HomeMy WebLinkAbout1999-11-15 TranscriptionNovember 15, 1999 Council Work Session Page 1
November 15, 1999
Library Board and Council
Work Session
7:00 PM
Council: Lehman, Champion, Kubby, Norton, O'Donnell, Thornberry, Vanderhoef
Council Elect: Ross Wilburn, Irvin Pfab, Steven Kanner
Library Board: Winston Barklay, Shaner Magalhaes, Linda Prybil, Linda Dellsperger,
Jim Swaim, K. Jesse Singeman, Mary McMurray, Mark Martin, Lisa Parker
Staff.' Atkins, Helling, Karr, Dilkes, Franklin, Craig
Tapes: 99-107 all, 99-108 all
A complete transcription is available in the City Clerk's office.
Lehman/We've got Council members, Council Elect members who are also here and
Library Board members just introduce ourselves starting at the end of the table.
(Introduction of Council and Library Board).
Lehman/We've invited the Council elect members because I believe probably the
decisions, the final decision on what we talk about tonight will be made after the
first of the year when we incorporate these folks so they will be here for the
discussion. I would like to thank the Library Board first of all for agreeing to
present us with the different options which obviously we're going to look at
tonight. We thank you for that, and I think it's a step in the fight direction, I look
forward to this being a first step in something that may work out for the very best
for this town. Mark and I are going to kind of co-chair this but we're going to ask
to do is there are I believe 10 options was that?
(can' t hear)
Lehman/Gees the last time I heard it was 7. Well and one of those is in Coralville right?
But what I'd like to do and this is going to be after the presentation we will be in a
period where we will accept discussion from the Library Board and City Council,
public obviously is welcome to observe but we will not be taking comments from
the public. I would like and Mark and I talked about this to have all of the options
presented before we comment on it. Because I think that during the process of
evaluating these we may very well eliminate a number of options rather quickly
and there's no point in arguing or discussing or asking questions about options
that the factor not options so Mark.
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Mark Martin/Just to get us started with a bit of history of following the defeat of the
sales tax initiative the Library Board went back to work examining how we might
make appropriate suggestions to the City Council about a new library and we
notified the City Council in May that we wished to meet with them to have them
answer some questions that we had necessary questions, that meeting was held, as
a result of that meeting we did not really answer all the questions but we went
back and as a board thought about the needs of the library and then came again to
the Council requesting that they allow us to make a development plan for the
stand alone library on Parcel land 641A and that the city help us fund that
planning process money amounting to $60,000. And the result of that meeting
was in agreement that we would not only look at a stand alone library on Lot
641A but we would also look at the cost involved in renovating the current
structure by adding a third floor so there were options to look at. A process then
ensued which is going to be described to us by our architects in which many
people participated representing City and Library Board, both staff and elected
and the result of that process I don't think I'm going to far to say that this presents
the majority of any kind of option that anybody could figure out. Of what to do
either on the present space or the new space in order to develop a new library. We
have pride to be comprehensive and the person whose going to begin that
presentation is Chuck Engberg who of Engberg Anderson Design Partnership who
has been faithful and true and tonight brings us the efforts of a lot of work.
Chuck.
Chuck Engberg/With me tonight is Joe Huberty who is going to have a line share of the
heavy lifting tonight I will just say at the beginning that this is the probably the
most information intensive council meeting that you'll probably have for a while
in terms of one topic the Public Library so grace yourselves, be alert, it's going to
be fun, it'll be interesting I hope. What I would like to tell you a little bit about is
the process that we've gone through. Mark has given you the history of how we
came on board just studying two options which have turned into 14, it's really
only 10 Ernie but it's there's parking alternates that go with it so we're about
utilize (can't hear) office. The process started out by collecting what (can't hear)
is good about the city about the area around the library this will date a aerial
photographs such as you see here data about the infrastructure of the square and
so forth. And also studying all the options that we that have been looked at in the
past. We wrote a proposal and we came out to talk about how we were going to
do the (can't hear) pursue the investigation of the site to find which is the best
place to put a new 80,000 square foot library. Was it going to be the existing site
or was it going to be on site 641A? Well it turned out that there is no simple
answer to the very complicated issue, it's got a complicated history, there are
many complicated issues that have to do with where we start and how we begin to
evaluate and so what I thought we would do is let you know that we want your
faith, we call it Shorec??? processing which is a very intensive design, series of
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meeting of November 15, 1999.
November 15, 1999 Council Work Session Page 3
meetings which actually took all days, we developed out of that all impossible
solutions that we could come up with and then next we even found that we we
recovered them since 7 and we ended up with a few more. So what we are
showing to you today is the process that identifies all the possibilities, evaluates
this (can't hear) in hand the functional needs of the library. The needs of the City
Council are of the city' s planning professional staff as it relates to how a building
in any of these positions affects the urban type quality of pedestrian mall and a
number of other things development which they sold adjacent land, access to
parking and a number of other issues, (can't hear). We evaluated each of those
professional concems and ranked them and we came up with very interesting
series of evaluation criteria. We agreed on those criteria, we ranked and we came
up with just some raw data about how people felt about these various schemes.
We've taken those back to Milwaukee and come up with a number of slight
variations and we have it won't cost us (can't hear) projects to the extent that it
isn't possible that (can't hear) move up so we have an evaluation by the library
staff and members of the board, we have an evaluation from the administration
staff of the City, and we have some petty cost estimates. We eventually at the end
of the (can't hear) will put these together and show you how there is overall value
matrix that we put together that shows where we feel best the dollar value for the
city is or each of these schemes. We'll show you the ranking and then you can
pick the discussion from that point. What I'm trying to tell you tonight is we have
most of this without prejudice toward any one of these schemes, we tried to make
them as objective as possible looking particularly at degree of difficulty to
perform extra costs, hidden costs that we may not thought about such as moving
costs, lottery costs and I need to say one thing about the last issue. When we talk
about the lottery cost were talking about make this building as part of anyone of
these schemes. Viable task of the building of the 21st Century we are going to
have to essentially gut the building, change all of it's infrastructure, it is not
simply putting in new carpet, painting, it is really simply ripping it down to the
bare bones and rebuilding. And even if we build additions to this building we will
still have to go back and do those things to make the whole building complete and
whole because as we build the building larger we will have to reorganize all of the
space that go into that building so that they perform a functional requirements of
the program justifies. So first of all based on everything you see here today is
based upon the same program which is essentially the 80,000 plus or minus a
square foot library which will get you through the next 21 st hopefully more. Let
me just start, at the (can't hear). These are group, these options are grouped into
several categories those buildings which have their basis of expansion vertically
somehow on the present site, those buildings which expand from the (can't hear)
side and come into the ped mall leaving the existing library very much as it is
with the conditional (can't hear)just about 8,000 square feet on the very top. This
is what some people call Westward Ho, we have little nan~es for all these things
so. Now this will be a 4B, so Westward Ho basically will use the existing
building and comes further into the Lenoch and Cilek building on the coruer and
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restores part of that to commercial use, retail use on the lower levels. And finally
site 641A which produces a completely new building on site 641A and leaves the
existing building for other uses either selling the building to a tax paying entity or
to anybody else who might wish to purchase it. Those are the basic scenarios that
we've looked at. Joe Huberty is going to take each of these and turn, go through
the detail of it and again we ask that you hold your questions, right them down,
we will have questions, we have questions so you will have questions. So we will
start at the beginning and try to give you as clearly a portrait of how came to each
of these objectively as we can so that you understand you have we just orient you,
this is Linn Street, this is College Street Mall, this is the hotel, this is the library is
here with the orange beautiful (can't hear) and this is the parking lot along
Burlington and that will be the same orientation for all of these drawings so I
think those of you in the back you can get a sense of(can't hear).
Joe Huberty/A little bit about the process, it was important even before we realized that
we were going to be adding on, identify a basis for preparing the (can't hear)
around the table. Collectively what we got together is six critical issues that any
of the schemes had to be evaluated again. One was the size of the facility, a
baseline program identifies a need for 80,000 square feet, and any of the options
studied really had to pass that critical test. The city staff, library board member,
library administration all agreed that this is the most critical of the issues facing
the options. Another item had to be that the space was functional, you had to be
able to staff and operate the library within a reasonable operating budget, you had
to put forth the (can't hear) of library services and the fact is in an efficient
manner so all the schemes were measured against (can't hear). Another issue that
seemed to come up quite often was a need to provide adequate parking close both
in the context of the downtown Iowa City area and specifically for the library and
it's programs. Those three issues were primarily related to a library as a service
institution. The other three issues really related to a library as a member of a
downtown community, and so it's impact on the downtown economy whether on
this side or on another this side as we evaluate was just the most collaborated use,
this is more of a cities vitality. What about an impact of any object on the
downtown's aesthetics was it appropriate to put a three story building on this site
as example, was it appropriate to bridge across the ped mall? All of this exactly
considered and what they did for the quality of life in Iowa City, in particular the
ped mall. Is that better? Thank you. And finally we had to look at how each of
the schemes was going to be implemented, it's a 14-24 month process depending
on which of the options we're looking at for the remodeling, expansion or
construction of a new facility. And during that time we have to address how
library service is going to be delivered to the community and what the
construction process will do to the life in this immediate area during that hectic
period. So those were the primary issues that we looked at and we'll go into some
of these in more detail in a moment. Now that we've gone through the step of
identifying what we thought were all the possible options, as Chuck mentioned
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November 15, 1999 Council Work Session Page 5
we're up to about 14 now but we really found that three basic categories. The
first of which is stay within the confines of this existing parcel. And that
essentially means going vertically. Another group of options takes this building
as a core and expands it either to the south or to the west. And then the third
group which really consists of a single option is to build a new structure on a
(can't hear) vacant site. Having the term that these are the key issues and that
there are three primary options available, the task was to evaluate a couple of
central questions. What does each of the options provide for the community and
the for the library? That was question one. What does it cost to execute the
option? And that was not only construction costs but all the anselar??? expenses
Chuck related to. And when you combine those two the essential question was
what's the best value? What gives us the most for the least capital investment?
Now this, that was really the core exercise by trying to develop a vibe??? index,
something really took the benefits and divided it into the costs to arrive at a value
number was really determined to be the basis for how we would evaluate each of
the many schemes that were brought to the table. I want to go a little bit through
each of the issues and talk about how we developed the scoring system that
allowed us to arrive at a value index. We sat down and really two sections, the
first of which was focused on library related issues and try to decide how each of
the schemes address several key points. We talked about functional library, there
are several elements that were essential to the libraries providing service to the
community. Addressing the ease of patron use, making it friendly for all the
patrons of the library to find what their looking for both in terms of collection and
service. Or age of the collection logically, making sure that the building is secure,
not only for the collection but for the patrons and the staff. Developing an
efficient material flow so we can keep operating costs down in any of the
buildings so (can't hear) on fewer levels have the advantage under this criteria.
And then making sure that the solutions offer the library adaptability because
library service is changing and will continue to change. We want to make sure
that the building doesn't impose any impediments to that natural progression.
And then finally expandability, given the history of the library in the community
there's a desire to make sure that in a generation or two another board isn't faced
with the same difficulties that we are with this building. So each of these aspects
was judged against the scheme and a score was given to each scheme. It's a, a
score is based on an analytical objective evaluation of how well the scheme
performed. Following that, this was a raw score we called ES Evaluation Score.
We went through all of these and decided which of these issues was most
important, but given the fact that we're talking about 80,000 square feet and there
isn't too much of a need to really go beyond that at least another curve model this
got a little priority, in fact I think we gave it a three. Compared to ease of patron
use which seemed essential for a modern library that was given an important
factor or rating scale of 10. So each of our scores developed from this point is a
combination of a raw analytical objective number and awaited importance factor,
how essential is this to the overall success of anyone of the schemes. We went
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meeting of November 15, 1999.
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through that with all of the library related issues and similarly with all of the
downtown context related issues. What does the building do to the life on the
pedestrian mall? Does the building fit within the overall context of the city?
Have we done anything to enhance our long range plan or in fact are we fighting
against what we set out as our objectives? And what is the affect of each of the
schemes on parcel 641A? And in a similar matter, each of these were evaluated
for each scheme, the best schemes getting the best analytical score and then we
weighted those again. Fit with the downtown strategies seemed essential, this is a
major project and we don't want to fit against our stated long range goals for the
downtown area so this again got a very high rating. You step down now in the
little blind, in fact on the pedestrian mall was a Server A I believe, very important.
And so we developed a set of performance points that were related to the library
and to urban planning category. The next step in the process was to take those
evaluation points and divide them into a cost for the project, I'm sure you've all
got a (can't hear) as to the validity of estimates at this point in the project as do I.
We have a number of notes on cost estimates as especially given where we are in
the process today. The drawings here by the C are very schematic, very
diagrammatic, they represent a minimal amount of information basically as little
as we can get away with and still make some key decisions. Our intent is really to
narrow the number of options being considered and then to develop one or two
options to a point where they can be full estimated and that number really
becomes the budget for the project. At this stage we really aren't in a position to
finalize those sorts of numbers. We're basing this on an understanding of up
scope only, we're looking at 80,000 square feet, pretty much new, pretty much
remodeled, a balanced half and half and an assumed level of quality. And for this
project we're assuming something between medium and high. We're going to
call it medium-high. It gives you the basis for Taj Mahal, developing library
service for a number of generations but it doesn't create a it's not a guilded lily,
it's good quality that will last and it will be a source of pride to the community
but nothing that seems extravagant, so that's our assumed level of quality. It's
important to know that these are not intent to be final estimates but their, but are
developed to realistic compare each of the schemes because of used the same
assumptions on each of the individual schemes. So if we're offering an
assumption on one, we're offering the same assumption all the way through and
the key is to look at the difference in the cost between each of the numbers.
Numbers have been put together by an independent cost consultant in the Chicago
area, he's done the last dozen of our libraries, he's never been the low bidder so
they're very conservative in nature but I don't want to represent that these are not
to exceed kind of numbers. It's important as we go through the process the
estimating process gets repeated a number of times to assure everyone that we are
in fact on track. We haven't developed the numbers, we wanted to make sure we
had all the project costs at least addressed, so we looked at demolition and that's
demolition if we wipe this building off this site completely. Demolition if we
take it down to structure and reinforce that and go up three floors. Demolition if
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November 15, 1999 Council Work Session Page 7
we want to go west and want to demolish the Lenoch and Cilek building, all of
those things are in demolition. Construction really related to the library proper
and as you see some of these schemes you'll see that we looked at a number that
had library, maybe some structured parking, maybe the reconstruction of retail
space in the downtown area, that's primarily the Westward Ho scheme. But the
library itself is always in this number, those ancillary sort of construction
numbers, parking, retail, commercial space, are listed separate but they are in the
whole number. We looked at what it would cost to furnish the building, we don't
want to open an empty building. Equipment such as computers, telephone
systems, photocopying equipment, things of that nature. Testing during
construction, fees, and then some related expenses, moving the collection. And a
number of the schemes were suggesting does the library really have to move out
of this building completely. That would entail a temporary home that would have
to modified to support library activity for 12-14 month period. It would entail
rent on that space, that wouldn't be free. It might entail land acquisition for
example if we go to the west and acquire the old hardware store. And it also
includes a contingency. One item that isn't covered in this is escalation, we don't
have a target date for the construction period and if these numbers are more than
12o14 months out we would have to reassess which portion of the budget should
be assigned to escalation. Having all of these numbers together we came up with
a composite cost for each scheme and we divided that into it's performance score,
the composite score, and that gave us what we called a value index. As we work
through each of these schemes, I'll be keying on those three elements, how well it
performed, how much it cost, and what the net value is for each scheme. So with
that as an introduction to the process let's start with the first group of options
which was to build on the existing site. Thank you.
Option 1A is probably the most dramatic of the options. This one suggests a
series of trusses be built over the existing building that would span basically from
the alley to the north across the building to a series of columns in the pedestrian
mall. You can see this in the Exxon metric which is basically a birds eye view of
the project. This is the pedestrian mall running in front of the building, this is
Linn Street in the background, there will be a series of columns in the alley and on
the pedestrim~ mall and large trusses that would span over the structure entirely
and a new third level would be hung from the supporting truss. This in theory
allows you to add the space needed in a functional floor plate something about
30,000 square feet, that would make library options practical. The premise here
being that this might be simpler and cheaper than reinforcing the existing
structure of this building. This building was designed to go two levels and in fact
portions of the second level are built and there's a light court up at that level of
about 8,000 square feet which was intended to take an expansion. Beyond that the
building does not have the structural capacity for a third floor and this really an
attempt to make up for that that structural deficiency. In looking at this there
seem to be a number of options one was to put the truss structure underneath the
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November 15, 1999 Council Work Session Page 8
roof and the other was to mimic a well known sports facility and put them on the
outside of the building. In our evaluation this seemed a little bit more appropriate
to the downtown area less tacky looking more in keeping with the context of the
old city. And we really focused on this was an option and this diagram we had
been thinking about putting the public on the upper two levels and really giving
them the advantage of the unique character of that vaulted space it would be fairly
dramatic you've got the potential for views into and around the downtown area
and there's the shape and the activity at that level that really becomes a deacon for
the library and could become an announcement of the services available there.
But as we looked at that, that putting the staff on on excuse me putting the public
on the second and third floors really wasn't the best functional plan, it forced
everybody with strollers and kids, elderly and handicapped to use an escalator or
an elevator and really became more of a nuisance than it was worth. So this
scheme really has a less than adequate functional plan. It does have a good fit
with the downtown master plan, it essentially keeps the library downtown, it
keeps site 641A free, it keeps the library in it's current and maintains it's integrity
as a magnet for the downtown area. It is fairly expensive, the cost for this this
truss system and supporting columns is fairly significant. Typically we'd expect
these buildings to be in the $100 to $110 dollar square foot range this one is $121
dollars a square foot. And that difference is really the cost of this structural
system spanning over the building. Costs is also increased by the fact that
because we'd be craning these extent huge pieces of steel in place it's really
essential that we vacate the building during that process, we would envision a 14
month period where all library operations would be moved off-site and as half a
million dollars, $560 million dollars assigned as rent in a temporary home another
$400 thousand dollars that has been designated to remodel that temporary space to
provide a minimal level of service so you could operate out of that facility for a
short period of time. And as another, that would have some potential downplay
you really do have to relocate out of the building. So in general, performance, out
of the 14 schemes we looked at this one came in at 9th, so it's about middle of the
road. In terms of cost it came in 13th there's only one that's more expensive than
this approach given the structural system sort of vows your intuition. So when
you compare those two it's value index is not very high, this one ranked 13th out
of the 14 schemes. We got OK performance and we paid a lot to get there, that's
scheme 1A. We looked at a variation on that thinking that, well I got myself lost,
thinking that that truss could be accomplished in a less dramatic and perhaps more
cost effective manner if it ran through the space rather than above the space, you
can see that all of these run above what would be ceiling height on the third floor.
Option 1B looks at running the truss basically through the space of the third floor
which would mean as you walk around the third floor you could encounter a
diagonal brace running through the space which would be a 14 inch wide by 14
inch high piece of steel W section. This has implications for library operations in
that you can't put shelving where you've got a piece of steel, so it limits how you
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November 15, 1999 Council Work Session Page 9
can use the space, reduces adaptability, flexibility, things of that nature. This fact
combined with the idea that maybe it's more appropriate to put staff at a third
level is the other difference in scheme 1B. The public is located on the first and
second floors, which is more convenient to the public and the staff is located at
the third level an the nature of the staff space is such that this truss is not as
disruptive as it would be on a public level, you don't have as many need for a
large open expanses of shelving runs or seating areas with clear lines of sight so
that you can control the activities in the building. When we looked at how well
this performed, you can see the performance index is about the same, the
advantage that you gain in terms of public being at the first and second level your
giving up in terms of the loss and flexibility at that staff level so it turns out to be
neutral. It's less expensive slightly and therefore it's value index goes up a little
bit, this was 11 out of the 14 schemes that we looked at. It has better functional
arrangement than 1A, it still has a good fit with the downtown plan and stays on
the existing site. It does mean relocating out of the building, it's still a massive
truss that's being craned into place and spanned across the building and you
would still have to move out of this existing structure for the 14 month period so
there's that 1.1 million dollar premium that your paying to move out of this
building for a little over a year.
The next option that we looked at staying on this site is Option 2. And Option 2
suggests instead of trying to span over the building we move out and replace
individual structural members within this building to something that has enough
capacity to lift the loads imposed by the third floor. Conceptually what we'd be
doing is moving everyone out, tearing up this lower level floor and drilling in new
piers, caissons at each of the structural columns within the building so that they
can take the additional gravity level, the weight of the third floor. We'd cast a
new cap around all those and tie the existing structure to the new structure and
well the series of braces into place around the existing structural frame and that's
what these elements are within the building. And there would be a series of 21 of
these throughout the building and this is analogous to the truss I was talking about
on the third floor on the previous scheme, it inten'upts the flow of space. This is
more detrimental than the other approach though because it occurs so frequently
throughout the building, we had a series of four trusses in the other scheme, two
of which went through the space, two of which were on the end walls. This is a
series of 21 throughout the building, two-thirds of which are public space and this
is where you will have an impact on the flow of the (can't hear) and the control of
the space and the arrangement of each of the individual program spaces within the
building. This scheme scored very poorly in terms of performance, it was 13th of
the 14 schemes. And it's largely because of this lack of flexibility, adaptability
imposed by these structural elements. You can see that it's also relatively
expensive, it's doing a little bit better than these truss schemes that span the
building. This is about six so it's not quite in the good range of 4-5 and above it's
toward the top into that middle. But because of the very poor performance our
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meeting of November 15, 1999.
November 15, 1999 Council Work Session Page 10
value index is 14, this one ranked last out of all the schemes. And essentially it
came down to the fact that it doesn't perform well as a library, the cost was OK
but the performance was very poor. Urbanistically it did OK, it stayed on the
downtown site, it had a good fit with the downtown master plan but the
adaptability was poor, there was the cost of the structure and renting temporary
space, and we would still have to move out of the building. So out of all of these
sort of live on the existing site and go vertically schemes this one scored the
worst.
Well when we we're looking at all these schemes it seemed that there was a
significant premium for modifying the structural system of the existing building,
either adding to it as in scheme 2 or spanning over it as in scheme 1. It seemed it
was worth the exercise to look at an option that was based on staying on this site
but not reusing the building. And that's basically tearing down the existing
structure completely and building a new structure on this site. In terms of image
we just kept the three story version from 1A call it 6A. This building is basically
a three-story building, we would put staff on the upper level, keep the public on
the first two levels, potentially put in a level of structured parking because we'd
be starting with a clean site. This would also allow us to set the first floor
elevation at the level of Linn Street and perhaps introduce the drive-up service
point. Right now this floor level is 18-24 inches above Linn Street so a drive-
through service point is difficult given the change in grade. This is an optional
level and we've looked at the pricing scheme with a lower level parking facility
and without. In terms of performance, this scheme did reasonably well, better
than any of the ones we've looked at to this point. That's related to the fact that
it's a new building, it's downside is that it's on three levels, and a two-level
library is preferable to a three-level library in a lot of ways, a one level facility is
preferable to two. We aren't going to get to the one level point, but it did stay on
the existing site, it fit the overall downtown master plan plus was it had all new
construction, I don't want to over emphasize this because in all remodeling
schemes we are basically down to structure and you are getting new mechanical,
new electrical, new partitions, new finishes, all that so but it is a modest
improvement. On a negative side, we are tearing down an existing resource and
throwing it away. The cost turns out to be a bit of a wash, it's cheaper to knock
this building down completely than to try and modify it incrementally and salvage
the portions that we were interested in and then add on to it. But in this scheme
also if you are facing the million dollar premium to move out of the building
temporarily for 14-16 months. Given the decent performance and a modest cost,
$14.5 million dollars, this compares to the $16-17 million that we've been looking
at earlier. The value index on this scheme was three so it scored fairly well
overall out of the group, this was third out of 14. So of the four options that
we've looked at that really tried to stay on the existing site scheme 6A seemed to
have the most going for it in terms of value. 6A compares to 6A NP with the
addition of parking. See the cost goes up just about $2 million dollars $14.5 to
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November 15, 1999 Council Work Session Page 11
$16.5, the performance goes up 200 points, basically this is because the parking
seemed to be of lower priority in our overall weighting system that a lot of the
other factors so you're paying a $2 million dollar premium to get that level of
parking and not gaining a lot of performance points so the value index for the
parking level at that level at that lower level dropped so the scheme that scored
the best was the three level new construction on the site without parking.
I want to shift gears here a little and look at the next group which was based more
on expanding the existing building beyond it's current site boundaries. So the
next five schemes are based on that premise. Option 3 is basically designed to
take the existing building and expand it directly to the south, this entails taking
over the College Street right of way for a library and shifting the pedestrian mall
south of that expanded library building. You can see on the X on metric and the
site plan the building encroaches on the right of way and it really starts to close
off the end of the mall suggests a note at that end that will shift both pedestrian
traffic and emergency vehicle access to a new section of mall that is on access
with the entry, a nice formal arrangement with the old library building. You get a
sense of enclosure this way, but also the continuity that had formally existed with
the College Street right of way is broken and the ped mall traffic would really
shift. It would be important to develop feature elements both at this location and
on the site of the hotel that would create a pleasant environment and this leaves a
portion of site 641A open for development but also gives a portion of it over to
that pedestrian mall and emergency access right of way. The other thing this
scheme suggests is that the utilities located in the College Street right of way
would have to be shifted to the south along with the pedestrian mall. In terms of
overall building performance, this scheme scored reasonably well as a library,
we're on two levels which makes it easy for patrons to use and it keeps staff in
close proximity to the patrons. It didn't score as well on the urbanistic issues and
that was primarily because of it's close-in or blocking of the line of site on the
pedestrian mall. It was deemed that the sort of the enclosing of that end of the
mall and creating a room was detrimental to the perceived quality of life on the
mall. In terms of what it did for site 641A it didn't take it all but it didn't leave it
all either so it's sort of a wash. Reorganized the mall for pedestrian and
emergency vehicles was seen as a downside. This scheme was really based on the
library staying in it's home here on this site but what we'd do is keep the library
in operation in it's current facility while we're building this addition and then one
level of the library would be emptied and those functions would go into the new
addition, the addition on the second floor and the remodeling of this level would
occur and then everything on the first level would move up and we'd come back
in and remodel that space and once that was completed everybody would reshuffie
and we'd have the final arrangement. This is a much longer process more on the
order of 24 months you know 21-24 months as opposed to 14-16 months but it
does keep you on this site, it means less in terms of renting space outside this
building, modifying that space so instead of a cost of $1.1 million dollars we're
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November 15, 1999 Council Work Session Page 12
looking at a cost of about $200,000 dollars for those temporary conditions to set
up partitions and incrementally move the library through each of these various
construction phases. That really helped our cost, we got rid of that million dollar
premium to move out of the building, it's a fairly simple addition, there's no
complicated structural duration's, we are talking about going down with the
foundation as deep as the existing building which is on the order of 60 feet, the
soil's in this area are not very conducive to the kind of loading that the library will
impose on this site. But the matter of fact is that this was the cheapest of the
schemes to construct and that included all of the ancillary expenses we talked
about earlier. And so with the performance even though it was fairly low and
again that was it worked well as a library but it didn't work well urbanistically it
still had a value index rating of four so it came out fairly well in the overall
evaluation. Cost was a big plus, effect on the mall was a minus.
The other approaches to adding onto the building, starting to focus on instead of
closing the mall what if we expand over it. I really shouldn't say closing the mall,
instead of shifting the mall. What if we stand over the mall?
In Option 4A is basically Option 3 but we've taken this two-story addition and
pushed it up one level so that instead of blocking the existing mall we've
spanning over it, this is the College Street fight of way at this point. And so you
can walk underneath the addition to the library. So from the air it still looks like
this but we have a clear pathway underneath the building, probably alludes you
off to one side to start to define it. Our sense is that given the desire to line up
each of the floor levels with the existing structure then we really wouldn't have
enough clearance to get emergency vehicles particularly fire engines underneath
the existing building without a lot of elaborate construction on the mall itself
essentially lowering the level of the mall so we could get an emergency vehicle
underneath the building. This will become more significant as you went farther
west, so you know the ped mall sort of slopes as it goes east. And so we're
suggesting is an alternative to that, that emergency vehicle traffic would still have
to go around the building and so a portion of site 641A or an increased width of
the alley adjacent to the parking structure is appropriate to make sure that
emergency vehicles do in fact have access to the mall. In terms of library
organization, the process is similar to scheme 3, you could stay in the building
throughout the course of construction, it would involve the same sort of series of
shifts but the addition would be constructed on three levels with a three level
section that really combines the old and remodeled space with the new support
space on the addition. Public functions would be on the lower two levels. Staff
would be scattered on the lower two levels but the majority of the space would be
on the third level. In terms of performance of a library this one worked out not
quite well as three because of the shift of some of the staff space to that upper
level and sort of the increased distance between staff and the public that they
serve and some of the attendant inefficiencies that go into that. But it really sort
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November 15, 1999 Council Work Session Page 13
of hit the ball on the evaluation of urbanistic issues, the effect on the pedestrim~
mall is not what I would characterize as beneficial. This is a building that's about
240 feet long and an addition that's 60 to 70 feet wide and you get that sense of
building over your head at about 10-11 feet off the ground and that I would
characterize it as something similar to walk inside of a parking structure. The
materials would be a little nicer, it would be exposed concrete, it would brick and
some grouting But without natural light I think the space really tends to be dark a
little bit oppressive, I think it becomes a security issue for patrons using the
building, difficult to control especially in the evenings. And so performance
really took a nose dive on this scheme, it came in 12th out of the 14 schemes and
it was basically because of those urban issues. In terms of cost it's only slightly
more expensive than scheme 3, basically we're paying for the additional structure
to lift it up a level and then we have to insulate that bottom floor so that we don't
lose heat. So the value index ended up being pretty much in the middle of the
road, poor performance, good cost, average net scheme. Again cost is the
positive, effect on the mall is the big minus, it does preserve a little bit of 641A
but not all of it. You do have a longer construction with multiple moves for the
library and the attendant confusion that it implies for patrons using the building.
That's scheme 4A.
In looking at this it seemed that it had a lot of similarities to an option that was
developed as part of the center space study a number of months ago which really
took the library and put it up on a second level but organized that space along
Linn Street and that's Scheme 4B. I think you can get a sense of scheme 4B in
the section where the addition where it parallels Linn Street in a narrow long bar,
instead of developing an addition on stilts parallel to the south fauced?? it really
becomes a thinner element, part of that is in reaction.
(END OF SIDE 1 TAPE 99-107)
Joe Huberty/What it does to library terms of internal organization is it stretches out the
staffs and really enforces the staffs a great distance away, in fact it's a block from
end to end from the public that their suppose to be serving. And while some of
the functions are removed from interface with the public a number of staff spaces
really want to have more of a direct contact and better relationship to both public
spaces. The plus side is this reading room could be developed into a fairly nice
gateway to the pedestrian mall as a nice image piece for the library. And it
reduces some of the difficulties we had with the sort of quality of life underneath
that walkway. And so to transfer some of those issues about what's the space like
off to the side this zone off to the side is sort of undetermined use for suggesting
as parking at least in the short term for the library and that might in fact be it's
ultimate long term best use as dedicated parking for library patrons. Another
option is that it's developed at some point as commercial space until that space is
developed though it looks sort of like missing teeth. It's a building up on stilts
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November 15, 1999 Council Work Session Page 14
with surface parking underneath. We also have to look seriously at shifting the
infrastructure of the storm, the sanitary and the water lines all the way down to the
service alley that runs along the north side of the parking structure. When we
looked at the scheme it too scored fai~y well on cost, it doesn't involve that
elaborate truss system, you can live in the building so you don't have to pay the
premium to rent space and move out. It does preserve a little bit of 641A, this
time this space faces the mall, that's this space here, and again we're thinking you
might have to reserve some sort of fight of way for emergency vehicles and that
might be difficult giving some of the turning radiuses involved with larger pieces
of equipment. But there is some developable property that's left as a part of
641A, and then there's a potential for in fill under here. It's that longer
construction with multiple moves, relatively low in cost, relatively low in
performance, and that came out not very well at all, 12th out of 14. So this
scheme didn't seem to have much merit.
Similar to the discussions for the three story scheme on the existing site we
thought it was worth the effort to take a look at whether or not it was cheaper and
quicker to knock down the existing building and expand horizontally. This is
basically the same image as 3C but not it's 6B. But we've tom down the existing
building or building all new from the alley over to the edge of the College Street
right of way. Having gone through this exercise the performance is average, the
cost really didn't drop at all compared to the earlier study and the value index was
about seven. So you get all new construction out of the deal and you get the same
good functional arrangement you got in scheme 3. It still preserves a little bit of
641A, it still has issues with what it does to the pedestrian with the blocking of
that line of site and the shifting of the mall. But it demolishes the existing
building and I'm not sure that we gain anything for it in this case where in those
previous scenario we realize the real cost savings by knocking this down, that
isn't true in this scenario because we're not comparing it to the building with an
elaborate structural system. So it didn't seem to be any cost gain. You'd still have
to move out of the building because we've tom it down and you'd have to rent
the temporary space so that really jacks the cost back up and you don't approve
any benefit from this option.
The following scheme in the remodel and expand approach is Option 7. In Option
7 is based on the acquisition of Lenoch and Cilek building at the intersection of
College and Dubuque and demolishing that structure and then rebuilding that
comer as a little bit of retail and then expansion of the library. This is a section
through the building from Linn Street to Dubuque, you get a sense of the existing
building, this is would be the in filler at the second floor above existing facility
and that expansion to the west up to Dubuque Street. And since the lower level
exists in the Lenoch and Cilek building it seems appropriate to take advantage of
that excavation and build in some additional space at the lower level in the new
building and that could be commercial, retail of some sort, it could expansion of
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November 15, 1999 Council Work Session Page 15
the library, it could be a combination of storage of mechanical space for the
combined facility. Then at the street level it would have retail space at that comer
that would continue the activity of Dubuque around the comer and sort of reduce
the sort of street frontage of the library to something that's a little more
manageable and doesn't really tease patrons to think that they can come in that
end. But then the public would be located at portions of the existing and the
entire second floor and the staff would also be housed in that area. We're also
suggesting that the mass of Dubuque Street should be maintained with a taller
element at the comer and again all of these images are diagrammatic, we're not
suggesting that any of these schemes would be the actual building, there really, to
give you a sense of how big both in terms of height and terms of street frontage,
each of the buildings would be. This building with the addition of the retail is
more like 100,000 square feet, of that 80,000 would be dedicated to the library use
and there's about 20,000 that is retail space. That's less than what is in the current
facility, the current Lenoch and Cilek building has about 26,000 square feet. We
looked at this building and it seemed to have a good functional plan because
everybody's on the two levels, two primary levels, it does stay on the existing site
and has a good fit with the downtown plan because we've protected the pedestrian
mall and we haven't encroached on 641A. There's the issue of the value of the
existing Lenoch and Cilek building and whether or not demolishing that is of a
value or a negative in that overall downtown develop. And the cost is fairly steep,
$16.7 million which was 1 lth out of the 14th. It would also be a phased
remodeling, this would be a little less disruptive than any of the previous ones
because this addition given it's size would allow more of the building to be, more
of the existing library to be moved into the new construction and then remodeled
so there will be less disruption, there would be fewer moves and we could have a
majority of the existing library functions moved out at a single time. Having
looked at this though with the notion of retail space in there, it seemed apparent
that we could sell that space back to a developer and recoup some of this cost.
And that's basically Option 7ASR, ASR is After Sale of Retail for lack of better a
title. And it basically reduces the cost, we estimate about $1.5 million dollars,
which is incidentally the cost we assume for the acquisition for the Lenoch and
Cilek property. So it allows us to recover some of that cost, but this is in fact a
valid assumption this scheme has a value index that jumps to about number 2 out
of our 14 schemes. Again good functional plan, it stays on the existing site,
demolition with a cost factor isn't as big an issue. So that's Option 7 and 7 ASR.
The last group, the last scheme looks at building on Site 641A. This is key. In
developing this scheme we really take the entire site, which is 641A. There's an
easement in the back for some primary electrical equipment and then the service
alley that accesses the parking structure and the hotel but we're bound really by
the edge of the College Street right of way and it preserves the existing building
for a future use and you can see that in the foreground here, this is Linn Street,
this is the east end of the Ped mall. We suggest a two-plus story building on that
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November 15, 1999 Council Work Session Page 16
site initially and you can see that here with the potential to add parking at a
basement level and the potential to build enough structure so the library itself can
expand or that additional development could occur along Linn Street if in fact a
mixed use facility is desired. It really allows you to maintain the existing Ped
mall right of way, all the infrastructure can stay in place, the sort of relationships
of the mall to the surrounding contexts are still in place. So urbanistically it has a
good fit with the downtown plan. Being a new building I would think we could
get it to work out reasonably well and a good functional plan seems appropriate.
All the public space would be on the lower two levels and then a little bit of staff
space would be on the third level but again the majority of the staff space would
be incorporated in the first two levels and there would be a good relationship
between the public space and the staff space. So it gets a fairly good performance
rating based on that functional plan and those context issues. The cost in millions,
it's $14.3 and in looking at this we should probably factor into account the notion
that this building has some value and can in fact can be sold after the new facility
is built. At~er sale of the existing building, the cost would be, we're assuming
about 12.3, that means you've sold this building for roughly $2 million dollars.
That's an assumption that needs verification, it could be more it could be less. I
think it would have to find out what the real value of this building is, but you
would in fact have to find a use for this facility with that sale or long term lease or
what have you. This is finally a use for 641A but if you had other plans for it in
mind this site's gone under this scenario. And as an advantage it's the easiest
conceptual move, you build a new building, you pick everything up you move
across the street. There's no rent, there's no temporary facilities, there's no
multiple moves. Conceptually it's the easiest and most logical for any of your
patrons to follow. This is the option without parking. And using a cost of $14.3 it
has the highest value index 456, if we reduce the cost of this to $12.3 the value
index goes up to 530 and it's far away the best performing of the schemes. We
through in that level of parking down below which will be connected by tunnel
underneath the service alley to the existing parking structure. So control would be
through the existing control system. The cost goes up roughly $2 million dollars
and the value index drops to 401 which is 6 if we take the cost down to 14.8
which again represents the money recouped from the sale of this building. The
cost goes down to $14.8 and it's ranking goes up to 2nd, so this scheme even with
the parking seemed to fair fairly well in the value index test. The purpose of all
this has really been to sort of help us sift through a large number of options in an
analytical way and come up with a way to critique them all and short list a series
of options that had the most validity for the community, the most value. And so
when we looked at all these and started to put them in order based on their value
index a couple of them came to the floor, one was scheme 5 which was, scheme 5,
build new. Another one was scheme 7, build to the west. Third in our study was
6A which was knock down this building and build a new three story building on
this site, public on the lower two levels, staff on the top. And the third one was,
excuse me the fourth one was Option 3 which was build out into the pedestrian
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November 15, 1999 Council Work Session Page 17
mall at grade and level above. Now I lost track of that one. It's probably up on
my rack isn't it? Thank you. No that's scheme 3. Again these are shifted slightly
if we take into account the potential of money you could recoup but from the sale
of this building. Scheme 5NP building on 641A with no parking jumps to 530
and there's a bigger gap between that scheme and the second place scheme which
is 7ASR. The bigger difference is in scheme 5 proper which has a new building
on 641A plus that level of parking. The performance there is 455 for index and
the cost would drop to $14.8 and that one puts us in second place, in fact that
money can be allocated to offset some of the construction costs. This seemed to
validate some of the sort of intuitive thoughts that you have as you start into the
process. Say building new has some advantages, scheme 7 the westward
expansion staying out the mall trying to reutilize that portion of the Lenoch and
Cilek building has some value. I think 6A was a little bit of a surprise given it's
overall performance but in fact if your really are serious about staying on this site
it is the most cost effective of the options and then scheme 3 has obvious cost
benefits because it's the simplest in terms of construction. And so that is a sort of
a history of how we got to where we got to and what we developed as of this point
questions as to the factual matters of the study are appropriate so. Is that
appropriate Steve to turn it over for questions at this point? Mark? Mayor?
Mark Martin/I believe so.
Lehman/I think the best procedure would be if we can't, if there are designs that we
absolutely would not consider that we eliminate them right off the bat.
Huberty/Sure. If they aren't worth considering let's circle in the other direction for a
change.
Lehman/Well yea I think that.
Vanderhoef/What did you say Mike?
O'Donnell/5-14.
Huberty/Everything from this point down.
Vanderhoef/Works for me.
(can't hear)
(All talking)
Kubby/Except that.
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November 15, 1999 Council Work Session Page 18
Champion/(can't hear)
Kubby/Unless your going to have the Option #5 with the parking, I wouldn't want to
eliminate at this point in the discussion because with the sale of that building, if
that's an assumption with that pink line I'm OK with it.
Vanderhoef/#6 yea.
Huberty/That means #6 which is.
Vanderhoef/Option 5 fight.
Kubby/Scheme 5 with parking which is ranked #6.
woman/Which is 641A with parking is that correct?
Huberty/Scheme 5. Basically this with a level of parking.
Kubby/I wouldn't want to eliminate that at this point in our discussion.
Champion/I agree.
???man/Yea yea I know.
Kubby/And actually there's a part of me in looking at Option #3 that just says we spent
how many millions on the ped mall and just the thought ofteating any of that up
is not very attractive to me. That's my personal opinion so.
(can't hear).
Lehman/You have one calculation that I would have question about but in Option 5NP
and also Option 5 you have changed your value numbers relative to the sale of the
existing building, fight?
Huberty/We offer that possibility right.
Lehman/Right but in either case have you factored the cost of the property that your
building it on?
Huberty/No in fact we don't know ifthere's any acquisition cost to 641A or
encroachment on the ped mall. If there's any sort of costs involved with either.
Lehman/I guess my only thought would be that if we factor in the cost of the present
building which obviously I think we need to and I agree with that.
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November 15, 1999 Council Work Session Page 19
Huberty/Right, fight.
Lehman/But I also think we have to factor in an acquisition cost for property, the fact
that we own it doesn't make it worthless.
Huberty/Correct.
Norton/You mean the opportunity cost of 641A fight, your using that?
Lehman/Right.
Norton/Yea and that's not a discount (can't hear) at all.
Vanderhoef/So the costs per square foot goes up considerably.
woman/How would you determine the opportunity costs?
Lehman/I don't know, I'm just saying I (can't hear).
Norton/I can hardly hear you.
Lehman/Figure one way you've got to figure both.
Norton/Another factor that interests me is that when you talk about resale of the present
structure under the options where this would be abandoned. You had earlier
indicated that it would take massive renovation of this for almost any purpose.
Huberty/For a library (can't hear).
Norton/For commercial purposes it would not so you, who your cost estimate there is
assumes somebody else bears the cost of renovating this space?
Huberty/Right, we assumed that after someone had evaluated the space and made a
determination as to whether or not it was in their best interest to acquire the
property that $2 million dollars was a reasonable number at this point. And again
that's subject to a lot of testing, that is not what it would cost to build the
building. If we were going to build this building now it would be significantly
more than that but it is not worthless, it's a good comer, a lot of traffic. It will
become more desirable as development continues in the area, structurally it has a
lot of capacity, the mechanical system needs a little work. The interior partitions
probably aren't conducive to anyone fight out of the box, that would require some
modification. But it represents a fairly attractive parcel in downtown so.
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November 15, 1999 Council Work Session Page 20
Norton/So if that number could trade off is that opportunity cost?
Huberty/Those numbers the opportunity costs on 641A, any acquisition costs there, the
potential value of this building to a third party, those are the hardest ones for us to
put a finite number to, so those are all worth further testing.
Lehman/You know we all have a list of questions that Steve gave us and I think there's
one issue I think that we need to address and that is whether or not or there's
another issue, but one of the issues that I think is pretty critical and I guess (can't
hear) concur. Some of these options require moving the entire library out of the
facility for what I would consider to be an extended period of time. I think a year
or 14 or 16 months is a long time. Is that an acceptable option? Any option that
moves the building (can't hear). I see thumbs down I mean.
Martin/The board basically has taken the position of we would find that not an option we
would like to consider. We would prefer being able to stay on site and build and
either move in stages or move lock, stock and barrel to a new building. And one
of the problems inherent there is locating a site that you could lease for a short
period of time and those sites in this area are few. The one that comes to mind is
Sears and as you've pointed out in our discussion Ernie getting a lease, a short
term lease on that building might be difficult if in fact the owners are interested in
developing a long term investment so. We would prefer not to move out
somewhere else and then.
Engberg/One of the other things that you should think about is that in any of the schemes
where you stay in the building it will take longer to develop the whole property.
The longest of those options is probably 3C and anything where or 7, where your
actually staying in the building and you have to move incrementally into new
space and refurbish the old before you can reuse it as part of the whole project.
Champion/But that would be easier than moving a whole library.
Engberg/That's correct, it would be less expense.
Lehman/Well moving the entire library is not an acceptable option then Option number
3, that one.
man??/Well 6A is the one that tears down the building and frankly that's our only
objection is moving out.
Lehman/But if that is not something that we're not willing to live with then 3 would not
be an option to be considered.
Champion/Well I think it is still an option.
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November 15, 1999 Council Work Session Page 21
Engberg/3 's OK, 3 's OK.
(All talking.)
Engberg/Right, the ranking, 3rd place scheme yep.
Champion/Is that, that does preserve a possibility of the commercial space downtown, it
does give them a new brand new building to move back into but it might make it
(can't hear). I'd like to keep that (can't hear).
Lehman/And the option of tearing this building down and completely rebuilding a new
one, which means the entire operation with any moves somewhere else (can't
hear).
Kubby/Well the (can't hear) isn't just so much for staff, I think it's for patrons of the
library and what does that do for library use and you know it's like when we do
something to the bus system we lose some people, we get some back but we
don't necessarily get everybody back. I don't know what the trend is or a total
(can't hear) for a library, what the industry has found happens, what is the mode
of behavior. You know do people get to the library then? And what are those
consequences for the meetings that happen, the children services or the general
information services for the community in terms of access? I guess it probably
matters where we go, if we can find a place to go that's big enough.
Champion/Well I'd like to keep it in because I don't think we've really made up our
mind about 641A actually and that's a reason to keep in here, that's a possibility.
Norton/Your plan with the one on 641A I guess is fine. I'm getting dizzy with numbers.
5 your leaving options for commercial up above? That infrastructure built into the
plans?
Huberty/There's that potential right, our cost included there's enough structure to take
that load correct.
Swaim/Ernie can I take a suggestion to people when their discussing this because we
have a lot of people from the people, let's either use the rank number when we're
using the number or the option number but if we keep flipping back and forth
people will think we're talking about Rank #5 which is Option #7, or Option #5
which is Rank #6 so if people would stick to the ranking number then the public
could follow our discussion.
Engberg/Do you want to use ranking?
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November 15, 1999 Council Work Session Page 22
woman/Yes.
Champion/Yes.
Lehman/All right (can't hear) the same thing.
Vanderhoef/You said Rank #1 had the infrastructure to go up more than that third floor?
Huberty/Correct.
Vanderhoef/How much more?
Huberty/Depends on what you want to put in there. It's at least to the height of the
parking structure that's adjacent to, if you put let's say office space on there the
(can't hear) less than if we were going to put library space up there and you get
more floors in that space. If you put library space in there it wouldn't be as many
levels. Is that a vague enough answer?
Vanderhoef/So your saying yea, roughly.
Huberty/Yea fight at the most.
Engberg/The basic thing is on that scheme you want to keep the primary public levels to
2 then everything else above that is you know for other uses.
Huberty/There for other uses.
Engberg/A couple of other things on that scheme you do have a possibility for a drive in,
a drop off for returning books, picking up books, there could also be an elevator
put in here for any vertical development on the back side, the south side of the
project.
Lehman/In rank #4 where's the building to expand?
Huberty/This building would be limited in it's building to expand. We could capacity in
the addition to go up another level or two or it would have to be horizontal and
encroach on 641A.
Lehman/Well I'm assuming that if that option were chosen something probably would be
built on 641A long before we need to expand the present building. We might find
ourselves in a situation like we're in fight now so you need to, the list before we
started was the ability to expand.
Huberty/Expand right.
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Lehman/And I think we need to know what those options are for various.
Huberty/Right.
Lehman/What are the options for expansion and obviously #1 we know for that one.
Huberty/Right, so it would be the substantial to go into the lower level or fill in this
portion on Scheme 2, this would get you another 16,000 square feet at the upper
level, there's 20,000 square feet at the basement level that can be given over. This
one is tapped out.
Lehman/There is no additional expansion.
Huberty/There is no additional expansion beyond this buildup. That doesn't have to be
the case, it's a new building, we could put in a structural capacity and this one it
would be limited to vertical expansion about 20,000 square feet per floor.
man/On the new portion?
Huberty/Right.
(can't hear)
Lehman/Ranked #4.
Thomberry/Ernie the walk in closet in the mall and your shrinking 641A (can't hear) and
your making rankings to go around with vehicles so, I've got a forum that I think
ought to be explored that I (can't hear).
???woman/Where are they?
Thomberry/Ranking #1, #2, #3, and #6. (can't hear) structure during 641A with one level
of parking.
Champion/That was 5.
Thornberry/That was Option 5 that was ranking #6.
(can't hear)
Kubby/It's Option 1 with or without parking.
Thornberry/That's right.
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Norton/I kind of agree with that Dean I like rank #4 and that's kind of a bizarre intrusion
there into the into College Street.
Thomberry/Well not only College Street it's 641A (can't hear).
Kubby/Right, it doesn't seem very efficient into our.
Dellsperger/But it's cheap to build.
Lehman/You know the price (can't hear) I think the prices (can't hear) I think the
building, you know we've forgotten what this one cost but we remember that it
didn't cost enough for splitting (can't hear).
??woman/That's fight.
woman/That's good to hear you say that Emie.
Lehman/Well I think function is obviously at some point is going to last as long function
has to be critical.
Kubby/Right and the ability to expand whether it's private purposes or for public
purposes to me seems like a crucial long term decision that I would love to see us
say that whichever option that we have to have the ability to expand. And such a,
I mean we want downtown to be this dense place that a lot of stuff happens that
make sense. You know the vista is gone from the parking structure and the hotel
that we should really do as much now for the future density as possible.
O'Donnell/How much commercial space is available in Option 27
man/Ranking.
Huberty/This is flexible but the way we diagrarmned it initially is that there's 5,000
square feet at street level and 13,000 square feet at the lower level.
O'Donnell/So that building is 7 for expansion?
Huberty/Right into that space.
Lehman/Would that be replacing the existing commercial space for approximate the
same (can't hear)?
Huberty/It's less, right now there's 26,000 square feet of commercial space in that
building.
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Lehman/On two levels? 8,000 to footprint.
Huberty/Right, fight.
Lehman/That would be reduced to what?
Huberty/18 total so we're reducing it by 8,000 square feet. We're suggesting that the
library take 8,000 square feet of the first floor zone.
Lehman/So there would be 5,000 square foot left on the first floor?
Huberty/Right, again that's our initial diagram that.
Lehman/That envisions using the 2nd floor for library?
Huberty/Entirely.
Lehman/And no third floor of that, the ability to add a third floor.
Huberty/The ability to add a third floor.
woman/An Atrium.
Huberty/Right there's a small area that we're suggesting that should be tall to begin with,
it would be double height space, you could insert a floor but it wouldn't be four
space initially. And again we're early, it's conceptual.
Norton/That scheme doesn't mess with the playground does it?
Huberty/Again that's pretty conceptual but the playground is pretty much in this area.
Engberg/Most of these schemes that extend out from the existing footprint of the
building will affect some of the permanent placement of new materials that are
out there right now. But you know I would submit those sort of the tail that wags
(can't hear) 14 million bucks yea.
Norton/(can't hear) Empire State Building.
Lehman/What did you say Dee?
Norton/Depending on the Empire State building.
Lehman/I thought that's what you said.
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Kubby/A couple of these that are more top rank #1 and 2 have flat roofs at least on the
conceptual drawing and I don't want to make the assumption that having
something other than a flat roof would just be kind of a wash with cost because
their different shapes there may be some economies with more compact space so I
know we've had a lot of discussions about flat roofs and is that a wise thing to do
again? Is there a reason that there are flat roofs?
Engberg/Flat roofs are never flat, they can have more or less slope and they will drain
when you have a building that is 200 feet by 160 feet it's very difficult to put a
pitched roof on it you know, it just gets to be so big that your building so much
volume that your actually adding to the cost.
Kubby/Not really getting much.
Engberg/I don't think it's a fear as much as it has been in the past I mean building
materials are much much better than they have been in the past. But you have to
be very careful about how you drain it and how you insulate the roof and all kinds
of other things it must be detailed property.
Huberty/The other thing you want to consider is the desire to expand vertically if you
invest a lot on a shaped roof that's not conducive to just plunking another floor
on.
Kubby/Even if it's just an aesthetic adjustment.
Huberty/Right because that shape has a lot of structural steel that supports that shape.
Engberg/You'd be throwing it away if you did add some.
Lehman/I've heard a couple of comments about ranking//4, option #3 that there's some
concern about maintaining the integrity of the ped mall. How strong are the
feelings on that? Because that obviously does change the ped mall, it does impact
641A.
O'Donnell/I think it impact emergency services to.
Champion/Right.
Huberty/Here' s the comer of the hotel gym, here's development on 641A, here's the old
library across the street, you can get a sense of, this really does become a bit of an
enclosed end and there's a transition point and there's another open ended room
and they're linked. The development of this space is very important.
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Lehman/The green arrow you have.
Huberty/The green arrow represents the flow of people and theoretically emergency
services but in fact this comer might get clipped so it's an easier more visible
connection.
Vanderhoef/What's the footprint left on 641A at that point?
Huberty/I know that, 641A would have about 25,000 square feet left fight now it has
37,000 square feet.
Vanderhoef/So what's the footprint?
Huberty/Of641A? Is 25,000.
Kubby/I'm with Dean.
Vanderhoef/Give it to me in feet.
man/We're losing 12,000 square feet.
Lehman/Losing a third of it.
Champion/Well I like the Lenoch and Cilek option as a whole new building option on
641A and it would seem like knocking down the old one so those are the three
options that I like. Tearing down the old library and putting a new structure in,
expanding to the westward ho did you say?
All talking.
Champion/I do like it on 641A.
Kubby/So you'd be OK without getting #4?
Champion/Right, Rank #4 I'd be OK with eliminating that one.
Thornberry/If we take this to a referendum Emie how many options do we offer?
Everybody/One.
Lehman/One.
O'Donnell/I think Option, or Ranking 2, I'll never get that, I think it gives you room to
expand out gives you room to expand within the present structure, it doesn't affect
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pedestrian flow and I think it's very compatible with 641A. I think that's #2 get
them all.
Kubby/That was what we were trying to do 5 years ago.
man/Ironically.
man/This is a different circumstances.
O'Donnell/I think it could answer some of the questions.
Champion/Does anybody like the one where we intrude into the pedestrian mall?
All talking.
Lehman/That's what I asked and never got an answer.
Champion/Do you like it?
All talking.
Lehman/All fight that's gone.
Norton/If you just speak with me, the importance factors, if you put them up and you just
identified a couple of them, how do these things work juggling of those numbers?
Huberty/Well this thing right now. The most important factor and this is by agreement
between library.
Swaim/Approved, it wasn't clearly identified at the beginning when you said we.
Huberty/We.
Swairn/We the committee was from the library board, people from the library staff,
people from city staff, people from city staff.
Huberty/Pretty much two of each.
Vanderhoef/Mayor.
Huberty/Right, mayor, city manager, city planner, library director, president of library
board and a couple of other out of town guys. We didn't get to vote.
Engberg/We didn't vote we did the.
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Huberty/We just recorded. The evaluation criteria in overall categories described as 'it's
a given' was adequate area, it had to be that so that was 10. The next was
functional arrangement to the library that was number 9, 10 being high, we're
working our way down. Next was 8, impact on the surroundings, that was use of
641A and sale of the new library, expanded library if remodeled library within the
downtown context, that was number 8. Number 7 was the impact on interim
library operations, on how much stress do we place on a community of the patrons
using the building and library staff. Number 6 was the aesthetic fit of the
building, the other one was economic fit. Number 5 and the lowest of the
categories we looked at was adequate parking. So that was the ranking.
Norton/Expandability out of that?
Huberty/Expandability was one of the issues under functional arrangement, the library,
which was the second highest ranked category, and of that expandability was
actually four because of the huge size of the facility that we're contemplating
now. That 80,000 square feet was seen as pretty good chunk. After we got
through the exercise, I reversed the rankings to see what kind of impact it would
have, I reversed the importance factor and interestingly enough the first 6 schemes
came out the difference between them was different but the order was the same
which was kind of interesting.
O'Donnell/I have longer construction for Ranking 2, how much longer is that?
Huberty/For?
O'Donnell/Ranking number 2.
Huberty/It's difficult to say but it's long enough building, how much longer would it
take to complete ranking #2 which is a remodeling approach as oppose to building
new? Building new is going to be quicker we think on the order of 14 months 14-
16 months. The other one the remodeling could take upwards of 21 months,
maybe 24 in some of the Option 3 Option 4 schemes.
man/Your not going to eliminate ranking number 3 and just go with.
Thornberry/We've got to do it on this site including westward ho or build on 641A let's
get it down to the nitty gritty here.
Kubby/Because there's actually two factors that council and library board have talked
about in the past that were a concern actually. One was that even though in this
value scheme parking was really low but that's not necessarily been the
conversation of the majority of council that maybe it's a little higher. Although
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there's only one option really that deals with parking at all. And then the other
one was the issue of taking over private space or reducing the amount of space on
the tax rolls.
Norton/Retail space.
Kubby/And what is current. And so I guess I'd like to hear some conversation about
how people are feeling differently or the same about those two issues, parking and
commercial space, taking over private space.
Martin/Let me respond if I can but parking from the library board's perspective, we
believe that any option that is chosen has to have a parking component but that
does not necessarily have to be, have to include the building of additional parking.
In either one of the schemes that would use 641A obviously if you build new you
have the option of putting underground parking if that seemed to be the way to go
we've also discussed the potential of putting a walk through from the current
parking structure to that building on 641A. The biggest concern there would be
whether we generated two entrances which would be a security problem but we
believe there's a possibility we can work that as well. In terms of option 7 and
7ASR our hope would be that the council would continue to maintain 641A as a
parking lot until such time as was purchased and developed so that we would have
continuous parking as we do now for the fact that's what your using it for. At the
time that 641A is purchased and developed I think you know we would have to
look at other options but frankly once we've made that decision and you market
641A then people are going to have to be satisfied with using the existing parking
structures that are provided in the area because we you know that's the only way
we can go with it. I think the board is comfortable as long as we know that we
can answer the public's question about how do I park and get to the library
especially for the elderly and for persons with disabilities have more difficulty
accessing (can't hear).
Barklay/It's going to be interesting for us to see how the public responds to our parking
need option, which essentially makes parking free under some circumstances to
see if that really changes public attitude about whether the library is (can't hear)
accessible.
Vanderhoef/OK and so your talking and ifI subtracted it out right $2.5 million to add the
parking component?
Huberty/Yea about 2 million, 2 million construction and then there's excavation yea.
Vanderhoef/I'm reading 16.8 and 14.3.
Huberty/That came out to 2.5 yea.
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Vanderhoef/For roughly 80 spaces?
Engberg/114.
Huberty/114.
Vanderhoef/114 spaces.
Engberg/That would be about 80-90 spaces under the existing footprint of building were
tom down so your getting more for your money across the street than if you were
trying to do something on this site tearing this building down. But we've already
decided that's not going to be one of the options.
Dellsperger/I just wanted to address some of the are some thoughts I had about Karen's
questions and rank #3 1 guess I have a concem about that and trying to sell that to
the public, I'm not sure how the public would feel about tearing down a 20 year
old building, I mean I don't like that idea myself.
Lehman/I agree.
Dellsperger/I have a hard time with that.
man/(can't hear) doing fine.
Dellsperger/I don't think it will either and then the commercial that we're taking away
from the Lenoch and Cilek, I think five years ago that was kind of a big issue
because downtown Iowa City was very full of rented spaces, I don't know for sure
now how many square feet of that building are even rented anymore and is that as
much of a factor for the public entity to take away private spaces to the tune of
5,000 square feet. My gut feeling is there's a lot of empty retail space in
downtown Iowa City right now maybe it's not as much as a factor in the year
2000 as it was in 1995, I don't know that though but that's my gut reaction.
Kubby/Yea what's empty? There are things that are empty but there's slated for people
to move into them. I mean we keep kind of saying that but I think we're putting a
message out there that doesn't (can't hear).
Lehman/Well I think Karen your right and there may be a few vacancies right now but
there's absolutely nothing that would indicate that would be true even 2 or 3 years
from now so I mean I think demand for commercial space in downtown Iowa City
which has always been extremely high is certainly going to be that way again and
probably not too far away. I would assume that if would select the westward ho
option that there are perhaps certain ways that could be designed to I mean
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November 15, 1999 Council Work Session Page 32
perhaps using more of the second floor whatever so that if we felt first floor
commercial was more than that was necessary that could be built into the project.
Kubby/Would that change it's ranking because of cost or efficiency?
Huberty/I don't know.
Champion/They've already included that.
Kubby/Not the additional 16,000 square feet.
Lehman/Based on (can't hear).
Huberty/Right. 5,000 on the first floor, 13,000 on the basement level, the lower level.
Right.
O'Donnell/I think you should adjust the parking (can't hear). I'm not favor banning
parking facility extra parking ramp next to a parking ramp. We are soon to be
parking ramp (cant' hear) transit that we're talking about.
Dellsperger/I agree.
O'Donnell/So I think that's an expense and I think we're more than (can't hear).
(END OF 99-107 SIDE 2)
Swaim/Future but hopefully not too many more future council's. It's refreshing that
from what I've heard so far there seems to be an emerging sentiment that options
1 and 2 are acceptable to.
Huberty/Rankings.
Swaim/Rankings #1 and 2, just testing, you know are options that are supported by the
council and I think you know again as a long standing library board member I'm
encouraged that we're close to be able to do that. I want to encourage you as
council present and council members future that the crutch of the issue still is if
you want us to have 641A and again council members past have wrestled with
what to do with that and there's always the potential to develop it differently. We
are at least trying to present you one way that you can use that property and I
think your ultimately have to evaluate is the way we're proposing to use that
property, one that's going to enhance the downtown strategy that you see and we
may have all kinds of view about that but that' s sort of the crutch of the issue.
Option #2, Ranking #2, provides as an alternative to using 641A. Both of them
allow you to do some commercial development. Both of them require that you
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November 15, 1999 Council Work Session Page 33
give up some existing commercial space but both of them meet the needs of the
library and you know for one whose struggled through this for several years now
I'm very encouraged by that so if we leave tonight with those two choices idle, I'll
go home and sleep well and be a happy camper.
Champion/Can we all go home fight now then?
Swairn/I don't want to belittle the point about 641A has been a focus of the debate often
and ultimately the council has to decide is the plan if your giving us the
opportunity to do that is it going to be something your going to be proud of in
years to come and that respond to the loss potential value of another developer
doing it and you know I would hope that you'll at least give us consideration for
that. And if not I think we can do quite well in the westward ho expansion.
Wilburn/In the ghost of council's future.
Lehman/Not a ghost yet.
Norton/I've got a question.
man/Dee, Dee.
Lehman/Just a second.
Wilburn/I was just going to say that after having rim-on this for six months now it's
encouraging to see that the option that I was running on is up there. In terms of
Option #2 talking about the commercial space that would be given up, I would
agree that that is minuscule given that if you are aggressively going to pursue
641A in terms of trying to market that space but also looking at.
woman/(can't hear).
Wilburn/Yea.
Thornberry/You know the problem is not minuscule if your business is there, you know
it's affecting you 1,000 percent. If they're willing to relocate you know, we're
making the decision for them if we say westward ho.
Wilburn/Right.
Thornberry/And I'm not ready to do that, I'd like to talk to people first, and I think we've
narrowed it down to two, I (can't hear) vote for either one (can't hear).
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Wilbum/And all I'm saying is that I'm real glad to see it moves, I'm just glad to see that
really it's come down to a political decision between two viable options.
Lehman/Are we willing to eliminate Ranking
Champion/I guess so.
man/yes.
Thornberry/Yes.
Lehman/Yes, we're down to two options that would be some variation of 641A or
westward ho. Now.
Norton/Ernie, I have a couple questions that have to do with option 2 and I don't know if
they've been fully (can't hear). How about the operating costs are a significant
issue as everybody's aware and clearly with option 1 you could design it
maximum efficiency in terms of operating. And it seems to me that's a very
important factor in favor if you wish of rank 1. I'm, 2 you have to put up with
some existing which may. And also if you do option 2 doesn't the presence of
presence building being part of that control in considerable ways of what you can
do design wise of I mean of you want everything to be compatible I take it so your
going to, are you going to redo the outside and (can't hear).
Huberty/Yes, portions of it would be replaced, portions of it were appropriate would be
salvaged and maintained and you would look at compatibility between the
existing and the addition.
Norton/Well will it look like a mixture or will it look nice?
(all talking).
Huberty/It will look good.
All talking.
Huberty/We'd avoid odd but there's nothing on the existing building that is strange
enough that would limit what we could add on.
Engberg/I think what you'd really find is that this entire fauced??? would have to be new
would change.
Huberty/Right.
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Engberg/Because the building is so much longer that your point of entry would be
slightly different, your means of vertical access would probably be different and
so forth.
Norton/Would you get it fight up on Linn Street?
Engberg/No.
Huberty/Not likely.
Engberg/Not easily because the existing building is higher than Linn Street and most
people literally got out of the cars would be hard to put a book in a drop.
Norton/Well it might be clear that I'm leaning in favor of one separate because I think
we get into too many constraints including the acquisition costs of that leihvard
portion fight. Is that clearly in hand?
Engberg/No, no that's a speckle or two.
Huberty/That's (can't hear).
Norton/Yea there's a big question mark too. And finally 641A the opportunity costs have
not been real high it's only been a year.
All talking.
Norton/I'm beginning a little of this as an opportunity cause.
All talking.
Thomberry/If it were advertised for sale you can sell it without the constraints that were
put on it when it were for sale before. Every single time that it was put up for
sale, there was some public component part of 641A. There was never a time
that it was put up that I'm aware of that it (can't hear).
Norton/I just put a RFP that did not suggest that.
Thomberry/I have not seen one, now Karen's been in it a long long time, how many
years ago?
Karen Franklin/Twelve.
Thomberry/But since then it has not been put out with any constraints at all, I mean
without, it has not been put out without some public constraints.
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Norton/Heavy constraints, I didn't know that (can't hear).
Lehman/All right folks, we're not going to decide between options.
Norton/All fight yea I'm not even going to (can't hear).
Lehman/Rankings 1 and 2 tonight. We aren't going to do that, I think there are questions
that need to be answered both.
Norton/I just want to get on record.
All talking.
Lehman/I think there are questions that we need to ask probably of Susan, of city staff
and whatever. I think we've done well and coming down to two that appear to be
or some variation of those two are seem to be an acceptable option for us. Irvin
Irvin Pfab/I'm wondering, your saying that this present building can not be built up if it's
a library. What happens if it's not a library? Does that make it more valuable to
make it easier to add another structure?
Huberty/It would impact what you would have to do, I don't know if it has sufficient
capacity than if we reduce the (can't hear). But if it's short it wouldn't require as
extensive modifications as it would to go vertically as a library.
Engberg/The live loading on this building is required to be 150 pounds a square foot. An
office building is about 60 to 80 so if you loaded it as an office building and you
didn't have stack loading on it you could probably.
Huberty/(Can't hear) more lateral bracing.
Engberg/You'd have to do some things to it but you might be able to add a floor, but
we're not going to tell you you can do it without some work.
Pfab/But because that would make this more building more valuable (can't hear).
Engberg/Yes I think that's a various student point.
Vanderhoef/I've been told previously that we couldn't go up on this building because
that was a specific.
Engberg/For a library.
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All talking/For a library.
Vanderhoef/No I'm talking about office space because that was something that I was
very concerned about in the possibility ofreselling this and we were told that it
wasn't possible.
Engberg/Well we're speculating that if you change the loading requirements.
Vanderhoef/I understand that and that was part of my question originally and I don't
know whether it was Kevin or who it was that told me that was in previous
meetings a couple years ago.
Huberty/We don't know the answer to that one way or another.
Engberg/For libraries it can not be extended vertically and for office buildings there may
be a possibility with some other structural modifications.
Vanderhoef/I understand that the loading.
Singerman/I just I mean if we went out of here tonight with these two as the viable
options that's terrific that's progress but I'm wondering how we'll get to one?
Lehman/Well I think depending on questions that council members may have that I think
will be answered. My suggestion would be with the concurrence of the council
and the board is that we meet again in January having had those questions
answered and come to a resolution on which option would be agreeable to both
library board and council.
Kubby/So maybe. I guess when we, we've talked before about a spring date for a
referendum. And I would love to help ensure that it's no later than that and that I
want to know that if we didn't take any action as policy making bodies until
January answering more questions if that spring date the spring date is still
possible? Because of all the things that will have to be done, finalized, fine tuned
the one that is picked I'm feeling it may be it needs to move a little faster.
Champion/We're only six weeks from January.
Lisa Parker/Six weeks, if these plans (cant' hear) at this point if you want to do (can't
hear) work and it's going to take them until January (can't hear) to happen,
enough information to give the council something (can't hear) about whether they
want to put up (can't hear).
Kubby/Well in that mean time what I would hope would happen with the council is that
there's developed some criteria or some discussion about 641A because that's
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November 15, 1999 Council Work Session Page 38
always the question as Jim's pointed out and how will that conversation not have
to be extended into February so that there could be a vote in the spring and so if
there can even be a commitment to have a time frame and a process that meets a
spring referendum date. I think that would also be a part of our process and then
it's up to the new council to figure out how to make that happen.
Lehman/The only reason that I say January for a time period is because I believe that
because there's a change on the council that it and if there is consensus on the
council, consensus not being unanimity but there's consensus on the council I
don't have a problem doing it before January. I don't want a new council to feel
that this council has done something we've rushed something ahead before they
have an opportunity to take act on it.
Kubby/Right I'm not so much attached to being a part of a vote that makes this happen.
What I'm attached to is a spring referendum date.
O'Donnell/I think we need to ask the library board if they think that' s enough time to sell
this project (can't hear).
Swairn/Well one of the things we need to know, yea one of the things we need to know
from Chuck is if you have one option to work on what's your development
schedule to get us to a point that we could present that to the public?
Engberg/Well we need probably 6 weeks. We have to do the design and then we have to
get the cost estimate because we have to have something that works well with the
program where we can check the program values against the building and then we
have to do the cost so the voters will know what the facility is going to cost.
Thornberry/Question on that point.
Engberg/Yes.
Thornberry/Say for example we do a referendum and number 1 passes based on the
criteria that we're given that we give the public meaning the cost and say when it
goes out to bid the bids come in 25 percent higher just pick a number, 20 percent,
15 percent higher than that, what happens?
Kubby/I think that's a legal question.
Thornberry/I know the referendum, people have said yes I want to do it for this much
money but then it's 25 percent more what happens?
woman/It's only money in hand.
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Steve Atkins/That's all you get.
Lehman/All you get is the amount of the referendum?
Atkins/Yes.
Lehman/OK you don't.
woman/That' s why you hire these people to do it fight.
Thornberry/(Can't hear) we've had maybe bids all the time in the city and some come in
higher and some come in lower, some come in so much higher that we don't do
the project.
Lehman/On a referendum, 20 percent, your limited to the amount on the referendum so if
you have a 1,600 referendum and the bid was 20 we can't do the project as it was
voted on?
Vanderhoef/You could sell a lot of cookies.
man/You could sell less.
Lehman/Pardon.
Man/You could sell less but not more.
man/But not more.
Thornberry/So they do, your going to do all of that the next vote.
All talking.
Engberg/The other thing is that you can you can also go to the public and say this is a
public partnership you know, maybe you could have a fund drive that would
supplement what is what is available.
Atkins/Susan and I have a collective questions.
Lehman/Go ahead.
Atkins/We're not sure what you want us to do, one of the questions is that if you pursue
Rank #1 we should begin work immediately on what we're going to do with this
building and there will be an obvious question on the electric glass so why your
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busy doing your thing we're going to have be coming up with some ideas for you
on that and that's why we'd kind of like to know sooner than later.
Dellsperger/I guess the other question I have too Steve is as a member of the library
board I'm still uncertain directive from the City Council to even be able to use
641A.
Champion/You don't have that.
Lehman/You don't have that.
Dellsperger/And will we get that by January?
Champion/I need two questions answered. I need some more informed amount of
moneys we might have to pay for the Lenoch and Cilek building.
Kubby/Or is it for sale?
Champion/Or is it even for sale? Is it (can't hear) indument to go to the library (can't
hear). So I, that's a simple answer I think that can be gotten pretty easily.
man/Except that whatever that answer is today if the library's not interested it's going to
be different than tomorrow if you say the library wants to purchase your property
and I only point that out because in the original westward ho thing that we
presented to you a number of years ago we were caught I think for a while in a
little bit of a catch 22 about just what happens to the market if the library' s
absolutely going to buy a facility as opposed to the library sort of hinting that we
might be interested in a piece of property and the likes so just be ready for that
because we might (can't hear).
woman/Another thing it was very protractive, you know it was not quick to get to that
place so we're really talking about our January, I just, I have no clue whether that
information could be obtained I (can't hear).
A few talking.
Champion/A second one is because I haven't been on the city council that long is what
ever has there been to sell the, I can't remember the number of that lot.
All/641A.
Champion/Library lot. And what are the poss., what are the realistically I mean I don't
know if they give me a guarantee what are the realistic goals of selling that
property for (can't hear) development? If what Dean says is true that a certain
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November 15, 1999 Council Work Session Page 41
number stay without constraints then maybe we just seriously look at selling it
without constraints, that would even make me more willing to go into the Lenoch
and Cilek building because it is an older structure and maybe we get something
bigger down there like another hotel or a big or I don't know what so I don't
know what but then I, I'm, I mean I like both those options I'm going to support
one of them but I need to think this through and I can't think it all in one night.
Kubby/Right.
Vanderhoef/OK Connie to continue on with what your talking about though is whatever
that appraisal value is of 641A that needs to be figured into the cost then of the
ranking #1 and #6 if we decide to put parking under it so that we're comparing
the same kinds of figures because right now.
(A few talking.)
Vanderhoef/Right now it's showing up as cheaper to move over onto that parking lot and
I suspect that it's going to be about the same cost either way.
Dellsperger/But it's not money out of your pocket.
All talking.
Lehman/Well that's (can't hear).
Atkins/The property was purchased during urban renewal.
man/Right.
Atkins/And we have to demonstrate that the property is sold at market value, you can put
public use on it, I'm going to need to have someone do some legal research for me
as to how that property can be disposed of. I do not believe that it will preclude
you from building a public project like a library on it but that cost does need to be
figure in to the extent which I don't know the answer to right now but Dee is right
we've got to have that element researched.
Lehman/Karen.
Kubby/I have two things. One is one way to think about these two options is which is
more important depending on how final costs come out if we get both of them
with final costs is the lost opportunity of 641A or the condemnation of private
property potentially and weighing those two things because that's kind of where it
seems to be coming down in a certain way. And so we all, I mean each person
needs to do some thinking about I mean it's not like we just meet in January but
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we have to do, get whatever information we have to be clear to staff about what
information people need so that people do some, we all do some work between
now and January and in January there can be another step forward.
Lehman/Steve I guess my thinking, I would like to see Council Members with questions
get those questions to the staff by a week, two weeks from this coming Tuesday
will be the last meeting of this month.
Atkins/The sooner you get.
Lehman/Well or sooner so that we don't have questions coming up in January if we
haven't had an opportunity to address. I think those questions include appraisal of
the building here, some kind of a guess, as wild as it may be, it's property to be
sold, the value of 64 1A some idea of what Lenoch & Cilek.
Atkins/We can do that.
Lehman/Some idea of what Lenoch and Cilek is going to be. I think these are questions
that we aren't going to decide here and probably don't even discuss it any further
but they're questions I think that Council I think needs to answer in determining
which of these two options is best.
Atkins/I would remind Council and other folks that in the March referendum we had
fully intended to put 641A to public use. So just keep that in mind yes. We
intended to use that property for public project. So if your going to change that
policy you need to let us know.
Kubby/I have a second thing and one of the things I want from the consultants whatever
especially if we're looking at these two bids is figuring out operating costs or
some efficiency quotions both of staff time or number of staff to service this use
and heating and cooling efficiencies.
Craig/Karen, we'll do that.
Engberg/We've talked about, we've talked about in the experiment it's very likely that
there's not going to be much difference between these two in terms of how much
it's going to cost for staffing, staffing load is going to be roughly the same so in
fact in all of these things we kind of looked at it and there's a number there and
you take that out over 20 years and it's a significant number but it's about the
same, roughly the same for all of these things.
Kubby/Is that true for heating and cooling?
Engberg/No.
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Kubby/Operation costs.
Engberg/I couldn't tell you which one would be better, my guess is the one that has the
least service area would be the most efficient. That suggests to me that that one
would be a little bit more efficient but.
Kubby/I mean that's just an issue that is like a forefront.
Lehman/Right.
Engberg/Yea, Right.
Champion/When we talk about we were really introducing 641A on the last (can't hear)
sales tax that included a cultural center and a library expansion it did not eliminate
the use of this building as a library so I think it's a whole different ball game.
Engberg/Mayor.
Barklay/I'm just interested in knowing if it is narrowed down to 2 options what it is that
you can do you know between now and January as opposed to (can't hear). What
is a reasonable progression of activity for you?
Engberg/I would calculate based on other projects that we've done on this size, the
schematic design it's and it's cost estimate would take about 8 weeks which
answers your previous question.
Singeman/For one option or 27
Engberg/For one option or two simultaneously it would be twice the number of people
and probably twice the design fee.
Lehman/I don't think we want that.
woman/No.
Lehman/All we, we have enough information fight now and when we get answers to
some of our other questions then I think we can make a determination as to which
one of these two we want to move forward on and between now and then I guess I
wouldn't proceed. How does that perhaps answer two questions that you'll be
proceeding of any design or anything else until we decide which one (can't hear).
Engberg/And once you decide which one of these things you would like us to pursue it's
about eight weeks to get to the point where we can give you a cost estimate and a
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schematic design which means there will be much more refinement beyond that
should the bond issue pass.
Kubby/Remember there' s budget time and Council has lots of extra meetings for budget
time, this is really.
Champion/Well we don't have time to make this decision before January Karen.
Lehman/We should be.
Kubby/Well I, is there a way to answer some of those fundamental questions about, like
one of them was the history of how we marketed 641A, we could get those
immediately, we could, and your other question there could be some initial
answers, there are way to finalize which one of these before January.
Norton/I think we should (can't hear).
Kubby/To move on. Because that would speed things up tremendously if we could get
to one, and so what is it that people need to really key in on to get to one and is it
possible to do some of that before then?
Lehman/Well, why don't, I think council folks and council elect really should get our
questions together and get them to Steve and Susan as soon as we can, if we get
answers to those questions then Steve I'm sure that we can give you questions and
the answers to those you can provide to the entire council. And if council feels
comfortable in a couple of weeks in making that sort of decision I have no
problem with that. But I do think we need some answers.
Norton/But don't you think those questions should be boiled down so we don't have 7
times 7 questions or whatever.
Lehman/I think Steve will, Steve's not going to answer 7 questions at a time.
Champion/But I mean I think Steve's got to talk with a Realtor (can't hear) is this a
market (can't hear) sell it for, what's the market value of the Lenoch and Cilek
building and what' s the market value of the that lot.
Pfab/Emie as far as future council (can't hear) we do not feel that we have any objection
to the present council going ahead, we would not be offended if you could come
to a decision. Now that's for me and I think that's.
woman/A decision on one option is that what your saying?
Pfab/Yea I mean to go however you decide.
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woman/First stage would be to come to a decision on one option so the architect can do
the final plan so that.
All talking.
Huberty/Thank you because that is what we're trying to do is get the referendum to the
public and they'll let us know in pretty clear terms.
Kubby/I hate to say this out loud but I feel like I must that there's a real possibility of
there being another community bond referendum this year and I don't want these
two to be in conflict timing wise and I think the library should be first.
woman/Jail.
Kubby/That's a timing is.
man/New jail, new library.
Craig/Hey they were built the same year.
Lehman/Could I suggest that council people have their questions ready for staff next
Monday, a week from today.
Man/Absolutely.
Lehman/Steve we'll give them to you based on, (can't hear) questions you could
probably give us an answer by the following council meeting.
Champion/And maybe we could schedule as an agenda item on our next work session
(can't hear).
Lehman/(can't hear).
Craig/This is more paper than you need now that (can't hear).
Lehman/We're accustomed to.
Craig/All the little parts that are pointed up there are in here so analyze it quick.
Lehman/All right is there anything else we should discuss tonight? Questions to Steve
and staff by Monday. Steve I'd like to copies of the questions (can't hear).
Atkins/When questions come in I'I1 at least summarize all those without answering them.
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Martin/I'd like to express some thanks to Chuck and Joe for bringing clarity to this issue.
(all clapping).
Lehman/Thanks everybody for coming.
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