50 square footage is shrinking for administrative employees.
51:55 Because of work for home and because of,
51:57 you don't need to have giant,
51:58 a lot of our records attention schedules,
52:00 we can store things electronically rather than in paper.
52:04 And then secondly, I don't feel like
52:08 I have enough information about whether or not
52:11 expanding here is viable or not.
52:17 So those are my comments.
52:22 And I'll just wanna echo to,
52:25 since Assistant Director Boss did the presentation,
52:28 we're sort of targeting these questions towards you,
52:32 but it's not necessarily,
52:35 we understand you've been,
52:36 you're in a challenging situation here
52:38 and we appreciate the work that you've put in.
52:39 So I just wanna make that clear.
52:42 So we are running out of time in this meeting.
52:51 because the bonds are what we really need
52:53 to get out of committee tonight,
52:54 I wanna make sure we look at that.
52:57 One of the things that I'll say too
52:58 is when I look at the sheet
53:01 with the Weber Murphy Fox and PMC estimates,
53:06 and this is something as we've been sending in questions,
53:09 I've asked about too,
53:10 is the level of renovation at this building.
53:14 If we were to do option three,
53:15 what level of renovation?
53:17 And I know that was a conversation we had with
53:20 Weber Murphy Fox, David Thal,
53:22 and our PMC consultant of what are we,
53:25 and they estimated the numbers
53:28 for the city hall renovations at the 15 and a half million
53:35 with a very light touch to this building.
53:38 So most of that money is taken up by,
53:41 we have almost $3 million in windows,
53:42 a million dollars for the elevator.
53:44 So to the point about the extra square footage,
53:50 because that was something too,
53:52 as we went around looking at,
53:54 Friday I went around and the mayor took me around
53:56 this building and the courts and stuff,
53:58 and if most of the third floor moves out
54:05 except the prosecutors,
54:06 there's a lot of space here,
54:08 and how will that all be used?
54:09 So I'm thinking of this project not just,
54:13 okay, if we did option three,
54:16 we kind of have an idea of what is happening.
54:18 We have an idea of what Warren Road could look like,
54:20 how it could function.
54:23 Not that that would necessarily be it.
54:24 We don't know that yet.
54:25 We don't know if we're doing
54:27 build to suit or design build.
54:29 We don't, you know, any of those things,
54:31 but we can have a vision of what that looks like.
54:34 What I'm interested in before
54:37 sort of jumping on that bandwagon
54:40 is what happens here and what all that looks like,
54:43 and that design process,
54:46 you know, there's been ideas about
54:47 with the Justice Center
54:48 that we could have police training here,
54:52 but that's not really flushed out either.
54:54 And then, so that's,
54:57 I'm thinking of it holistically
54:58 in both of those elements,
54:59 and I have more questions about that.
55:02 The other thing I did want to talk about,
55:04 because it's the main thing we need to do tonight
55:07 is in terms of timeline,
55:11 we have the 16-5 in the bonds for City Hall right now
55:17 and that would be for the Warren Road building, right?
55:19 Is the 16-5, is that accurate?
55:23 Yes, Director Mahoney's nodding.
55:28 Oh, I'm sorry, or Director Brankton.
55:30 I'm sorry, I didn't hear.
55:31 Sorry, I was just gonna say a portion of that
55:32 would go towards initial design for City Hall here,
55:36 existing City Hall.
55:37 Okay, do you know how much?
55:40 So I think it was gonna be about one and a half.
55:43 And that's consistent with what
55:47 the Weber Murphy Fox and PMC showed
55:50 about a million to two million for design.
55:53 You know, another option with that too
55:55 is we have the one and a half
55:57 in the land acquisition fund
55:58 that could also be transferred out
56:01 so that we don't necessarily have to do bonds
56:05 So some things to think about there.
56:08 But I did want to ask,
56:09 so that is the question though is
56:11 if we look at the eight month design timeline,
56:15 why do we need 16-5 taken out in 2026?
56:25 Thanks, Councilwoman.
56:26 So as I had mentioned previously,
56:29 if we were going to sign a design build contract
56:32 for the Board of Ed building,
56:34 and I have confirmed that with our bond council
56:36 that we would need funding for the whole project
56:40 before we could sign the contract for that.
56:42 That's where that number comes from.
56:45 So, but we don't yet know
56:47 if we're gonna do design build or build the suit.
56:54 The recommendation was design build,
56:56 but it was a recommendation.
57:02 So I guess the question before us right now
57:04 is for council members, is this the time?
57:09 So the other thing is too,
57:10 is that we can go back out for bonds
57:12 if this is not the time to take it out.
57:14 Yes, Vice President Baker.
57:15 So the recommendation is to acquire the building
57:17 and then rely on our existing RFQ for design builder.
57:26 And that's a pivot based upon conversations we had
57:28 as well as statements made by Liberty
57:31 in front of you guys with respect to the fact
57:33 that they would go, you know,
57:34 whatever way is best to get to a yes
57:39 is the way I looked at it.
57:39 And in talking to Ernie,
57:42 this is something that I think would work out better.
57:47 I think it would be more well received
57:49 by the seven of you.
57:51 And that would be something we'd be willing to do.
57:53 And obviously developers is the key to this whole thing.
57:56 I was gonna say with them present,
57:58 I don't wanna say anything here
58:00 about price or anything of that nature,
58:02 but I think that's a key variable in this
58:04 because if they decide that they're not gonna stick around,
58:07 if they don't think there's anything coming,
58:08 then I think we're just kind of wasting our time.
58:11 But I don't wanna speak for anybody.
58:13 But the answer to your question is yes,
58:14 a design build would be the preferred manner.
58:16 We would go back to the same route
58:19 we were looking at six to eight months ago
58:21 and go that route, yes.
58:23 Okay, I was unaware of that.
58:27 I, a couple weeks ago was,
58:32 was development agreement, you know,
58:33 with build the suit.
58:34 So I appreciate that, thank you.
58:39 Okay, any council members have questions
58:42 on any of the other bonds before we go through this?
58:49 Just to make a point of whatever direction
58:51 that council is going to go
58:53 and not to speak for council.
58:56 So correct me if I'm wrong.
58:57 I think we're all in agreement
58:59 that something does need to happen
59:01 to this building at some level.
59:05 And so we would need funds to move forward
59:09 with any sort of renovation,
59:11 whatever that's decided of this building.
59:13 And if we don't, that would mean
59:15 that we're waiting another year
59:17 to touch anything in this building.
59:19 So just providing that context.
59:22 Yeah, I mean, I think, you know,
59:25 I've said this repeatedly,
59:26 I think most council members,
59:30 I think what I've been hearing
59:31 is everyone on this dais is committed
59:34 to particularly solving the police issue problem.
59:36 And then as we've discussed, you know,
59:39 I firmly believe that our staff deserve to work
59:44 in spaces that are comfortable,
59:48 that are efficient, you know,
59:50 so this building definitely needs work regardless.
59:55 And, you know, not just the police
59:58 with the other spaces as well,
59:59 there's things that can be better optimized,
1:00:03 space that can be better used.
1:00:04 So there's work to be done here.
1:00:07 I do personally, I'm not quite sure
1:00:10 without having more of a plan.
1:00:14 I'm not sure if now is the time
1:00:20 I do think we need to do design work here.
1:00:23 So, but I'm not sure what that cost would be
1:00:28 if we want to, we can take out the 16-5
1:00:32 from that bond legislation.
1:00:34 I did send around to council members,
1:00:36 there's a substitute where we could take that
1:00:39 We can also take out part of it
1:00:42 if we wanted to commit to doing design work
1:00:44 for this building this year.
1:00:47 Yes, is there, and this is where I,
1:00:50 also in capital planning, I mean,
1:00:51 technically you can take out bond anticipation notes
1:01:03 But I think a prudent practice
1:01:04 is to pay for it with cash.
1:01:05 I just don't know what our cash situation is.
1:01:09 So I guess what I'm saying is,
1:01:12 like I am willing to signal to the mayor
1:01:17 and the administration that design money in 2026
1:01:24 and if I, and I'm not gonna speak
1:01:28 but I could expect what she'd say is,
1:01:30 give us authorization for it,
1:01:32 and then if we need it, we can go get it,
1:01:33 and if we don't, we can pay for it with cash.
1:01:38 It's a thoughtful conversation, thank you.
1:01:40 What's the it, is the question I would pose
1:01:45 So for allocating $1 or $1.5 million for design,
1:01:50 there's multiple concepts about
1:01:53 This building, a new building, an annex,
1:01:56 parking lot, a parking deck.
1:01:57 So to me, before you go to debt
1:02:02 and incur guaranteed debt financing costs
1:02:04 for providing money that way,
1:02:07 you drill down, you get a little bit more consensus
1:02:11 about what we're designing.
1:02:12 I'm inclined to think we could and should use time this year
1:02:19 but to me, it makes sense to find it
1:02:21 from a different source, not in bond financing,
1:02:24 or if it does make 100% to do it through bond financing,
1:02:28 we come back, as you suggest.
1:02:33 I just, while I've kind of interrupted the flow here,
1:02:38 operating costs of any new facility
1:02:43 So we've been talking in the alternatives analysis
1:02:45 about the pros and the cons.
1:02:47 The total price tag is kind of a ballpark,
1:02:50 but the ongoing operating costs is important.
1:02:53 I know the school board just made a decision,
1:02:55 a pretty painful decision to close an elementary school.
1:02:57 They believe that that saves them significant amounts
1:03:03 and they prefer doing that on facilities
1:03:06 rather than staff and programs.
1:03:09 I do agree that that's true.
1:03:12 That's another element that I didn't mention before,
1:03:16 but once the ribbon's cut on a new facility,
1:03:19 what's the carrying cost going forward?
1:03:21 I mean, that's gotta be part of our analysis as well.
1:03:25 So, you know, to me, I guess,
1:03:28 I mean, part of what we're discussing in these terms
1:03:30 is city council reacting to the proposal.
1:03:32 The proposal right now is to finance the full option,
1:03:38 even though we're still in a provisional
1:03:43 and then say kind of empower the administration
1:03:46 to take the concepts and the estimates
1:03:51 to a detailed analysis in the future.
1:03:54 I'd prefer for such a high price tag
1:03:59 because the opportunity cost is enormous for the community.
1:04:02 I mean, 16 and a half million is a huge amount.
1:04:08 but it could go to other things in the community.
1:04:10 It may be that this is an important use of funds,
1:04:15 but if we commit those resources to this today,
1:04:18 that means they're not available
1:04:19 to other things today or tomorrow.
1:04:23 So that's why to me it's a very important
1:04:27 and a decision that I wanna be careful about
1:04:39 Thank you, Madam President.
1:04:40 To be clear from our perspective,
1:04:42 the police renovation and the phasing network,
1:04:45 there is nothing more important than that.
1:04:47 That is the Alpha and the Omega
1:04:49 and has been for 14 months.
1:04:51 We need money to be able to design it.
1:04:55 If the 16 and a half million is not palatable
1:04:57 because the idea is still in flux and may not happen,
1:05:02 we still have to execute this
1:05:04 and that's what we're asking for here.
1:05:12 because the two things are joined in the same ordinance
1:05:17 of the design as well as the renovation
1:05:20 of the Warren Road building,
1:05:25 these questions are getting conflated right now
1:05:27 because there's two questions.
1:05:31 is council willing to consider
1:05:32 the Warren Road building at all, ever,
1:05:36 or is it that we're not ready now
1:05:40 and therefore not ready to allocate the 16-5 now?
1:05:46 Because it also is what is the design process then?
1:05:49 Because if we're saying Warren Road is not an option
1:05:53 that we want to consider at all, ever,
1:05:56 then we need to allocate design money
1:05:58 to address the problems here.
1:06:01 If we're saying we still want to consider that,
1:06:05 but we're not ready to allocate the 16-5 at this time
1:06:09 and we could come back and go to bond later,
1:06:18 so I'm willing to appropriate funds and make it
1:06:23 and give the administration the flexibility
1:06:25 whether to pay for it with cash or bonds
1:06:29 to do design work for this site in the annex.
1:06:36 And I'd even be willing to have some alternatives analysis
1:06:43 I could see a world in which if there was a
1:06:49 verbal kind of agreement on the record
1:06:52 that one or two members of council could be then involved
1:06:55 with the meetings with that designer
1:06:57 whenever they were selected.
1:06:59 I just think that would be good.
1:07:00 I think it would create a better glide path
1:07:06 and also provide for some input.
1:07:09 I think that would be a way in which
1:07:13 maybe we could at least have a finger
1:07:15 and encourage communication and collaboration.
1:07:21 If I may just, and Councilman,
1:07:23 I know you know this world well,
1:07:25 but if we would just get the funds for design work
1:07:29 that would prohibit us from entering
1:07:32 So we would be a construction manager
1:07:35 at risk contract for this building.
1:07:37 So this design will be separate from the construction.
1:07:39 So this year would be spent on design.
1:07:42 And then when we go out to the bond market next year,
1:07:45 that's when we would get the ability
1:07:48 to work with a construction team
1:07:50 and have construction next year.
1:07:52 So just clarifying that timeline.
1:07:53 We would need the full dollar amount for here
1:07:57 if we want to do a design build here.
1:08:02 I'm speaking from limited information
1:08:05 because I don't know exactly what you guys have planned
1:08:08 or kind of what you're thinking.
1:08:09 But what I'm talking about is hiring a criteria architect,
1:08:15 which is a separate contract from a design build contract.
1:08:19 And then furthermore, when you hire the design builder,
1:08:21 all you do is pay for pre-construction expenses,
1:08:25 which is a very small amount.
1:08:30 And then you don't commit the money
1:08:33 until you enter into the GMP,
1:08:34 which would be when you start actual construction.
1:08:40 the whole idea of a design build contract
1:08:43 so you have a criteria architect
1:08:44 that's different from the design builder.
1:08:47 The criteria architect gets together schematic designs,
1:08:50 which are otherwise known as like 10 to 20% designs.
1:08:54 Can't price it, but you got an idea of what it is.
1:08:56 And that's a contract over here.
1:08:59 And then the design builder comes
1:09:00 and then you have qualifications and price-based selection
1:09:04 and you enter a contract with them.
1:09:05 They have a designer and a constructor.
1:09:08 But when you enter into contract with them,
1:09:09 you just approve kind of like pricing for them
1:09:13 to bring the contract documents
1:09:14 all the way towards construction documents.
1:09:16 And you don't commit the money
1:09:18 until you enter into the GMP.
1:09:20 So we wouldn't, and the whole idea is,
1:09:22 is that you can walk away and not,
1:09:24 but you own those plans, right?
1:09:26 So the whole idea of a design builder is
1:09:28 you can enter into contract with them
1:09:30 and they develop the plans all the way
1:09:33 and you can walk away and go hard bid.
1:09:38 so I, unless you guys are doing it a different way,
1:09:44 but I'm just saying how traditionally
1:09:45 I've seen design build done in public construction.
1:09:52 Okay, so we have these ordinances taken.
1:09:56 Director Mahoney, you look like
1:09:57 you wanted to add something.
1:10:02 and I'm just gonna put it out there,
1:10:03 is not considering the Board of Ed,
1:10:05 then we need probably more than a million and a half
1:10:10 to start the construction and design process
1:10:16 to move quickly as we can to help
1:10:20 alleviate the space in the police department.
1:10:23 That will also require moving,
1:10:25 Councilman Bullock talks about two locations.
1:10:29 One of the important things about the annex
1:10:32 is the security over there.
1:10:33 So if we, it's more than the employees wanting
1:10:36 to be a part of the finance department,
1:10:39 it's they don't feel secure over there.
1:10:41 So if we had to move administration out,
1:10:45 again, we'll be at two locations
1:10:47 with no thought of what are we gonna do
1:10:51 with these employees, you know,
1:10:53 whether it's tax and finance
1:10:56 whoever we need to move out to start the construction
1:10:59 on the women's locker facilities.
1:11:04 You know, that's still gonna be two locations.
1:11:07 Where do we put those people?
1:11:09 There's no place to put them when we're done
1:11:12 because the police and court have taken over this building.
1:11:16 So again, the Board of Ed, I believe is a good option,
1:11:22 but if council is not considering that,
1:11:26 Director Buyington had put together
1:11:28 just a general estimate about $4 million
1:11:33 and the design of the current city hall.
1:11:37 That again, would be moving the administration
1:11:40 to another building so that we can, you know,
1:11:46 start the construction here.
1:11:47 So those costs would be needed
1:11:49 to be considered in all that as well.
1:11:54 So Director Buyington, the $4 million
1:11:58 that would be for design of the eight month,
1:12:02 I mean, period that we have,
1:12:05 that they estimated or construction, go ahead.
1:12:08 Thank you, President Keppel.
1:12:08 So it was a high level estimate
1:12:11 in regard to design work for the entire building,
1:12:16 but then just implementing the first phase
1:12:19 which would include the garden level renovation
1:12:23 for expansion of the police department.
1:12:26 And then it would include the locker room expansion
1:12:31 And ultimately probably might be in the second phase
1:12:34 would be the dispatch moving,
1:12:36 dispatch would have to move temporarily.
1:12:38 And then their final move would be up to public works
1:12:40 based on the initial fit plan from Weber Murphy Fox.
1:12:44 So it was, it's just a high level estimate
1:12:48 but we would hope to be able to enter into contract
1:12:50 by the end of the year for what the design build.
1:12:57 I guess the point of everything I've been trying to say
1:12:59 is we don't know that that's what we're doing yet
1:13:01 and that we're attempting to study.
1:13:05 I don't know that I've heard city council
1:13:07 for sure rule out Warren Road,
1:13:10 although I'm probably one of the higher skeptics.
1:13:14 I appreciate everything that's been said
1:13:16 and maybe I won't keep commenting,
1:13:19 but I don't know that city council ruled that out.
1:13:21 What I'm hearing from my colleagues is
1:13:25 a lot more analysis and study
1:13:28 prior to feeling comfortable
1:13:29 committing this enormous amount of money
1:13:35 But the idea is we want to be sure
1:13:38 that we've got the right option.
1:13:40 And as these excellent slideshow,
1:13:43 there's many layers to that point.
1:13:47 So the administration has been working on this.
1:13:50 I respect how much time you've put into this
1:13:53 and I know you've got your thoughts,
1:13:55 but I think we still have a ways to go
1:14:00 what should the priorities and parameters be.
1:14:02 So for sure, there's value to working in a timely manner
1:14:06 to try to get forward motion on police facility space,
1:14:12 but I don't know if the four million is the right answer.
1:14:16 I mean, we should be talking some more about that,
1:14:18 but I don't want to assume A, not A,
1:14:21 therefore B for sure is what we're doing
1:14:23 because $4 million is also a lot of money.
1:14:25 So maybe that's a great price,
1:14:28 but I don't know that tonight,
1:14:29 I know for sure that that's
1:14:33 the way we should be committing resources.
1:14:37 So I think to me, Madam Chair,
1:14:39 to me, Madam Chair, I think what we should be doing
1:14:42 is continuing to be in close communication
1:14:45 over the next six to 12 weeks
1:14:47 to drill down and get further at this.
1:14:48 So we've at least, this council person has more clarity
1:14:53 and I'm not putting that all on you.
1:14:55 You guys have been communicating and giving a lot.
1:14:57 Okay, so that we do feel confidence
1:15:01 about what is the amount and the timeline
1:15:04 and the scope of what goes into design
1:15:06 so that we can get more quickly
1:15:09 out the other end of the design side
1:15:11 and start putting shovels on the ground
1:15:13 or hammers and nails into the wall.
1:15:15 And Councilman, we need money to do that.
1:15:20 But we need money to execute this plan.
1:15:22 But 16.5 or 4.0 or 1.5 or half mil
1:15:29 But waiting six to 12 weeks
1:15:30 will not get us any closer to the answer.
1:15:33 The police are downstairs watching this very meeting.
1:15:35 We know we have to do something.
1:15:37 We're asking for, if you're not gonna do the 16.5,
1:15:40 we need money to be able to at least get the ball rolling.
1:15:43 That's what we're trying to say.
1:15:46 Yeah, and I appreciate that.
1:15:47 I think the challenge is that, you know,
1:15:51 we had seen on the previous slides
1:15:54 about one to $2 million for design
1:15:57 no matter which option we did.
1:15:59 And then, so had that number in mind,
1:16:02 I wasn't clear that that was part of the 16.5.
1:16:06 You know, we're learning all this tonight
1:16:07 and then now it's four million.
1:16:09 And so it's a challenge to be prepared at this moment
1:16:14 when we're also already over time in this meeting
1:16:16 to figure out how, you know,
1:16:19 if we're going to amend this legislation,
1:16:20 what's the number we put in and what's it for.
1:16:22 I wanna be crystal clear that, you know,
1:16:25 and that's what I've been advocating too
1:16:27 is part of this whole plan is, you know,
1:16:31 doing the police as soon as possible.
1:16:33 Like that's been the priority, right?
1:16:34 So not necessarily moving everybody out to Warren
1:16:39 and then eventually getting to the police
1:16:40 is that we need to be, yes, and walking into income.
1:16:44 So, you know, that's definitely a priority.
1:16:47 It's, I think, where I'm struggling now
1:16:49 is just process-wise and legislatively
1:16:52 of what motion am I about to make here, right?
1:16:56 So, you know, we need to get the rest of the bonds out too.
1:17:01 We gotta pave roads, we gotta do Bunce Road,
1:17:03 we gotta do everything else.
1:17:04 So we need to get through these
1:17:07 and we need to know how much we're allocating
1:17:18 we can come back to do a bond separately
1:17:25 because we are in a chicken and egg
1:17:26 of like which thing are we doing, you know?
1:17:31 I guess, go ahead, Vice President Baker.
1:17:35 Yeah, and I'm, so to your point, President Keppel,
1:17:42 because I wanna, to be clear,
1:17:49 I want to appropriate money
1:17:52 to help build a women's locker room
1:17:56 and address those concerns.
1:17:59 I've heard one and a half million,
1:18:01 I've heard two million, I've heard four million.
1:18:03 What do we need to get that ball rolling in?
1:18:05 What would that money entail?
1:18:10 Through you, President Keppel.
1:18:14 and until we have the actual design,
1:18:16 you know, those numbers could change.
1:18:18 So what we're estimating is
1:18:20 looking at the square footage of the garden level,
1:18:23 which is about 5,600 square feet.
1:18:26 Renovation of the locker room spaces in the place
1:18:31 is just over 2,600 square foot.
1:18:34 And then eventually, possibly within the first phase,
1:18:38 moving dispatch from the temporary location
1:18:41 up to second floor, all in about three million.
1:18:45 And that's at $288 a square foot
1:18:49 because that's what I had got from the PMC,
1:18:54 what I calculated off what they had put in
1:18:56 for the estimate based off the square footage.
1:18:59 So then that brings you to three million.
1:19:01 That didn't include, though, all the design.
1:19:04 So we were saying four is what we were asking for.
1:19:10 And you think that this could be under construction
1:19:13 in, before the end of the year?
1:19:15 I don't know that it would be under construction.
1:19:18 We certainly wanna do as much as we can as quickly
1:19:22 but we would hope to be under contract,
1:19:24 at least by the end of the year,
1:19:25 so we would need the money to enter into contract.
1:19:29 But I do understand the criteria architect.
1:19:32 We'd have to hire them first,
1:19:33 and there's a process we'd need to finish
1:19:38 But we still want to try to be under contract
1:19:46 You know, assuming we got this out of committee today,
1:19:51 we wouldn't vote on it until full council next week.
1:19:54 I'd like to sit with that a little bit.
1:19:58 But, because I, you know, it's tight.
1:20:01 You guys are gonna have to run, sprint.
1:20:05 You know, and I, that 266 square foot
1:20:10 it assumed kind of light renovation
1:20:13 as opposed to, you're talking locker room,
1:20:17 So, again, I took it off of PMC's,
1:20:19 and I think they used Weber Murphy Fox's
1:20:23 initial estimate, which had various areas
1:20:26 that they had light, moderate, and major,
1:20:28 like the locker rooms were a major,
1:20:34 I think it's an average of that,
1:20:36 and that's how they came to the 288.
1:20:38 So I'd be comfortable, you know,
1:20:45 doing that, for what it's worth, to my comment.
1:20:54 I think it's a good point that we do have,
1:20:57 whatever we pass out tonight,
1:20:58 is going back to full council.
1:21:01 So, to the point, too, about process.
1:21:04 So if we're ready to commit funds
1:21:08 so that we can get the ball rolling with police,
1:21:14 then we can also work on the processes
1:21:19 Vice President Baker talked about,
1:21:20 about having a working group
1:21:23 with a couple council members,
1:21:25 working with the administration
1:21:26 on the long-term project, phase project.
1:21:30 It is, we do have, I think it would be helpful
1:21:38 to get a sense of whether council
1:21:40 is at all considering Warren Road,
1:21:42 and wants to continue to consider that,
1:21:45 or whether we want to, you know,
1:21:48 in some ways, clarity is kindness,
1:21:50 that we can at least know whether we are
1:21:53 wanting to continue to consider that option,
1:21:57 or whether we want to go all in on option two,
1:22:00 or option two A, or some other work
1:22:03 with the administration on how we solve the full problem.
1:22:06 Yeah, Madam President, if I could,
1:22:08 just to be clear, and I think
1:22:09 I've articulated this before.
1:22:11 In my opinion, as the chief executive,
1:22:14 I feel that there's too much risk
1:22:16 and too many unknowns to build onto this building.
1:22:19 So that is not something that
1:22:21 I will be pursuing on my end.
1:22:23 So the options, in my opinion,
1:22:25 are to truly go down to the Board of Ed,
1:22:27 or make do with the space that we have here.
1:22:36 So my suggestion would be that we report out tonight
1:22:41 a version of the ordinance without the 16.5 million,
1:22:44 and then invite from the administration
1:22:47 an amendment on the floor next week
1:22:50 with the $4 million included,
1:22:53 and understand in a little more clarity,
1:22:56 I did hear the verbal summary here tonight,
1:22:58 but what, so that's a million for design,
1:23:01 three million for construction, if I'm following,
1:23:04 but I guess I'd prefer to A, sleep on it,
1:23:08 and B, kind of detail it a bit in writing.
1:23:10 It's three million dollars proposed
1:23:13 for construction, renovation of existing city hall space,
1:23:17 with the emphasis on the police side of the building,
1:23:22 Correct, it's not all of us all.
1:23:23 Okay, and that could be something
1:23:26 I could see myself supporting.
1:23:28 although I think the finance director alluded to this,
1:23:31 that okay, if you're doing that
1:23:33 at the end of construction,
1:23:34 then you're presuming that you're displacing
1:23:37 some people using expanded space now,
1:23:40 and putting them somewhere else.
1:23:42 So that's an example of what,
1:23:43 kind of what I meant before,
1:23:44 that okay, how do we know that
1:23:48 one plus three is the right number either?
1:23:50 But I also hear the chief staff's point
1:23:52 that you want to have some degree of resources
1:23:57 to start working on the issue.
1:23:58 So, to me, I'm receptive to that discussion.
1:24:02 That would be my own recommendation, Madam Chair,
1:24:05 is that the committee adopt a substitute.
1:24:09 There are no motions on the floor, I know,
1:24:10 but adopt a substitute before us,
1:24:11 which would remove the six and a half,
1:24:13 but then anticipate a potential amendment on the floor,
1:24:16 and we've gotten a good start tonight, I think,
1:24:19 and then we could use the next seven days
1:24:22 to, you know, get a detailed, little more detail.
1:24:29 I think that's a good suggestion,
1:24:31 that we can move this forward.
1:24:34 And, you know, and I'll just speak for myself too,
1:24:36 is that I am certainly, you know,
1:24:39 I think our staff deserves quality working space.
1:24:43 There's a lot of renovation that could happen
1:24:44 to the point about the annex,
1:24:47 even if folks end up staying at the annex,
1:24:49 I think that space needs a nice big refresh.
1:24:55 So, I would be supportive of additional funding
1:24:59 for the whole building to be renovated,
1:25:03 but I would need to know what those numbers are.
1:25:08 we'd want to continue that dialogue.
1:25:10 And that there are other options,
1:25:12 like I mentioned about building over the courts
1:25:15 in addition to the annex, there are other options,
1:25:18 but let's go ahead and move things forward here.
1:25:36 Let's work, so I'm gonna make a motion
1:25:45 the substitute version of ordinance 07-2026
1:25:49 that was emailed to council members,
1:25:54 And we'll continue that conversation
1:25:56 with the administration and get the numbers
1:25:59 that we would, we can amend it
1:26:01 when we come back to full council.
1:26:02 So I'll move to substitute ordinance 07-2026.
1:26:07 Motion's been made and seconded.
1:26:11 Hearing none, all those in favor?
1:26:14 And then I'll move to refer the substitute ordinance
1:26:18 07-2026 back to full council.
1:26:26 Hearing none, all those in favor?
1:26:41 Don't think we need any changes to that.
1:26:43 So I'm gonna move to refer favorably back to full council.
1:26:48 Motion's been made and seconded.
1:26:51 Hearing none, all those in favor?
1:26:55 All right, ordinance 08-2026.
1:27:00 Move to refer favorably back to full council.
1:27:04 Motion's been made and seconded.
1:27:07 Hearing none, all those in favor?
1:27:17 I'll move to refer favorably back to full council.
1:27:20 Motion's been made and seconded.
1:27:22 Hearing none, all those in favor?
1:27:32 I'll move to refer favorably back to full council.
1:27:37 Motion's been made and seconded.
1:27:40 Hearing none, all those in favor?
1:27:48 I'll move to refer favorably back to full council.
1:27:51 Motion's been made and seconded.
1:27:54 Hearing none, all those in favor?
1:28:05 Move to refer favorably back to full council.
1:28:10 Motion's been made and seconded.
1:28:13 Well, this says improving City of Holland too,
1:28:21 Director Mahoney, ordinance 12.
1:28:31 Oh, this is the refunding of last year's.
1:28:37 This has nothing to do with the new.
1:28:42 Okay, so this is the one where we're, yeah, okay.
1:28:45 So, wait, we have a motion and a seconder
1:28:50 for favorably back to full council.
1:28:53 Hearing none, all those in favor?
1:28:57 All right, and then we also have,
1:29:03 oh, we do, we still have more.
1:29:08 Move to refer favorably back to full council.
1:29:12 Motion's been made and seconded.
1:29:14 Hearing none, all those in favor?
1:29:21 Move to refer favorably back to full council.
1:29:24 Motion's been made and seconded.
1:29:26 Hearing none, all those in favor?
1:29:31 Yeah, 33-2025 is the appropriations.
1:29:42 So, first I'm gonna move to amend
1:29:48 the whereas clauses to match.
1:30:01 Match the language of 33-2025A,
1:30:08 which was the whereas clauses
1:30:10 that Councilman Bullock had introduced.
1:30:13 So it would just add those additional whereas clauses.
1:30:19 Motion's been made and seconded.
1:30:22 it includes those council priorities and whereas.
1:30:30 Hearing none, all those in favor?
1:30:49 The committee could also just move to defer on this item.
1:30:53 I think the purpose of this was to propose
1:30:56 the appropriation of additional funds
1:31:02 for the purpose of the $16.5 million in the capital fund.
1:31:09 I think we have to get out of committee though.
1:31:12 If we wanted an unfulfilled motion.
1:31:16 That may become an idea, okay.
1:31:18 So in which case then there's some numbers
1:31:25 from the capital improvement fund line.
1:31:28 Is that correct, Director Mahoney?
1:31:33 So I'm gonna move to subtract the 16.5 million
1:31:41 from the capital improvement fund in this ordinance.
1:31:45 Motion's been made and seconded.
1:31:54 So does your motion include both of those
1:32:00 And then of course pending the continued discussion
1:32:05 we would need to amend this in full council as well.
1:32:11 Any further discussion on the motion to amend?
1:32:18 And I will move to refer as amended favorably
1:32:24 Motion's been made and seconded.
1:32:31 And I think that is everything.
1:32:37 I'm gonna, can I, for the communications.
1:32:49 We can always file them later.
1:32:51 So with that, I think there's no further business
1:32:54 before committee of the whole.
1:32:56 Without objection, we are adjourned.