Memorandum 10-92 City Hall Renovations and Expansion Project Proposed Action Plan

MEMORANDUM 10-92
TO: Mayor Hornaday and Homer City Council
FROM: Walt Wrede
DATE: June 28, 2010
SUBJECT: City Hall Renovation and Expansion / Proposed Action Plan

Council member Wythe requested that I develop a City Hall renovation and expansion plan for consideration by the Council. Beth expressed the hope that the Council would identify this as a high priority project and that it would authorize the administration to get working on it as soon as possible; perhaps ahead of other capital projects that are queued up on the pending list.

The City has $1,872,274.00 available for this project. $1,457,000.00 remains in grant funds that were re-appropriated from the City Hall / Town Square Project. The Council also shifted $414,274.00 from the City Hall depreciation account into the City Hall construction account. Design, engineering, and construction administration costs are generally estimated to be around 15% of total project costs. Therefore, the Council would likely have around $1,591,433.00 available for construction (this number includes 10% for contingency, which should be set aside ). A preliminary budget is presented below.

Beth and I discussed a preliminary completion / occupancy date of fall 2011. I believe this might be possible however, much will depend on the scope of work, the nature of the renovations, and whether City employees will have to take up temporary residence somewhere else during construction. The soonest the College can vacate the West Campus (a potential temporary relocation site) is January of 2011. So, the schedule below targets October of 2011 but Council should be aware that this date might prove to be overly optimistic depending on how circumstances unfold.

Following is a list of the action items in sequential order that we believe will need to be taken. Each action item is preceded by timeframe benchmarks.

Sept. 2010:
Create City Hall Renovation Committee or Task Force: There is value in having a steering committee. I would recommend that we keep it simple though. We are not designing and constructing a new City Hall and Town Square; a situation where you would naturally want a lot of public input. There is no need for public scoping meetings and a large public information campaign. We are just renovating and expanding the existing building. I would suggest a committee that includes three Council members and three staff members. The committee would seek input from interested parties and make recommendations to the Council. The committee would be responsible for reviewing existing documents, helping to develop the RFP, reviewing and scoring proposals, providing a sounding board for the architect, and helping to develop the project budget and scope of work.

Sept.-October 2010:
Review Existing Documents: During this period, the staff and the Committee would review all of the existing documents and develop a preliminary scope of work and list of desired objectives that would form the framework for the RFP to follow. The list of existing documents includes floor plans, the old City Hall expansion plan, and the engineering study / evaluation performed by the University when it was preparing to purchase the building. The Committee would also review and update if necessary, the Space Needs Study conducted several years ago. The Committee would brief the Council on a regular basis and seek its approval before going to RFP.

November 2010
Draft and Publish a Request for Proposals: We would recommend that the RFP use the same GC/CM approach that was utilized in the City Hall / Town Center Project. There is great potential to get a better product, make the most efficient use of the funding available, and save valuable time, if the architect and the contractor are teamed up at the beginning. This is especially true in this case where we want to conduct an energy efficiency evaluation as well. The RFP would focus on structural, mechanical (conversion to gas? / air exchange system), energy efficiency, and simple upgrades like paint and carpet for the existing building.
NOTE: One option the Council could consider is skipping the RFP process and directing the work to the contractor who had the contract for the City Hall / Town Center project (If the company is interested). This might be done by issuing a negotiated change order to the existing contract (although it would be a pretty comprehensive change order). This approach might have a number of advantages. The most obvious one is that it would save at least two months and probably more. The other is that the City would have a local contractor who it has already selected based upon it’s qualifications and track record. If Council likes this approach, we will explore it further with the City Attorney and the contractor.

Dec. 2010
Select Contractor GC/CM Team: If the RFP approach is utilized, the goal would be to have a recommendation on a contractor to the Council for approval by December 2010.

February 2011
Approve Budget and Scope of Work: If a GC/CM team is selected in early December, it will have approximately six weeks to provide preliminary designs and renovation recommendations, an energy efficiency audit and recommendations, and cost estimating for all. This will allow the administration and the committee to make some basic choices regarding the scope of work and the project budget. The goal would be to have these recommendations to Council for approval by February 2010.

February 2011
Approve a Transition Plan: After the scope of work and construction plan is finalized, it will be possible to make decisions about how City business can be conducted uninterrupted while construction is taking place. There are a number of possibilities and much will depend upon the nature of the work and its duration. For example, all staff could move to another location temporarily. We could temporarily vacate one department at a time. We could allow staff to telecommute or build the addition first and move some folks in there while construction is talking place in the rest of the facility.

March 2011
Construction Begins

October 2011
Construction Complete / Occupancy

Preliminary Project Budget
Amount Available $ 1,872,274.00
$ 187,227.00 10% Design and Engineering
$ 93,614.00 5% Construction Administration
$ 187,227.00 10% Contingency
$1,404,206.00 Construction
____________
$1,872,274.00

NOTE: The Council could appropriate more money to this project if it was necessary. Also, it is possible that the Revolving Energy Fund could be used for some of the preliminary design and upgrade work involving energy efficiency.

RECOMMENDATION:
Approve Memorandum 10-92 and authorize staff to proceed accordingly.