Loading...
2013, 07-16 Study Session MINUTES SPOKANE VALLEY CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING STUDY SESSION FORMAT Spokane Valley City Hall Council Chambers Spokane Valley,Washington July 16,2013 6:00 p.m. Attendance: Councilmembers Staff Torn Towey, Mayor Mike Jackson, City Manager Gary Schimmels, Deputy Mayor Cary Driskell, City Attorney Dean Grafos, Councilmember Erik Lamb,Deputy City Attorney Chuck Hafner, Councilmember Mark Calhoun,Finance Director Rod Higgins, Councilmember Mike Stone,Parks &Recreation Director Ben Wick, Councilmember Eric Guth, Public Works Director Arne Woodard, Councilmember John Holunan, Community Development Dir Steve Worley, Senior Engineer Carolbelle Branch,Public Information Officer Chris Bainbridge, City Clerk Mayor Towey called the meeting to order at 6:00 p.m. Roll Call: City Clerk Bainbridge called the roll; all Councilmembers were present. Mayor Towey announced that there will be an Executive Session after tonight's open meeting. It was moved by Deputy Mayor Schimmels, seconded and unanimously agreed to approve the amended agenda. Presentations: July Community Recognition: Mayor Towey announced that JuIy's recipient of the Key and Certificate is Mary Pollard, nominated by City Attorney Cary Driskell. As noted on Mr. Driskell's nomination form, Mayor Towey read that "Mary is a community activist, and also instrumental in the siting and design of the City's new Greenacres park. Mary has also been a key component of the Greenacres neighborhood group organizing the family-fun July 4th event that puts a heavy emphasis on games where kids have fun while being active." City Attorney Driskell remarked that he is impressed with the amount of energy Mary has poured into the neighborhood group in helping to design the park; and that she also put a tremendous amount of energy into the 4th of July event, and said he took his entire family to last year's event. Mayor Towey presented the Key and Certificate to Mary Pollard, who accepted it with thanks; Ms. Pollard said she prefers to refer to herself as an advocate rather than an activist; and she thanked the members of the neighborhood group for their work. Wellness Award; Mayor Towey presented the Well-City Award plaque to Human Resources Manager John Whitehead; Mayor Towey said out of the 291 cities throughout Washington, Spokane Valley was one of 84 cities to receive this recognition; he said it also represents a 2% discount in premiums for 2014, or an $8,000 annual savings; he said our City has received this for the last three years so we have recognized $24,000 in savings; and he again extended thanks to Mr. Whitehead and to Human Resources Technician Lindsey Skinfill. Human Resources Manager Whitehead extended his appreciation for the support of the City Manager and others who helped the City attain this recognition, and he acknowledged and thanked the work of the committee, which includes Lori Barlow, Ryan Kipp, Dan Domrese, Chris Berg, and Brittani DeBoise, and he gave special thanks to Lindsey Skinfill who he said, is very creative Council Study Session Minutes 07-16-2013 Page 1 of 6 Approved by Council: 07-23-2013 and kept everyone motivated. Mr. Whitehead said each year we took a step up to the next level and this award is the highest level of excellence. 1. Spokane Valley Mobile App Demonstration—John Whitehead Human Resources Manager Whitehead explained that with the assistance of our IT staff, the City's mobile app has been launched; he went over some of the features of the app, including the ease of navigation and access; and said that some of the aspects connected with the app are still being improved. After Mr. Whitehead's demonstration, Councilmember Wick suggested Mr. Whitehead contact the Valley Business Association and the Chamber of Commerce to take advantage of some advertising. 2. Public Works Capital Projects Update—Eric Guth Public Works Director Guth said this presentation is similar to and an update of what he presented to Council May 21, and said the hope is to come before Council about every six weeks to give an update on projects. Mr. Guth mentioned that although the sidewalk infill project shown on slide 5 indicates the project is complete, he said the shoulders of the road are gravel and said we are in the process of getting those paved within the next few weeks. Mr. Guth continued explaining the projects as shown on the various slides, noting which were complete and which have been postponed. Councilmember Woodard mentioned the high effectiveness of the full reflective posts on signs and asked if the plan is to cover all sign poles in a similar manner. Mr. Guth said he will research that question. 3. TIB (Transportation Improvement Board) Grant Requests—Eric Guth Senior Engineer Worley explained that the Washington State Transportation Improvement Board (TM) has issued another call for projects for allocation of Urban Arterial Program (UAP) and Urban Sidewalk Program(SP) funding; and said the applications are due the end of August. Mr. Worley said that the TM has completely changed their scoring criteria this year and it is now performed in bands that emphasize safety, growth and development, physical condition, and mobility. He explained that previously a project would need to score well across several categories in order to rank well; but under the new criteria, a project that scores well in one particular category could be selected. Mr. Worley summarized the preliminary list of projects as shown on his July 16, 2013 Request for Council Action form. Mr. Worley also noted other projects evaluated and considered including the Sprague Avenue Lane Reduction, Argonne Road to Park Road, and Barker Road improvements, McDonald restriping to three-lanes, and State Route 271161 and Pines Roundabout. Mr.Worley invited Council comments. Deputy Mayor Schimmels asked if any or the schools are without sidewalks and Mr. Worley replied that several don't have sidewalks that lead up to the school, although most have sidewalks around the property; and said he received a comment today asking about getting sidewalks in the area of Bowdish from 8 to 12t. Mr. Worley said staff has submitted these projects under other grant programs but thus far have not been successful. Discussion included which projects might be funded; which might be more critical; whether to move forward on the Sprague Lane reduction and if so, staff would need to get cost estimates; that the Sprague Lane reduction as well as other projects might take a few years to complete. Councilmember Grafos said he feels it should be a priority but staff still needs to address it in the most feasible way. Councilmember Wick said different business owners say frontage is everything; and he suggests more discussion before making a commitment, and City Manager Jackson said we need to know the condition of the road and asked if we can wait a couple of years to do the overlay. Mr. Worley replied that the condition of the road is not "that great" and is a prime candidate for overlay; but if we wait too long it will fall below preservation; he said Sprague is the largest arterial for preservation, and this section between Park and Vista was the last section to do; if we did it this year, he said we would finish the federally funded projects next year and would have the entire Sprague resurfaced within the last four years, which he said is one of Council's desires. Councilmember Grafos suggested doing all the work on Sprague at the same time in order to be less disruptive to the businesses; and Councilmember Woodard added that perhaps we could do some work this year and some work such as landscaping the following Council Study Session Minutes 07-16-2013 Page 2 of 6 Approved by Council: 07-23-2013 year; said he feels that section is important. Mr. Jackson asked if we decided to pursue Sprague, how would that rank. Mr. Worley said in checking with the TIB staff regarding the new criteria, he has asked for more information on what safety factors they are looking at and if this improvement is made, will those improvements address the safety factors criteria; and said he has not received that information yet but hopes to have it before next Tuesday's Council meeting when this topic is scheduled for a motion. Concerning the Appleway Trail, Mr. Worley said that project would not qualify under either the SP or UAP program. Mr. Guth said it is also below our other two projects on the list; he said TIB values safety first and they look at improving complete streets with sidewalks and curbs, and said this would be a lane reduction that already has many of those safety features. It was also noted that the City's match on TIB funded projects is typically 20% of the total project cost, and that right-of-way is not an eligible cost for sidewalk projects. Mr. Jackson said staff will get additional information and come back with options for Council consideration. At 7:26 p.m. Mayor Towey called for a ten-minute recess;the meeting was reconvened at 7:39 p.m. 4. Communications Franchise,Zayo Renewal—Cary Driskell City Attorney Driskell said that in July of 2003, the City granted a ten-year franchise to Columbia Fiber; he said that this is a replacement franchise as Columbia sold their interest to Zayo; he said this would also be a ten year franchise with many of the same terms;that there have been some updates to reflect what we have done in other franchises, and he noted under Section 4 the City negotiated for the right to use up to four dark fibers or two pair, to be used solely for municipal purposes. Mr.Driskell said we will also have the route map available for next week at the proposed first reading. There was consensus from council to move this forward to a first reading July 23. 5. City Hall Concepts—John Hohman Community Development Director Hohman introduced Mr. Doug Mitchell and Ms. Marian Evenson of MMEC Architects, who he said have been retained to update the 2008 City Hall Space Analysis, and to develop concepts using existing available structures as well as undeveloped properties. Mr. Hohman said they used the 2008 study as the basis for their work, but used different assumptions since the economy has changed since 2008. Mr. Hohman said MMEC also reviewed our existing space;he said they did not look at parking, but as was noted in the February retreat, they examined the idea of locating the police precinct building with city hall. Ms. Evenson explained that the 2008 report wasn't a waste of effort as it included good information; but said that report did not analyze the existing space including shared space; she said as they examined existing versus new space, using the existing space enabled them to understand the needs; and therefore said their document is more of an addendum to the 2008 document. She said they conducted discussions with the department heads to see where growth is headed, and said she feels it is minimal as no one is asking for additional people; she explained that there was more growth anticipated in 2008, but feels their report is more realistic of how Spokane Valley might grow. She explained that they anticipate a city hall would need 44,213 square feet; a future police precinct would need 27,224 square feet as the current precinct lacks things like front door security, and suggested it would be more secure if they had a bigger lobby; and said they also need more conference room space, and larger Iocker rooms. As shown on the PowerPoint slides, Mr. Hohman explained that a combined City Hall and Police Precinct would require 71,500 square feet; and he went over the space needs broken down by department. Ms. Evenson added that if the two buildings were combined, one of the reasons more space would be required is because the police would actually take up more room because of their vehicles. Mr. Hohman added that City Hall and the Police Precinct would also have separate uses and separate security needs. Mr. Mitchell said that the police would need more security and they don't want a lot of windows,but windows would be desired for a City Hall; that the precinct would need high security, and while there are some benefits to co-locating, he said he feels there is no real benefit to co-locate in the same building. Council Study Session Minutes 07-16-2013 Page 3 of 6 Approved by Council: 07-23-2013 Mr. Holtman went over the property evaluation figures as shown on slide 6, and said of the available developed and undeveloped properties within the city, they initially established a list of 21 possible locations, and that Iist was then reduced to six representative locations. Ms. Evenson said the biggest thing that would affect growth would be expanded services; if you provide more services, you will need more space. Mr. Jackson said the space study shows the assumptions, adding that it is sometimes hard to do assumptions; he said if we decide to build a city hall,we would come back and look at space needs;he said twenty years from now a different council and staff would have different needs; we want to make sure we have enough space to accommodate reasonable additions over time. Councilmember Grafos said if security is the downside to having the two buildings combined, there could be separate entrances; and said it would be a benefit overall concerning cost, to have them together. Mr. Mitchell agreed there is nothing wrong in putting the two together; he said the existing facility isn't bad, which he said is more to do with the reason why they didn't look at every scenario; that the existing facility could use some modifications to make it function even better. Ms. Evenson added that a lot of smaller communities combine them; she said this precinct is better than those smaller cities; and that mostly it would be a perception of coming to the City Hall versus coming to a Police Precinct. The question arose concerning the projection time the consultants are considering, and Ms. Evenson explained that they are looking out five years into the future as that is much more clear than trying to look out twenty years since the city has a five-year history upon which to review, and said they feel their estimates are conservative yet close to an actual need. Mr. Jackson added that over our first ten years we have remained fairly stable at 85 employees;he said he is comfortable with these numbers and feels they would be good for at least fifteen to twenty years; and said any city hall should be built to serve the community for the next hundred years and if anything, perhaps at the most, another 10% could be added to these figures. The six representative sites were discussed along with the benefits of each site Mr. Mitchell explained that option 2 uses the old Crescent Building, which has 100,000 square feet and could accommodate a city hall and a police precinct; but he added that some of the other sites could accommodate both; he said this site is about six acres and discussion would have to be held about the logistics, whether to have the police on the first floor or in the back of the first floor,with City hall on the second floor or in front of the building, or other combinations. Mr. Mitchell said the "East of University Option 3" would not work to include a police department as the acreage is too tight. Option 4, Mr. Mitchell said, is the former Yokes building; he said it has six or seven acres, and if that is the choice, it might be possible to put a building in front of the old Yokes building. Mr. Mitchell explained that site 5 and 6 are at the Mirabeau area, with site 5 lending to the synergy of having CenterPlace and the Centennial Trail close by. He said site 6 property is currently owned by John Miler. Cost per square foot was discussed and estimated, and it was mentioned if the idea is to build two to three years from now, a figure would likely be different from today's market figures. Councilmember Grafos said he estimated the square foot cost for a new city hall building at $225 per square foot, bringing the cost of the building to about $16 million, without counting an additional 33% for further costs or another $5 million; he said the Crescent building selling price is $4.7 million, which includes over six acres, with remodeling cost of about $60 to $70 a square foot. Mr. Mitchell said he feels the additional 33% would be closer to 35 to 40%, and the $60 to $70 remodeling cost is underestimated. Ms. Evenson added that the cost would be closer to $70 per square foot improvement at least; that the building is sorely lacking such things as access to daylight, and a decent mechanical, electrical and information system (IT), and said taking those factors into consideration, she feels renovation cost would not be much different from new construction costs. Mr. Mitchell said those ideas deserve further study as we don't know exactly the state of those systems; he said the floor structure is also a factor, as is the high likelihood of the building containing asbestos; and said there are a lot of things in that building they haven't looked at yet; he said that ITRON did a study when they were considering moving to Liberty Lake, concerning existing versus new, and their decision was to buy existing and converted quite a lot; but added that for the Crescent building, the mechanical, electrical and IT systems would have to be taken into consideration. Council Study Session Minutes 07-16-2013 Page 4 of 6 Approved by Council: 07-23-2013 Ms. Evenson also noted that a concern of that employer was retaining good employees; they wanted office space comparable to what they'd be used to; she said nice space attracts the best employees and they wanted their employees to work in environments that are pleasant, adding that we spend about 3 14th of our lives in our office space. Mr. Mitchell said for the Crescent building, we would probably want to cut openings in exterior walls to make it more office like; and said it is still not an ideal building because it's so square; that ideally you want to have people thirty to forty feet from a window and you can't do that in that building and it would take a lot more to accomplish that; perhaps maybe even putting in a skylight in the middle. Ms. Evenson said often older buildings come with some redeeming qualities and she's not positive that building has a lot; but added that with money, you can do anything to make it pleasant. There was discussion about a library and city hall, with Mr.Mitchell explaining that the Crescent building was chosen as an option because of the possibility of a library across the street; and said it would probably set the best visual for that little section; and Ms. Evenson added that two schemes include a relationship to the park. Mr. Jackson said that particular location adjacent to a potential library was a consideration; that the original study in 2008 determined it would be co-located, but said for this study, that was not a requirement. Councilmember Wick asked about the original three-story building idea; and Mr. Mitchell said three stories were not justified due to cost. Councilmember Woodward said he likes site#2 and would like to see more about that area;he said he feels site#3 is too small; #4 has possibilities but doesn't include a "campus concept" and said he formerly felt Mirabeau was a good location, but the drawback is that won't entice new development,whereas the U-City area would; and said he is not sure if #1 with a new building is the option he would prefer. Councilmember Grafos said he agreed with Councilmember Woodard and feels that location is an opportunity to re-develop the U-City area as well as enhance the park/library project, and will re-purpose an existing building; and said purchase of the building would also include the economic development component; and suggests that as part of that sale agreement, we should ask the seller to remove the remaining unoccupied buildings at their expense as they no longer have a useful economic life and will continue to deteriorate and restrict development; he said the owner should also paint and "dress up" the sheriff office training center; and that we should be granted a 20 to 25 foot easement or property line adjustment on the east side to end up with a free- standing building; he said we don't have to remodel the entire 100,000 square feet; and said you can never go wrong having more square footage. Councilmember Wick also voiced his agreement with Councihnember Woodard and said that #2 has a lot of potential and feels it is more in line with the philosophy of what we are looking for. Councilmember Hafner agreed that this has an identity for us. Deputy Mayor Schimmels stated that the best thing about #2 is the location; said he doesn't like that building and it would have to be "gutted" and feels the second floor is not trustworthy; and that it is important to talk to the owner as those old buildings should have been removed a long time ago. Mr. Jackson said as we bring options forward, it is important to look more closely at the precinct;that we started with a City Hall concept and at least one facility that could accommodate police; he said renovations are costly and we can come back and have a separate discussion on the police department, although we have a precinct building; said he feels it is too soon to eliminate options and he would like to come back with more information on renovation; perhaps have a separate study session to talk about precinct needs; said when we were discussing the idea of building new we were not discussing building a new precinct; he said that would be difficult to fund unless we could sell the existing building; he aid the challenge is to finance the correct-size city hall and we need to take a closer look at the issues. Mr. Mitchell said if#2 is a consideration, at some point they will want to get in and look at the structure, and the mechanical and electrical systems to see what we'd be getting; and Ms.Evenson added she anticipates that building would have a great deal of asbestos. Mayor Towey said he feels those are the next steps to help determine what to eliminate and how to move forward. Mr. Mitchell said for either #1 or #2, an option would also be to remove the existing building. Council Study Session Minutes 07-16-2013 Page 5 of 6 Approved by Council: 07-23-2013 6.Advance Agenda—Mayor Towey There were no suggested changes to the Advance Agenda. 7. The (q) Initiative 502 Rules Update, and(b) WUTC Grant Opportunity were for information only and were not discussed or reported 8. Council Check-in—Mayor Towey There were no comments. 9. City Manager Comments—Mike Jackson Mr.Jackson had no comments. EXECUTIVE SESSION: It was moved by Deputy Mayor Schimmels and seconded to adjourn into Executive Session for approximately thirty minutes to discuss potential land acquisition, and that no action would he taken upon return to open session. Council adjourned into Executive Session at 8:52 p.m. Councilmember Wick recused himself due to a conflict of interest. At 9:26 p.m. Mayor Towey declared Council out of Executive Session; immediately thereafter it was moved by Deputy Mayor Schimmels, seconded and unanimously agreed to adjourn. ATTE . ` Thomas E. To ey, ayor • r� Christine Bainbridge, City Clerk Council Study Session Minutes 07-16-2013 Page 6 of 6 Approved by Council: 07-23-2013