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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2004 11-30 PreCITY OF MERIDIAN PRE -COUNCIL MEETING AGENDA Tuesday, November 30, 2004 at 6:00 p.m. City Council Chambers Roll -call Attendance: X Shaun Wardle X Christine Donnell X Charlie Rountree O Keith Bird X Mayor Tammy de Weerd 2. Adoption of the Agenda: Approve as Amended 3. Space Study Update by ZGA: Mike Simmonds S Cathy Sewell 4. Executive Session per Idaho State Code 67-2346(t)(b): Delete *Approximate allowable time set for agenda item may change depending on discussion. Please use the designated minutes as a guideline only. Meridian City Pre-Councll Agenda — November 30, 2004 Page t of 7 All materials presented at public meetings shall become property of the City of Meridian. Anyone desiring accommodation for disabilities related to documents and/or hearings please contact the City Clerk's Woe at 888.4433 at least 48 hours prior to the public meeting. Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting November 30. 2004 The Meridian City Pre -Council meeting was called to order at 6:05 P.M. on Tuesday, November 30, 2004 by Mayor Tammy de Weerd. Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, Shaun Wardle, Christine Donnell and Charlie Rountree. Members Absent: Keith Bird Others Present: Brad Watson, Bill Nichols and Will Berg. Item 1. Roll -call Attendance: 0 Keith Bird X Christine Donnell X Shaun Wardle X Charlie Rountree X Mayor Tammy de Weerd Item 2. Adoption of the Agenda: Rountree: The next item on our agenda is the adoption of the agenda and I will point out that I believe the Executive Session was being requested by Councilman Bird. Is that correct, Mayor? De Weerd: It was requested by myself and because Councilman Bird isn't here, I don't think it's appropriate, so — Rountree: Okay, I would entertain a motion on the agenda, noting that. Wardle: Mr. Vice President. Rountree: Mr. Wardle. Wardle: I move that we adopt the agenda with the deletion of Item No. 4. Donnell: I second that. Rountree: All those in favor. Opposed? I think it passed. ALL AYES. MOTION CARRIED. Item 3. Space Study Update by ZGA: Rountree: Mike. Simmonds are you going to do the update? Would you like to sit there with the mic? I know you have got a problem with your back? Anything we can do to help. Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting November 30, 2004 Page 2 of 10 Simmonds: Thank you, I appreciate that. As long as I am standing I am okay. Mayor De Weerd, Vice President Rountree, members of the Council. I appreciate the opportunity to review the update of the program space needs analysis with you. It's been an interesting journey to get through the various changes that have happened through the city and be able to work with everybody to try and stay abreast of those and stay updated with all of the things that are happening with the city. We started in 1998, 1 believe, the first space study was submitted. I just wanted to go through just a brief history and since that time a lot of things happen, a lot of things took place, the city continued to grow, services increased, infrastructure changed and then the Mayor and Council requested that we go back and revisit that original program document to review with all of the departments, the changes that have happened in their various departments since we did the first program study, which we have done. The latest program that you have as dated October le is kind of a combination of those efforts. We visited all the various departments and looked at what they have for space and the number of staff they have and what they perceived their growth needs will be in the future and I want to walk briefly through the general contents of that program documented and then I am going to have Kathy Sewell from our office who is the project architect on this project with me and kind of go through some of the specifics of those findings; not in too great detail because I know you have other things on the agenda, but the program document really consists of four different parts. There was a departmental review and space analysis that goes department by department, makes an attempt to list all of the personnel and the resources needed for those areas. That was updated and then there was the overall space analysis in conjunction with a preliminary project budget and the purpose of that was to try and determine what an overall budget would be in terms of a target number. Obviously, there is not enough detail in the report at this time to go through bolt by bolt, beam by beam and be able to tell you exactly what that cost will be. The nature of the program of the document itself is fluid and it will continue to change over time as the city hall facility becomes a little bit clear in terms of its scope and moves through a design process and ultimately construction and occupancy. The program will evolve with that and so the program as you see today is really kind of a snapshot in time and as the study moves forward there will be more things identified that have not been identified to date. That being kind of the nature of the design process. So, we expect that to happen, but the effort to determine the overall area and project budget, I think gives everybody a starting place and a target to look at. I believe we have identified in the neighborhood of 50,000 square feet as an ultimate build out for the year 2025. Right now, if we were to identify a number for accommodating all the city's agencies and needs at this point, excluding any county uses excluding future storage growth and those kinds of things would be in the neighborhood of 22,000 feet as of this last year 2004. It's projected that that space need would increase to 37,000 feet in 2005 at the end of 2005. So, by 2025, the number — that 50,000 square foot number includes 5,000 square feet of ACHD — I am sorry, of DMV space for Ada County and it includes some storage space for Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting November 30, 2004 Page 3 of 10 archives in that which will evolve. That number still is a little fluid at this point, but as things will change in that and uses will change and some positions may be moved or shifted or re-identified, we thing that that number is a good target number at this point to look at. In addition to that there is in the back you will see there are four different scenarios that's sort of an attempt to identify what the project looks like in terms of the budget amount. If it's a one story building, if it's a two story building, if it's a three story building and how much site area that would involve and then there is some associated budget numbers that accompany those different scenarios. With that I think I would like to turn it over to Cathy, unless you have any questions so far. Cathy can go through some of those program numbers in a little bit more detail. Rountree: Any questions? Thank you, Mike. Sewell: Madame Mayor, members of the Council, thank you. Right now I am just going to focus on, I believe, it's section four which deals with the needs aspect and that really gets into the bulk of where the numbers came from meeting with the departments and that and I guess just a couple things that we have learned over the past couple of months. There have been some changes at the city. The city attorney is now in there and we included some of those numbers in there. We also had conversations with the county, the DMV in particular. Right now they are leasing a space. I think at that space their lease is three years and so I think from what I got from the counties that the timing of the new city hall facility and what kind of moves they want to make will need to worked through and I think we can even kind of address that. Also, having some conversations with Lila Hill with the Historical Society and what to do with that group. I think that (inaudible) request came from Keith Bird to make some inquiries into the Historical Society and see where they are going and what Lila indicated was initially we had about 800 square feet for them which would include some display area and some space for patrons to come in and do some research. But, I think really she felt that their needs are beyond that to display all their archival material and that would really require a much larger space, but she did think that the 800 square feet that we have in here could work for other historical groups within the city. Maybe there is some initial display, changes out or something, but that space could be used if the city did want to have that type of function in there. But, as Mike kind of started to go through where we are now 2004 existing indicates right around 24,000 — 21,000 and, like you said that is without the county and then projecting to 2005 around 37,000. 1 think most of the departments we have tried to update those from — in short term, I think Will has given us some additional information over the past couple of months and I think our thought here is that there is enough information here that any other changes, if there are not too significant can probably be picked up in the next phase of schematic design. So, I can move through these or if you have any questions or if you have already taken a look at these or if you want me to just talk about it a little bit more. Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting November 30, 2004 Page 4 of 10 Rountree: Mr. Wardle. Wardle: I have a specific question just from- a department and the Parks Department. The Park's director and 1 in the past have talked about a couple of things and one of those was the and I heard you bring up the Historical Society, which reminded me of it. Was the need to have some flexible space for some of the groups that we partner with, some of the sports organizations, which may need to use it for some office space within the hours of 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. when they do signups and have a central location. I don't see that reflected within the study here. Was that taken into consideration? Sewell: That was and I think when — if you look at the — maybe it's the last page under public lobby and support there was always maybe this need for a larger multi-purpose room of about 1,000 square feet and I think that comes from some of the need that was taken up with the church next door, some larger gatherings and so right now we had projected 1,000 square foot facility that may be used for those types of functions. So, that is in there and I think as far as how all this plays out as far as the foot print, one story, four story, I think where that space lies will need to be addressed as the project moves into schematic, we show a space adjacency diagram in the back here, which is just strictly looking at it from laying it out who needs to be dose to who, but it doesn't really show any kind of a multi level adjacency. One study that ZCA did back in 1999 was a development of a multi municipal center, which started to show, I believe, a three-story facility in breaking up the various departments. So, there is an example of another adjacency diagram, if you will to look into that, but that space is in there and we could (inaudible) — Wardle: Mr. Vice President to follow up a question to that. You mentioned adjacency and one of the other things that 1 have heard is the need for departments which have direct interaction with the public such as billing services, Parks Department fees, Planning and Zoning fees and the need to have at least some portion of that on the first floor to be able to service those residents that need to interact to that. Has that been addressed? I have heard a couple of thoughts, one of them being a satellite billing• office or a central billing office, which takes care of all of that or different departments with the satellite office on the first floor to take care of those functions. Has that been thought out a little bit further? Sewell: I think it's been acknowledged that those are real walk in traffic type functions and discussions with DMV. I think they strongly suggested we are a first floor function and I think that will kind of get back into the site of the new facilities is very important and what functions can be placed on that first floor and make it work. It sounds that the way the Building Department's functioning right now is great. People can walk in off the street, get in and out and move on without having to go up and down too much. I think it is certainly something that Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting November 30, 2004 Page 5 of 10 will be addressed in that schematic phase, identify the site and move through there. Simmonds: Councilman Wardle what is kind of a follow up in that study that was done previously, just the conceptual design for the three story building there was some discussion about different departments and their need to have a link on the first floor of the ground floor and one of the fun discussions we always have when we get into more than one floor is that everybody wants to be on the same floor. Either that's the third floor, second floor, first floor or one of those floors so you end up with 100,000 square feet on one floor and no feet on the other floor. Part of the discussion about that had to do with the link that all the department's need to have on the main floor, convenient access to the public. I think that's really an important issue that needs to be followed up again in the schematic process. But, there were some billing components to, i believe, Planning and Zoning and fees and those kinds of things there was some discussion about, do we mix and mingle some of those things on the first floor. How do we do that? So, it's a very good question. Wardle: I guess a follow up question to that — more organizationally, so if the Mayor can speak to this. Are we thinking — I see lobby in here. Are we thinking of a central lobby and reception area and if so, which department would staff that or would it be a combination? De Weerd: Mr. Chairman the — I guess the lobby area would just be open. No one would staff it. I think Councilman Wardle — you know, it would make sense to have the most public facilities down there, but again it will go back to the design of the building itself and how you start plugging in the spatial needs to a design. Donnell: Mr. Vic President. I apologize for not reviewing this very carefully, but I didn't. Its sitting there. If I had looked to see that that's what's on the Pre - Council, I might have spent a little bit more time on it, but was there some discussion in regard to training area? Either in combination with Human Resources where you have to do perhaps any kind of training, sexual harassment in the work place and those kinds of things. Was there some discussion of that? Sewell: In our interviews with the Human Resources Department that didn't come up but in intervi8ews with the IT Department, the Finance Department, there were some larger spaces identified for training or meeting and that so I think that is certainly something that could be added to the program, I think that we also found that there probably some duplication of spaces and that perhaps could be one that we look at and find out what the requirements are for a space like that and get that worked in. Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting November 30, 2004 Page 6 of 10 Donnell: Mr. Vice President just a follow up comment and I was thinking the same thing that it certainly could be multi -use space. It doesn't appear that it would be appropriate space in a multi-purpose room, but in an area where larger numbers of people could be brought together for any type of training. It could be from the Police Department, even though they have a nice meeting room that could be just any part of the city structure. Simmonds: Vice President Rountree and Councilmember Donnell just as a follow up to that there was also some discussion regarding the sharing of space and the efficiencies of space as depending on the number of floors and how different departments are organized and the adjacencies and the kind of the public lobby support space makes an attempt to identify some of that space. Don't believe some of that space has really been assigned yet, but there were a number of discussions that took place in several departments about training and that sort of thing. There was also some discussion that had to do with the need for kind of a quasi or public auditorium in the downtown area and in the discussion of is that food service? Does it include food service, does it not? Is it a kitchen? How big is it? - I think some of those questions still need to be answered more specifically. For the short term it seemed like the direction was that as a part of the city hall building a space like that would probably be a large meeting room assembly area, but probably would not include food service and that sort of thing. So, I think some of that is still revolving, but I think that the need for training space is something that is only going to grow. Donnell: Mr. Vice President. Rountree: Go ahead. Donnell: One more comment. Having been involved in a lot of program planning in the past, when you visit with departments generally you will hear the greatest wishes. You know, it's always we want more and more and more and at some point then you begin to look at how can we really make this happen and stay within any kind of reasonable budget? So, combining spaces that could be used by more than one department is certainly a good plan. Then also considering that always what it is that every department wants isn't always what happens in the end. You all know where I am going with this, don't you? It's just that architects love to meet the needs of all departments for all teachers or all of everybody and so you know if they are given that kind of latitude and it can grow and grow and grow it's just a caution that you probably don't need at all. De Weerd: Mr. Vice President. Rountree: Madame Mayor. I believe Mike had a response for that -- De Weerd: I just also wanted to note to Councilmember Donnell we are looking at modular type of areas too, so the workspace can be flexible. In building for the Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting November 30, 2004 Page 7 of 10 future, I think, it will leave us a lot of room to lease out, get additional partners in as we have that future space to grow. So, I guess they do have room to kind of dream bigger, but I think we have already cut out several pieces that we didn't think we would ever be at. Donnell: Excuse me, Mr. Vice President just one more comment and then 1 will be quiet. You talked about food service. You talked about perhaps some kind of and I am assuming you are talking about catering or a place that food can be set up or a sink that's available in a large meeting room and I assume that you have also thought about that. You know, just a place where coffee pots can be plugged in and you know those kinds of things that we seem to forget sometimes. Simmonds: Vice President Rountree, Councilmember Donnell. Excellent comment about architects wanting to solve everybody's problems because the one person that is not happy is the one person that calls us after everything is finished a lot. You are absolutely right and I think what we are try and do in the program phase is to balance what we are hearing from departments with what may be practical in terms of the budget. There are kind of three legs to that stool it seems like, that wants and the desires and then there is how much is available in terms of resources and then what the various management organizations, part of those departments think are realistic and so I think with guidance from the Mayor and others we have tried to kind of balance this a little bit to say that we probably got it all perfect would not be accurate. In response to the food service question, most conference rooms, conference spaces, we envision would probably have some kind of minor plumbing, sinks, cabinetry and that sort of thing. I think the big question about food service that we were thinking about or discussing had to do with large groups of 200 plus people that are there for a workshop. How do you feed them? Do you cook food onsite? What if the Boy Scouts want to have a special event in the evening? Are they there? Do they cook it themselves? What do you do with 500 hotdogs? Do you cook them there or what do you do? So, I just think some of those things still need to be answered and may be in conjunction with other facilities downtown that work in concert with this, which needs to be coordinated. So, I don't know if that really answers your question very well. Donnell: It does indeed. Thank you. Rountree: Any other questions? De Weerd: Mr. Vice President. Rountree: I just want one more thing. As you both worked with Nampa and Boise to kind of look at their staffing currently and to (inaudible) when we are at those different population sizes, so we had a better idea on that too. Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting November 30, 2004 Page 8 of 10 Simmonds: Madame Mayor, Vice President Rountree that is correct and there were some departments that I think nobody had a real good idea of what that meant in five years or ten years or what that was and sometimes we can scare ourselves pretty badly. So, we were able to talk to some other Nampa and Boise City and at least get an idea of what their benchmark might be in a couple of cases. So, with any luck we are dose to the target. Donnell: I promise you that I will go back and review the document. The one dated October 15'h is that the one I have at home? That's the one I have got at home. Okay. Simmonds: And we would encourage anybody that has any comments after the fact — as we said this document is fluid. There really is no such thing as a final program document until the building is built. So, if anybody has any other comments or concerns, please let us know any time and we will find some way to amend this or note it for the record or something, so it's addressed. Donnell: Mr. Vice President we don't want change orders? No change orders? Rountree: I will second that motion. Wardle: Mr. Vice President a two-part question. One, are the parking numbers that we are seeing here use related for employees and my second question, I don't see on here, but where does our use fall under our city's (inaudible ---)? Simmonds: Vice President Rountree, Councilman Wardle the parking count I believe that is required by city ordinance was 100 parking stalls and we didn't feel that was enough parking for a facility of this size. I am not sure that the city has anything downtown at this point that is this type of a use that would be of similar demands. So, based on what we think we know about civic functions and city growth, we doubled it to 200 and that's as scientific as we got. We could share all kinds of formulas with you, but in the end that's what we did. Rountree: Any further questions? Bill? Will? Berg: Mr. Vice President I just have a couple of comments. Parking was a big issue and I know we have talked about that especially if we have Motor Vehicles in our building. They attract a lot of traffic and parking. If you want to, we do have some plans from 1997 that incorporated a lot of ideas and I think the problem that we have is hard to visualize how you incorporate a three story building to meet everybody's little needs or niches or connections. We had back stairways, connecting to other departments so that we could communicate because we couldn't be on the same floor. We had a little break centers and things of that nature and a lot less conference rooms because we are combining the needs. But, it's hard to visualize it just in that document because you try to Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting November 90, 2004 Page 9 of 10 sit there and you try to think of how does this lay out and we don't know yet. The site will determine a lot of those questions and that's been a bigger question. Rountree: Thanks, Will. Nary: Mr. Vice President Rountree: Mr. Nary. Nary: The only other comment I guess I would have is I think on the — I guess to balance Councilmember Donnell's concern about everybody's wish list, I think in looking at the staffing needs, I think that is the hardest one for most of the departments to put a finger on when you are looking at 20 years' growth and where we have been in the last ten, it's really hard to envision on that so I think that's the part probably for me — although I am willing to combine all the legal and HR functions and sharing the space, I'm good with that. I think some of the other ones aren't quite as conducive to being able to do that. So, I think that maybe at their next director's meeting we can have that discussion as well about how this document fits into what at least the different department directors vision as to how long term it looks. You know, because for my department and combining the two it does give me a little bit more room than maybe Mr. Watson's or the Park's Director or someone else who may think they may have a need for staffing that's maybe sooner than 2025, but I think we just haven't got there yet. Rountree: Thank you, Bill. Madame Mayor De Weerd: We will be meeting on this next week during our director's meeting so we will have that discussion again and hopefully we will get it all done before we get another person up here. We keep changing faces and we get new insight. We just want to start construction. Donnell: You notice they are all looking at me with their comments. Rountree: Any other comments? Brad, do you have anything to offer or Chief? Watson: Not right now. Rountree: Thank you Mike and Cathy for the presentation. If you have any additional comments we welcome you. Simmonds: Just one closing comment that we have neglected to mention on the kind of the growth model for city govemments. What we found is that it doesn't tend to be a straight line in terms of the number of service staff needed to serve the community in the jump from zero to fifty. It's not nearly as large a number from 50 to 100,000, but it seems to be — I am not using the right term, but inversely expediential because it doesn't go the direction you would think it Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting November 30, 2004 Page 10 of 110 would. If it takes 20 people in a department to handle a city of 50,000 it may only take 8 to 10 more to handle double that population just because of the infrastructure that's already in place. So, that's another little curve in this analysis as you were saying, Mr. Nary, when you are talking department heads and they are trying to forecast what they are going to need and some of that, of course, is directly related to the rate of growth of the city. We try to take some of those things into consideration when we talk with the different departments about that. Rountree: Anything else? Thank you. We have no more items on our agenda. Wardle: Mr. Vice President. Rountree: Mr. Wardle. Wardle: Seeing no more items on the agenda, I move that we adjourn. Donnell: Second. Rountree: All those in favor. Opposed? We are in adjournment until 7:00 p.m. ALL AYES. MOTION CARRIED. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 6:35 P.M. (TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) APPROVED: TAMMY DERD, MAYOR ATTESTED: 12- Z/i'94-- DATE APPRGtIEO'u O BEIk a