Written by the reviewer from the ASR + docket; [verbatim-ASR] = quoted machine transcript; [paraphrase] = reviewer's wording, not a quote.
0:04 We will call Committee of the Whole to order.
0:11 First move to approve the minutes of the February 2nd meeting without the necessity of reading.
0:16 Motion's been made and seconded.
0:22 And that motion passes.
0:25 And we have continuing the conversation tonight about the administration's proposal for City
0:31 Hall, potentially moving to Warren Road, and I believe we have a presentation from Planning
0:41 So I'll turn it over to you, Assistant Director Boss.
0:49 Thank you Madam President and members of council.
0:58 So I have an analysis of alternatives that we'll step through here, just looking at
1:03 all the different options.
1:07 So just by way of context, I was not directly involved in this project, so I have a lot
1:17 of other things that I've been responsible for.
1:19 This thing of the last two, three weeks, I've come in and just tried to take as much
1:26 of an objective view of kind of the body of work that's been done over the last
1:30 12 months, going all the way back to Sean Lineger, all the way through the last
1:36 couple of months on these things and trying to present.
1:40 It's basically, it's a summary analysis of the different alternatives, priorities.
1:46 We'll get into all these different criteria, but there's four basic kind of steps as
1:54 I make my way through here.
1:56 We'll talk about the priorities, review the priorities and the evaluation criteria
2:00 that kind of fit underneath each of those.
2:02 There's two main priorities.
2:05 We'll look at limitations and assumptions that have allowed us to kind of continue
2:09 planning that went into some of the space study analysis and the other fit analysis
2:14 for some of the new buildings, and then look at the alternatives that have been
2:19 proposed throughout the process, and then I'll basically go through each of those
2:24 alternatives, looking at the priorities and the criteria for each of those.
2:29 Just to offer a note up front that this is a summary, very high-level analysis.
2:36 I spent an awful lot of time going through the space study, the plans,
2:41 the various fit proposals for the Board of Ed and other buildings going back to 2024.
2:48 I will tell you that I counted the space in every room because I will tell you in
2:56 some instances, the work from Weber Murphy Fox, not to denigrate their work, some
3:00 of their summaries and their math was wrong, and so the space requirements that I present
3:08 here are as accurate as I believe them to be.
3:13 They are the space requirements that are for the functional space.
3:16 This is another area that we were kind of getting sideways.
3:20 We were getting space totals and departmental totals that included
3:23 hallways and bathrooms.
3:25 It's not functional space.
3:26 When you're talking about a meeting room or office space or open area that
3:31 a department can configure to their own requirements.
3:35 So this is the totals that I'm presenting in here.
3:39 By and large, they do match what was in the Weber Murphy Fox totals by department,
3:46 but I just want to give that disclaimer.
3:48 This is a high-level analysis, and in most cases, we're talking hundreds of
3:54 square feet, thousands of square feet, not like 10 square feet, 5 square feet.
4:00 So I will go through this methodically, and I'll try to keep moving, but help if I could
4:09 get through it, and then I will answer any and all questions that you might have.
4:14 So I appreciate that.
4:18 So the two priorities, and then at least for under priority one, I will call them
4:24 They're not really evaluation criteria, but the first priority was to provide the
4:29 police and the court with an increase of renovated space to meet their
4:35 I think we recognize that the current space that the police are in is
4:39 inadequate, the current space that the court is in is inadequate.
4:45 Between the judge's letter and then the chief's priorities in talking to the
4:48 police chief, these are the main things that they're looking to get out
4:51 of any renovation or any kind of effort moving forward on here.
4:57 So you've got the variety of the police priorities there, and then from the
5:02 letter from the judge, she was looking for expanded lobby seating to separate
5:07 the probation and magistrate spaces and to get an additional hearing room.
5:13 The second priority is subordinate to the first one.
5:17 So while achieving priority one, we're looking to consolidate.
5:21 When I say consolidate, I'm talking about the points of public service access.
5:26 So how many buildings does a person have to go to see finance, to see building,
5:31 to see planning, those departments and divisions that are public facing,
5:35 that have a role as a public facing entity?
5:38 And when I say finance, I include tax and water and all their sub-functions
5:47 But really, it also improved the functionality of administrative space.
5:52 And a lot of that is some departments need more space, some departments don't
5:57 need as much space as they have.
5:58 Building is one example of that.
6:00 As we digitize records, people don't need these massive storage rooms
6:04 that they've had, and that's a continued effort that we'll continue
6:09 to see space efficiencies over time.
6:12 And so these kind of five evaluation criteria, when we get to priority two
6:17 in the analysis, I will go kind of point by point through each of these
6:20 with a lot more data for each of them.
6:27 So with any planning effort, there's limitations.
6:29 There's things that you have to do.
6:31 There's things that you can't do.
6:32 And then there's assumptions.
6:33 And so the limitations that we're dealing with, at least from my
6:37 perspective on this, is that two constraints, the things that you have
6:40 to do, we have to provide sufficient space for the police and the court.
6:45 Whatever we do, that is something that we have to do.
6:49 The second one, that regardless of what we do, we have to renovate the
6:53 current city hall building in any new location if we were to move towards
6:59 There isn't a hall of justice or another city hall building in Lakewood
7:02 that would accommodate all of our space requirements.
7:06 And so we've got to renovate this building, and if we're going to move
7:09 somewhere, we've got to renovate that building.
7:11 There's two things that we can't do.
7:13 Interrupt, even temporarily, public service delivery.
7:17 And so when we get down the road and planning and you start talking about
7:20 phasing and that renovation of, concurrent renovation of buildings, there
7:26 may require a third location or a temporary lily pad for administrative
7:30 departments to sit down so they don't lose that continuity of service.
7:37 And then, obviously, the thing we can't do, we can't exceed
7:41 You can't put the city's bond rating at risk or ask for an
7:47 There are four key assumptions that I've worked through.
7:51 In any option, these allow us to continue planning.
7:55 So police, court, and the main portion of IT, designated to remain
8:00 in this current location.
8:01 That's consistent across the options and is necessary as well.
8:08 Council offices and auditorium are assumed to be in the same building.
8:11 We don't want to separate council offices from wherever the
8:16 Public works service elements, so streets, public property, fleet, those,
8:21 they remain in that back building.
8:22 There's no intention or anything to move them to a separate location.
8:28 And then the minimum functional space requirements, which I'm going
8:30 to get into in the next slide, but just so you can see, these are
8:33 kind of the minimum floors that we're looking at getting out of.
8:37 For the police, it's 30,000 square feet.
8:40 For the court, it's 6,650 square feet.
8:43 That does not include lobby space.
8:45 That's functional office space and hearing rooms.
8:49 For the administration, it's 19,600 square feet.
8:53 Right now, I have set aside the council office and the auditorium.
8:56 I've kind of set that to the side.
8:59 And we'll talk about that a little bit.
9:02 But the council offices right now in the space studies fluctuated
9:05 between like 550 and 700 some square feet.
9:08 It wasn't a huge consideration when we're talking in the macro
9:11 of thousands of square feet.
9:14 The auditorium, that's a pretty significant consideration at 37,
9:19 just over 37, 100 square feet.
9:21 And so we can talk a little bit more about that in terms of where
9:25 that auditorium sits, if it stays here, or if it moves to another location.
9:31 And how I got those minimum functional space requirements?
9:36 For the police department, two kind of broadly recognized
9:41 organizations, International Association of Chiefs of Police,
9:43 they have a police facility design guidelines.
9:46 And CALEA, the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement
9:49 Agencies, do have standards.
9:51 Although both of these agencies do not have specific square foot
9:55 requirements for facilities.
9:59 They focus on functional requirements, safety and operational efficiency.
10:04 However, dig a little bit deeper, there is standard industry planning
10:10 practices that are used to meet CALEA's requirements for those
10:16 facilities, and that's what I've put up here.
10:18 So for general administrative personnel, somewhere between 150
10:23 to 250 square feet per person.
10:26 So those are like anybody outside of not a sworn officer.
10:30 For sworn officers, it's between 300 to 500 square feet or higher.
10:35 That standard we used, especially for the sworn officer standard,
10:39 that's for what they would consider a large department,
10:41 which we follow under those guidelines for both organizations.
10:47 So when you consider the number of police personnel,
10:50 which I know there's been discussion on this,
10:53 I used approximately 126 total personnel talking with the chief.
10:57 That's the number of people that are consistently within this building.
11:01 We have neighborhood officers, we have other people that work in the annex,
11:04 work in other locations out in town.
11:06 But we decided to go forward with 126.
11:11 Even that, you do the quick math there in terms of those minimum standards,
11:15 which all they are, it's a planning factor.
11:19 And so based on the space study, those factors,
11:24 we decided to establish a minimum, it's a floor of 30,000 square feet.
11:28 If you can get police more, we should get police more,
11:31 but that is a bare minimum standard for this effort.
11:36 For the court, recognizing that they have 6,300 square feet right now currently
11:41 and they need additional space, we looked at using the space studies
11:46 and the different options that were out there.
11:48 And the ones that got them what they were looking for were right
11:52 in the neighborhood of 6,650 square feet.
11:55 So I established that as a minimum footprint for the courts.
12:00 Also, under that, we are moving forward knowing
12:04 that to expand the lobby and the seating area without too much effort,
12:09 you have to relocate the council office.
12:11 That's kind of a lesser included piece within that functional space,
12:16 even though I'm not counting the lobby and the seating area as exclusively
12:19 for the use of courts because one of the options, we're going to use it too
12:23 if we were to stay here, but it's not a bad consideration in terms
12:28 of expanding that lobby and that seating area.
12:30 For the administration, the space study provides options, again,
12:34 that shift from our, and this is functional space again, just over 20,000 square feet.
12:39 And they had a couple options that went from 18.3 all the way up to 21.1.
12:43 So you look at those things, you take kind of the different departments and divisions
12:49 and what they got, who got less, who got more, and it's basically an average
12:54 that drives you toward somewhere around 19,600 square feet that provides that kind
13:00 of minimum muggle of that adequate amount that you should be shooting for.
13:04 So those, in terms of that assumption, moving into looking at the alternatives,
13:10 those are your minimum standards that I would recommend.
13:16 Looking at the alternatives that we have, there are four, really four with one
13:23 with two subsets, there's a status quo, so you can always do nothing.
13:30 You can always kick down the road.
13:32 There's option one, stay in place with that small side addition.
13:35 That's the 1,000 square foot approximate footprint going out the side here.
13:40 That would also require you to retain the annex.
13:44 Option two, stay in place, you build that large front addition.
13:48 This is the front addition that was proposed by Weber Murphy Fox,
13:52 5,400 square foot footprint kind of adding on to the front of the police department
13:58 and going out towards Detroit that would also require you to retain the annex.
14:03 Option three is to relocate the administration and that would allow you to divest the annex.
14:09 The two options underneath there, there's the Warren Road Board of Ed building,
14:13 but there's also the Bell Avenue Community Health Center that we own.
14:16 There's a second and third floor of that building.
14:19 And so we'll talk a little bit about that when we get to that option.
14:24 Another option that, as I was going through this, that has not been developed,
14:27 but I can't speak against it, I can't speak for it, is that you could blow
14:34 out the entire front of the building and you could build any number
14:39 of functional square footage probably.
14:41 You could probably double the size of that, it would probably double the cost,
14:44 it would double the impact in terms of construction,
14:47 but that would probably be the only way that you could get rid of the annex
14:49 and stay on the same location is obviously to build a larger addition.
14:53 So did not develop that, not an architect, don't have the data or the time to do that,
14:58 but I do want to recognize that as an undeveloped alternative that's hanging out there.
15:07 So when we start getting into comparing these alternatives against the priorities,
15:12 we're going to start with priority one.
15:14 And so to provide the police and court that increase of renovated space
15:18 that meet their contemporary needs.
15:19 So based on the assumptions, those minimum goals of square footage,
15:23 the chart that I put up there, so that is, it's a summary of basically the numbers
15:30 from the space study, functional space numbers
15:33 from Robert Murphy Fox that are summarized there.
15:36 You can see police, courts, and then as you work your way
15:40 down the administrative departments.
15:42 It does not include the council office or the council auditorium.
15:45 And then the distribution of that administrative space
15:48 between the different buildings, whether it's CH, the city hall here, the annex,
15:52 and then as you get into option three to a new building.
15:55 And so the status quo right now as the space study laid out in the proposed kind
16:03 of plans, and I guess I understand that they're preliminary,
16:06 but how they would recommend cutting up this building to provide that.
16:11 The status quo does not provide obviously what we need for police and courts.
16:17 Option one did not provide what we need for police and courts.
16:21 And so right off the bat, based on my analysis, you can go ahead
16:25 and eliminate the status quo in option one.
16:27 They don't meet priority one.
16:29 That's our number one priority.
16:31 And so you can move on looking at just option two and then option three.
16:36 So for looking at the alternatives now versus priority two,
16:46 so what we've achieved, priority one, not by knocking out the other,
16:51 the first two alternatives, the five points that I'll dive into here.
16:57 Now I'll try to go through each of these charts as they get kind of detailed
17:03 as I work my way kind of top down, it'll build on the right side.
17:08 And so this is really looking at those first two criteria.
17:15 And so you're looking at the departmental locations
17:23 and the functional space available now into the future, as well as the points
17:26 of and accessibility designed for public service access.
17:30 So what this chart on the right has done, it was a chart from the priority one slide
17:37 with another box there kind of below the total going down.
17:42 That box identifies the points of public service,
17:45 the number of departmental meeting spaces,
17:47 the number of common meeting spaces, and the number of restrooms.
17:50 Those are just objective metrics that were from the fit plans,
17:54 from the space study floor plans to kind of give you some reference.
17:59 Between the difference between those what we have now versus those different options.
18:04 The final two lines, new building space that then translates to flex and future growth.
18:11 This is important for a variety of reasons because it accommodates
18:18 where council office and the auditorium can go.
18:21 And it also goes towards some of your questions from some of the early hearings
18:25 about how adaptive are we going to be?
18:28 Can you change different spaces, you know, when new requirements come up
18:32 or unforeseen requirements come up, is there space to adjust?
18:37 And so just working our way down through option two here in that first red box.
18:45 The administrative space is at basically just under the goal.
18:50 But the one thing I would highlight is you kind of go all the way to the bottom.
18:53 There's very low potential in that for growth or adaptation
18:56 without taking space away from the police.
18:59 It's just the way it is.
19:01 If you stick to that 5,400 square foot addition on the front of the building,
19:07 you're giving police just about everything that they need in terms of their requirements.
19:13 But you're also consolidating the administrative departments all
19:16 on the second floor of this building.
19:18 And you're also putting the council, leaving council auditorium
19:21 but putting the council offices in the back.
19:23 So in terms of the numbers of, you know, I guess what would fall out of that in terms
19:30 of the departmental meeting spaces, they're fewer.
19:34 Common meeting spaces, little, you know, an increase of one.
19:40 The points of public service remain the same.
19:44 You're still asking people to go to the annex for tax and water and then asking people
19:48 to come through the court entrance and the lobby to get
19:52 up to the administrative departments on the second floor here.
19:55 So there's really no change in terms of that.
19:57 We're not achieving any kind of functional improvement through that effort.
20:02 In terms of restrooms, I know this is a minor thing but from my perspective,
20:08 it's not you're losing the male and female bathrooms on the ground level
20:16 because that then becomes part of the police department.
20:18 And so in terms of City Hall, consolidating all those employees onto one floor,
20:24 you have a male and a female bathroom at the annex and a male and female
20:28 and one gender neutral bathroom here for everybody on this floor.
20:31 And so that is a net reduction in terms of access of restrooms.
20:36 Minor point but it's objective.
20:39 It's something to look at.
20:41 And then the council office auditorium, like I mentioned,
20:46 would be up here, would be co-located.
20:48 Under option three, the current fit plan, it does, you know,
20:53 and I assumed the administrative requirements moving
20:58 to a new building would be generally the same
21:01 across either new building that you would move to.
21:05 It's not like going to the Board of Ed building and then going
21:09 to the community health center, one division or one department would say,
21:12 oh, I need a thousand more square feet because of that building versus this building.
21:16 I'm kind of looking at them as neutral in terms of a third site.
21:20 The current fit plan falls under that goal but in one of those examples,
21:26 if you drop down to the bottom, there is a significant potential for growth and adjustment.
21:32 I'm sure there are needs that have been unforeseen, you know, that the design process
21:40 that went through the space study and all that, it was a space study.
21:46 It was not a full-blown design process and so that Board
21:52 of Ed building has the highest potential for growth and adjustment.
21:59 That option, option three, allows for the divestment of the annex
22:03 and it consolidates the administration down to a single point of service.
22:07 So that includes that it's accessible through a new lobby with a focused reception.
22:13 So no longer is somebody coming to the court lobby or the police lobby looking
22:18 for the administration, looking for finance, looking for planning and then having
22:22 to be redirected either across the street or wherever they know.
22:24 If they know where City Hall is, they're coming to City Hall, then they can find,
22:29 it's truly one shop shop, they can find any administrative department
22:33 in the same building through the same lobby.
22:35 There are more common meeting spaces, at least in the fit plans that have been developed.
22:42 There's multiple restrooms in the same building.
22:44 There's more gender neutral bathrooms that have been planned and then for this one,
22:49 the council office and auditorium could either stay here if you wanted to stay here
22:55 or it could move to that option three, that new building.
22:59 With that flex space, there is enough space to accommodate a council office.
23:04 In fact, the fit plan accommodates a council office, it accommodates a hearing room
23:09 and with that, the spare space that's available,
23:13 you could recreate this auditorium within reason.
23:16 Again, I'm not an architect, I haven't studied it in detail, the floor plans
23:21 of that new building, but there is sufficient enough space
23:24 to probably squeeze a 3,700 square foot space maybe in there somewhere.
23:30 It's a challenge, that is a big assumption that I'm throwing out there,
23:35 but you could always leave the space here as well.
23:43 So building on to this, let's talk about everyone's favorite topic, parking.
23:47 So this is another eye chart I know, if you start from the top and kind of work your way
23:53 down, it identifies the total number of spaces on the site, on the property itself
23:59 and then as you move your way down to what I highlighted, I kind of tried
24:03 to highlight it as A, that's the total spaces in that area.
24:09 Now, one thing to note, there are 22 visitor spaces currently marked here at City Hall,
24:15 both sites in option three can accommodate 22 visitor spaces being marked,
24:20 but it's well understood that there is a huge difference of on-site parking
24:26 between option two and option three.
24:30 For this analysis, I treated option three and option two, all the options,
24:36 I treated them the same, they have the same standard that would apply to any proposal coming
24:40 through our office in terms of parking requirements and zoning.
24:43 So you can take advantage of parking, municipal parking, that's within a thousand feet.
24:47 I broke it down, most people don't like to walk a thousand feet,
24:51 so I broke it down to 500 feet, a thousand feet in terms
24:55 of the municipal spaces that are available.
24:57 You can see not a lot of municipal parking lots around City Hall right now,
25:02 except for City Hall because it's got a ton of parking,
25:04 but when you move to the downtown area, there is, there's a lot more municipal parking,
25:09 especially under that, the far right column, that red 269,
25:13 that's the parking garage for downtown development.
25:16 Those are the spaces that are not specifically accounted for through the planned number
25:21 of residential units that could take up spaces.
25:24 So those are the spaces that are basically open and unallocated in that parking garage
25:29 that could be used if they need to be used.
25:32 So you get the total spaces on line A. The other unique aspect of this building here
25:39 in our current location is that because it's co-located with the public service annex
25:43 and police, you've got a number of service vehicles
25:46 that are parked in those open spaces.
25:48 And so while there may be 271 spaces that are out there, there's,
25:55 on average every day, there's 85 city vehicles sitting out in those spaces.
25:59 And so that leaves 100, about 186 open spaces.
26:03 There's still a ton of spaces.
26:04 And so you can see that going across to the right in terms of the totals
26:11 that are available or would be available in terms of the on-site
26:13 and municipal parking at the other locations.
26:15 And then as you kind of work your way down through this column from B to C,
26:21 it accounts for all of the employees that drive here every day for work.
26:26 And so you have 74, approximately 74 administrative employees.
26:30 There's about 35 public works or service staff based on their shifts
26:34 that go to that annex every day.
26:36 There's about 55 police between the admin and shift guys that drive here every day.
26:42 You have your, you know, around approximately one to two folks
26:46 for the council office and 34 folks for the court.
26:49 So worst case scenario, worst day, everybody drives at the same time.
26:54 That's 200 cars showing up here every day for 186 spaces.
26:59 So what I heard, I think, in one of the hearings last week or the week before,
27:04 people talking about residents complaining about parking at City Hall, that's why.
27:08 It's because there's a lot of people trying to park here every day.
27:12 And even though there's a ton of spaces, there's a lot of demand.
27:17 Our average daily visitors from what I got is about 33.
27:23 And so that's not 33 people all at the same time, but that's pretty significant to consider
27:30 that in terms of the 22 visitor spaces that are marked here,
27:35 whether they're adequate or not.
27:37 Those spaces are shared with the court and with police.
27:40 And so when you then go across the way there, looking under option three,
27:46 if we just move the administration, that's 69 drivers, potentially worst case.
27:52 That would be relocated from this site to a new site.
27:57 It would relocate that average daily visitor traffic to a new site away from this site.
28:05 And so again, this is not a hard, you know, yes or no analysis, but it gives you context.
28:15 It gives you numbers for context in terms of the parking demand of what exists now
28:21 versus what could exist if the administration were to relocate,
28:25 either stay here or relocate to another location.
28:28 What's to be determined is if the council office
28:32 and auditorium would relocate to a new building.
28:35 And obviously the big concern there would be the council meetings.
28:41 And we had a discussion earlier this morning and I am not an elections expert,
28:46 but if that auditorium were to continue to be used for elections,
28:49 where would the elections be held?
28:51 So it just, it is one of those things that you kind of put a pin in, knowing that you're going
28:55 to have to figure it out at some point if you lose this space currently at this location,
29:01 because this is used for elections, these size spaces are few
29:06 and far between outside of the schools.
29:08 And so just a consideration in terms of council office, auditorium,
29:13 either staying here or moving to a new location.
29:19 Last piece here would be the, this is that delivery time frame, complexity,
29:26 cost, sustainability, and community vision.
29:29 I'm not going to get into cost, and there's a lot of discussion on cost,
29:32 there's a lot of discussion that's going to have to be on cost.
29:35 And those numbers are estimates, just like everything else.
29:39 I just, I'm not a pro forma expert.
29:42 Again, I just want to keep this at a macro high level.
29:45 And so the delivery time frame that we got from Webber Murphy Fox
29:53 for a new addition was 24 months.
29:55 That's eight month design, 16 month build.
29:59 If you accept that, the complexity, talking with our building commissioner and his concerns
30:07 for that, there's obviously any time you have new construction,
30:10 I'm living it every day at Winterhurst, there's a high potential for variables.
30:14 When you have to dig in that ground.
30:17 And so that comes with new construction.
30:19 There's also the complexity that, just like in the other option,
30:26 priorities may require a temporary location shift.
30:29 So if we want to get the women's locker room now, that means that dispatch has to move,
30:35 which means engineering has to move, which there's a sequence, and when we look
30:40 through that sequence, that's the phasing complexity that apply to both of these.
30:46 And then there's also, it's that baseline sustainability vision.
30:52 Everybody talks, at least we've heard, adaptive reuse versus new construction,
30:57 those considerations, and then centralizing the location of administrative services
31:02 in terms of the city's geography, and having a central location,
31:06 kind of in the commercial hub of the city itself.
31:09 Now, I assumed the renovation, concurrent renovation
31:14 to existing buildings would be less time than new construction, right, wrong, or indifferent.
31:21 All of these options are complex in terms of construction and phasing of trying
31:25 to do concurrent renovations at two different buildings and trying
31:29 to keep your concurrent services going.
31:32 They're both complex.
31:33 And so just trying to highlight that, trying to dive any deeper
31:37 into this is a difficult task.
31:41 And so my last slide, just we use these in terms of a decision template or whatever,
31:50 just to show you kind of a summary of everything, and I just walk through.
31:53 And so you, kind of on the left side, top to bottom, you've got the priorities,
31:59 you've got the criteria that I walk through, and then moving from left
32:03 to right, the status quo, option one, option two, option three, board of ed,
32:07 option three, community health center.
32:11 So eliminated status quo and option one with priority one doesn't have the space
32:17 for police and courts.
32:20 Option two, option three does have the space.
32:26 You can see the red number there under option three, board of ed,
32:29 that goes up to 35,000 square feet.
32:32 That is if this auditorium and council office move to the new building
32:36 and then the police can assume this space.
32:38 That's the difference, that they could sit between those two numbers based
32:42 on that decision point.
32:43 When you get into the priority two analysis there,
32:50 I eliminated the community health center.
32:51 It has no room to grow unless you kicked the child care out of the first floor,
32:58 which is not something that I was willing to assume.
33:00 That is just, it's a valuable asset in that location.
33:04 A lot of people depend on that, so that is not something that I was willing
33:09 to kind of move beyond in terms of that space.
33:12 It is a smaller building.
33:14 It's about 8,900 square feet per floor of functional space, and it would be difficult
33:19 to squeeze everybody into that building and still have room
33:23 to grow and adapt in the future.
33:25 So then as you work kind of down through the other, the points of access,
33:29 the parking, delivery, time frame, collect city costs, sustainability, community vision,
33:35 you can see how the different comments and just my take on it.
33:39 That's basically what it is between yellow and green.
33:43 Yellow has some issues, green has some issues, but it has what I believe
33:47 to be an advantage over yellow in terms of how I scored it out.
33:51 So in short, I appreciate your time.
33:58 I know it's a lot, it was a lot of work, I can tell you that, and so this is why I've had
34:06 to push off a lot of emails on a Hilliard and Concord and a lot of other issues,
34:12 but this is important stuff to go through and have as much
34:19 of an objective analysis to get after that why.
34:23 Why from what I can observe since Sean Lineker started this process,
34:29 why we've kind of been aligned in that direction, and so I'm just here to summarize it
34:34 and I can help hopefully answer questions, so I appreciate the time.
34:41 Thank you, Assistant Director Ross.
34:43 I appreciate your hard work in putting this all together.
34:47 Colleagues, questions?
34:57 I'm absorbing, I want to thank Assistant Director Boss for doing this,
35:02 because I do think it lays out some helpful guideposts.
35:10 I am reviewing it for the first time today, so I appreciate, you know, kind of the analysis.
35:18 The one thing I, you know, I'm curious about the future flex growth, 18,000, 17,000 square feet.
35:28 I mean, everything I've come to understand as not an expert in this field is that, you know,
35:37 an admin office, kind of square footage per employee, not on the police side, right,
35:44 so accountants, lawyers, planners, is going down.
35:53 Lakewood has strong tax base.
35:57 We can grow our tax base with kind of creative development, but we don't have a lot
36:05 of greenfield, you know, Strongsville-style industrial parkways to grow our tax base.
36:13 So what I'm, and this is just off the cuff here, I'm trying to understand
36:18 why we would need 18,000 extra square feet of space at this moment or in the next two years.
36:25 To me, that seems like a lot.
36:27 That's what I'm seeing as I'm digging into this.
36:31 I do think, and I didn't even think about community health building, you know,
36:37 I do think it provides an interesting flex space for a more immediate plan to expand police,
36:46 maybe to send some departments over there.
36:50 Parking is a challenge in that part of town.
36:53 I experience it a few times a day, dropping my child off in that building.
36:57 And also, it's medical office building, which is different than traditional, you know,
37:04 office like the city would need.
37:08 I do think it provides some ability for flex or option space as you move forward.
37:14 And I do think there were some assumptions on both sides, which I think you needed
37:18 to make, as it related to, you know, the construction up front, bathrooms, you know,
37:26 if you were to do an addition up front at City Hall versus going to the new building,
37:31 just because we don't have a detailed design of that, right?
37:34 I do think that there are a lot of things that, as it relates to both access and bathrooms
37:40 and flow, that, you know, perhaps, you know, someone who's an architect
37:46 or a design professional could remedy, right?
37:50 So I think there are kind of known unknowns, in my point, not knowns.
37:55 And so I think that's where I do, this is extremely helpful, though,
38:01 and I think it helps put into context a lot of what we're,
38:04 and thank you for getting the CLIA numbers for police officers.
38:08 You know, I see, you know, 250, 300 a square foot per officer,
38:12 I think is industry standard.
38:14 I do think that in Lakewood, we might, you know,
38:17 understand that we might not always exceed or hit industry standards in the sense
38:22 that, you know, we don't have green fields to develop in, and we can't design things in a way
38:27 that communities that have that will be able to.
38:30 But anything we can do to get our officers what they need and closer
38:36 to the industry standard is a good thing, and I think I support
38:41 and I suspect my colleagues do as well.
38:46 It's the extra square footage that is interesting to me, and it's also kind
38:51 of the lack of clarity and the assumptions that we would need on a front edition.
38:56 That's my initial take on a lot of data that I need a couple more days to sit with.
39:04 Are there currently, I remember some discussion
39:08 about with the Lakewood Child Care Center potentially expanding
39:13 up into the other floors, wasn't that discussed?
39:17 So are those spaces currently in use?
39:20 Or do we have tenants on the second and third floor?
39:26 Through you, Council President.
39:28 So the third floor is currently occupied by the Cleveland Clinic,
39:32 and there may be negotiations to extend that, the lease.
39:38 First floor, the daycare, is interested in the second floor.
39:41 We've also had some other nonprofits that are interested in the second floor,
39:45 but it's currently vacant.
39:48 So that could be, to Assistant Director Bass's point about regardless
39:53 of which option, there's going to be some staging
39:56 and potentially shifting people around.
39:58 And, you know, we've talked about some of these previous ones, too, of, you know,
40:04 it would be my preference not to wait until, if we did go with the Warrens Road Solution,
40:10 not wait until that's all done and moved out before we start solving the police problem.
40:14 We need to start solving the police problem as soon as we can.
40:16 So, you know, we could move, you know, planning out potentially.
40:22 I know some planners indicated they could work from home.
40:25 I know not all departments can work from home, but some people can at certain times.
40:28 So, you know, that's, it's good to know that we have that space option available.
40:35 Councilmembers, other questions, comments?
40:39 Councilmember Hamilton-Steiner.
40:41 I did just want to reiterate, if council were to move, if the auditorium were to move
40:51 and the space were to be utilized by police and or the courts,
40:55 it could potentially disenfranchise voters who would already, or already disenfranchise.
41:01 So it covers right now Lakewood City Hall, Precincts 4E, 4I, and 4J vote here.
41:09 So I just think that's, for me, that's important, and so I just want to make that point.
41:14 I think it's also worth noting is with any of these solutions, like we haven't, you know,
41:22 the, just for the purposes of the apples to apples and the very high level, you know,
41:28 we don't have a design on when Webber and Murphy Fox did the build out here
41:33 to the point, too, is there is the other, we haven't explored an option, too,
41:37 of, you know, expanding enough here so that we could get rid of the annex, you know.
41:42 So that's also an option, but also whatever renovation happened here, you know,
41:48 there could still be, even if this isn't an auditorium,
41:52 it could still be a large enough space for people to vote in.
41:54 So there are, you know, it's still going to be a publicly owned building.
41:58 So there could be other solutions there, too.
42:01 So, all right, any other, Councilman Bowick?
42:09 Thanks to the administration.
42:11 Thanks. I see Liberty out in the audience as well.
42:13 I appreciate you guys continuing to engage with us.
42:16 And Director Byneton, Mr. Boss, thank you for the analysis.
42:22 You know, it is helpful, and also I appreciate putting the assumptions out there in case,
42:28 you know, we can get some consensus around some of the assumptions,
42:32 and maybe we circle back to others and adjust.
42:37 So in some ways, I'd like to go back to the, there's a square footage slide,
42:45 if somebody could do that in the middle of the presentation.
42:52 Right, the different options, so this is helpful.
42:53 I guess what struck me is maybe the reading of option two is a little too literal.
43:02 What I recall from my colleagues who prepared that, and I appreciate their work
43:07 with another consultant, was just to establish a spectrum.
43:14 And the site plan was a blob, and I hope nobody's actually planning to build a blob.
43:23 If option two were to be chosen.
43:27 And so the point being that it was a conceptual midpoint between status quo,
43:34 small annex was almost status quo, option three is two campuses move, you know,
43:42 option three A or four would be move and new construction, which we're not analyzing
43:47 because maybe that's not a practical consideration,
43:50 but that would be a good comparison point for all the costing because we, you know,
43:55 taking on a historic property to renovate that, you know, is not simple.
44:00 But anyway, option two A or two B or two C could be further developed to, pardon me,
44:07 to overcome some of the points that were made throughout the presentation.
44:15 And to put my cards on the table, that's kind of where I lean,
44:18 is making this campus work.
44:21 In my mind, I know the administration, you know, is vigilant about the value of being
44:30 in the downtown location, there are some.
44:33 My, as I've said more than once, my head's in the other direction,
44:36 which is you have a center of activity here in a part of town
44:41 which normally wouldn't have the same level of activity.
44:44 In the downtown, you can command commercial rents.
44:47 I certainly wouldn't want to displace the medical tenants and floor three of our building.
44:52 That was a good point to include in the analysis, by the way.
44:57 I didn't think of that.
44:57 But, you know, you've got some advantages for the tax base of the government
45:05 by prioritizing the downtown for private commercial tax paying tenants
45:15 and residents of all kinds.
45:16 So, you know, that's just my perspective where I begin the conversation.
45:20 Maybe that's a great perspective.
45:25 I look forward to continuing to analyze this.
45:28 You know, the last thing I would say is, I mean, what's buried in this analysis is also
45:35 that, all right, we're all saying that we need to do it and we need to do it now.
45:41 And maybe I'm talking like the old guy, but I've been around since 2008
45:48 and the building's been around since longer than that.
45:50 And we've been making it work and we've been maintaining and investing in it.
45:54 I think there are, there is a call for more bathrooms so that just the usability
45:59 of the, for employees and visitors is better.
46:02 So, we could certainly invest in it.
46:05 I think the urgency is, of course, the changing mix of police personnel
46:14 and certainly police is overdue for some investment
46:20 in their capital facility, their whole working conditions.
46:23 But if we had to make it work for five more years, would we really shut down?
46:28 If we couldn't afford it, wouldn't we be okay operationally?
46:36 And that may not be kind of the first preference of the team internal to City Hall,
46:43 but I guess I'm coming from it from the perspective of city government was on hard times
46:48 for years and years, tighten your belt, we prioritize saving as many jobs as we could
46:53 and then retaining employee compensation and benefits as much as we could.
46:58 And then we've added to that and improved that in recent years as we've been able to afford.
47:03 So, at least we've accomplished that,
47:05 even if the capital investment hasn't been what anybody hopes for.
47:11 Our vehicles, I think, are all, we're pretty on top of our vehicle investment
47:14 or other equipment.
47:15 So, the building is the last one.
47:17 It's a valid conversation.
47:18 But I'll push back a little bit on the concept that we're in some kind of emergency
47:24 and we need to lunge towards some solution.
47:28 I'm in favor of more of this kind of thoughtful analysis
47:32 that we've been getting into.
47:33 So, I appreciate it.
47:37 Council Member Bixenstein.
47:42 And thank you for the thoughtful analysis.
47:45 As someone who's newer to this process, I do really appreciate that, Assistant Director Bass.
47:49 My question is this, and I appreciate all this going into the parking.
47:55 With regards to one road congestion, you know,
48:00 that stretch is really busy, you know, basically from Speedway to the Marx Plaza.
48:05 And anybody who's tried to make a left out of the post office knows
48:10 that can be a challenge at times.
48:12 Now, ideally, in a city like Lakewood, you have plenty of people accessing City Hall
48:17 at that location through other modes of transportation and on foot as well.
48:21 But I was just wondering if you thought there'd need to be any special traffic engineering
48:27 to accommodate that as a City Hall location just based
48:31 on the congestion of that block of Warren.
48:35 I didn't delve into that level of analysis, but I wouldn't doubt that especially
48:42 with this level of use kind of moving to that location, we would want to take a look
48:48 at it in terms of volumes, especially with, and I didn't really touch
48:52 on the availability of shared parking.
48:55 I know we've had some discussions with the post office on options of shared parking there
48:59 and tried to spread that parking demand out as much as possible in that area.
49:04 But that's not, I wouldn't think that that would be out of the question in terms
49:08 of taking a look at turning movements and volumes and stuff like that and seeing
49:11 if there's any improvements that we made in conjunction with like a relocation.
49:17 I have a question in the slide that shows the timeline as the, yeah.
49:29 So am I reading this correctly that there would be eight month, eighth month design
49:39 for option two for the Warren Road building, but less than 60 months,
49:45 is that what that is meaning?
49:47 That's just what, based on my analysis looking at it, is that you would want
49:53 to do renovations concurrently if you could possibly do that
49:56 and generally renovating an existing building.
49:59 My assumption is that you could take, it would take less than new construction
50:04 of that scale and scope of 16 months.
50:08 But it would still be eight months of design?
50:10 I would think, yeah, the eight months would remain the same.
50:13 That's when you're doing design efforts at two different, again,
50:16 two different sites and trying to get those things locked in as much as possible.
50:21 I don't think the design process would change a whole lot.
50:24 Most of the time you're just, it's, you're trying to confirm that allocation
50:27 of space, the resulting architecture and engineering that support
50:32 that is a major component of it, but most of it you're trying to,
50:36 is the scale and scope of an addition, is you're trying
50:39 to get the box right before you add anything to it.
50:42 And so that, I think my assumption was that the design effort we would approach both
50:48 with the same methodical timeframe to make sure we get it right.
50:54 Okay. And then I guess, so I guess there's quite a,
51:03 I sent quite a few additional questions that are beyond the scope
51:08 of Assistant Director Abbas' presentation tonight to the administration.
51:15 So just, council members, just our original timeline that we had put out
51:20 because we had, finance department had asked if we could get the bans done
51:27 by the next full, the legislation we were expecting to potentially refer it
51:33 out to pass at the next full council meeting.
51:37 So if we were going to do that, we would need to refer it out tonight.
51:41 But certainly I feel like there's still quite a bit more discussion that needs
51:48 to be had on this topic before we be prepared to do that.
51:50 And the mayor and I spoke after the last council meeting
51:54 that we actually could push the bans legislation out until the first meeting
52:01 in March or the second meeting in March, first meeting in March.
52:04 Okay. So with that, we'll plan to schedule another Committee of the Whole.
52:09 You know, we have quite a few beyond everything that was prepared tonight
52:16 with questions in terms of the cash flow and timeline, like to the point
52:20 about the design process here, if it's, you know, why we're taking out 16.5
52:28 in debt this year, if most of this year is going to be design.
52:31 What else included, whether the auditorium and council moves,
52:35 that's a big discussion too in terms of the technology that would be needed
52:39 in the new location if it were to move, if that's included in the price estimates.
52:47 There's just a lot more questions I think that we'd have.
52:51 So I'm going to, we're coming up on time for tonight,
52:54 but I would encourage council members, as you think through this,
52:58 continue to send the questions to the administration.
53:00 So we can, we may have kind of a marathon session to keep us on track
53:06 to get to that March meeting.
53:08 I think we have, I think there's room on the schedule
53:12 to last meeting in Monday in February.
53:15 So we'll get, no, there's not, Maureen's saying no, there's not.
53:19 Okay. So we'll figure it out.
53:22 We might have to have a special Committee of the Whole.
53:24 Yeah, Council Member Bullock.
53:25 I had points well taken on the committee deliberation.
53:29 I support having a more chance for analysis.
53:33 I wanted to add one other thought to the options here.
53:38 Could there be a phased option two, three, or whatever number we're talking about
53:43 where we do act with some time urgency for the police locker room and other facilities
53:49 to at least begin to meet that immediate need?
53:53 I think that's the best answer that comes to mind for the question I put
53:58 out for the meeting, you know, what's the time urgency?
54:03 So that would be something to me that would be an appealing option because I understand
54:12 that all these pieces are linked, but the needs aren't as acute in every corner of,
54:20 you know, some of these are improvements as opposed to critical deficiencies, for example.
54:27 So if we could have the best of both worlds where we have a thoughtful,
54:31 comprehensive design and analysis prior to design, but at the same time,
54:36 if there's some agreement that we do need to work on a core portion of that,
54:42 maybe we resolve to do that.
54:44 Yes, that will be complicated.
54:46 I heard what Mr. Baas said about this facility moves there, but you could rent
54:52 for two years office space for the administrative staff that's always intended
54:58 to be temporary, for example, you know, that could be an ideal world found somewhere
55:06 in the city, and the point is it's just swing space
55:09 for some people displaced while work was being done, so police personnel moved around.
55:16 That's a concept, not a vetted plan on my part, but that's the kind of thing that comes
55:23 to mind which would then allow us to move in a timely basis for at least one
55:30 of the immediate needs and yet still be thoughtful with everything else.
55:36 So I do want to at least express acknowledgement of that need in the police locker rooms.
55:42 Yes, agreed, and I think, you know, we've talked about that before of has the administration done any,
55:50 do we have any sort of design in mind for, if we were to go with the Warren Road solution,
55:57 have we done any design work on what the renovated police space would look like?
56:03 Through President Keppel, no, all we have is what Webber Murphy Fox says provided
56:09 as a very basic fit plan, we have not gone any further.
56:12 All right, any final comments before we wrap up Committee of the Whole for tonight?
56:21 All right, so with that, that concludes Committee of the Whole.
56:27 Without objection, we are adjourned.
56:31 Finance will start about a five-minute break.