City Council - Regular Meeting

Uh for those of you that I have not met before, my name is Erin Haidider and I'm one of our assistant city managers here at the city of Durango. Um along with Bob Rammer, our other assistant city manager. Uh we're missing Clancy tonight who normally runs all of our engagement activities in our disengaged during uh forum. So we're going to jump in and give a quick introduction before we jump into the presentation. Before we uh start, uh Olivia is here. If anyone is in need of Spanish interpretation, just reach out to her and she'd be happy to help. Bob.

All right. Good evening. Welcome everybody. It's great to see a lot of really familiar faces here. Um, just a couple team members that we're going to be doing the presentation this evening. We've got John from Artea Group. He's our owner's rep and we've got Julianne from HR. She's part of our architectural group. We got Steve from FCI. Um, they're going to be doing the presentation this evening. Um, many of you have heard the presentation that Aaron and I have given over the last couple weeks at different venues. This is going to basically be a recap of that just in this forum here. Um, as Aaron mentioned, uh, Clancy's not here tonight. So, what we're going to do is we're going to do the presentation with this group and then once we're done with that presentation, we're going to immediately move back to all the tables where all of our staff are so we can answer questions individually and more specifically what your questions are. So, that's how the format's going to go this evening and it's all up to you guys. Great.

Okay. Well, thank you all. Um, again, we're thrilled to be here partnering with the city in this important project, talking about the new city hall and police department. So, again, uh, my name is Sean Yuzer. I'm with Artea Group. In our presentation tonight, we're going to be talking about the historical significance of the future city hall building, formerly uh, the historic high school. We're talking about the design progress, what steps have been taken to date, talking about the overall schedule, and then how to stay involved in this project as we move forward. So again, um the city hall building was recognized on the national and state registry of historic places in 2001 and identified as a city of Durango historic landmark in 2025. We understand that's more than just a a title. There's a lot of human connection to this facility dating back over a hundred years that we need to understand as we transition this to a new city function. So again the period of significance uh 1917 to 1951 uh we originally constructed in 1917 in a classical revival style. So HDR is working to rehabilitate this building. they have brought on a specialized team member architectural resource group to spearhead the historic restor rehabilitation of this building. So again architectural resource group and HDR they've gone through and combed in extensive detail the interior of the city hall building and the exterior. We understand you can't read the notes, but this just shows the level of detail they've gone through and identifying items that can be rehabilitated um to keep the historic nature of this facility.

We also wanted to highlight the old auditorium building which will be the new council chambers as well as courtroom. Um, this will be a publicly available space and so we are taking measures to make sure that that is still rehabilitated as in the historic context of what that was originally used for. So again, this is a city-driven project. They due to the scale of this, the city has to bring in a lot of team members, consultants, architects, contractors. So we need to make sure that this is really driven by the city's goals and priorities.

So in the bottom right hand corner you'll see the outline of the strategic plan which was used to develop these guiding principles. This is really an outline for city staff and the ex to extension the project team as a whole on how to make decisions and ensure that this is achieving the ultimate goal for the city and residents of Durango. So these six bullet points include ensuring safety and security for all. Uh creating a campus to foster engagement in a connected community, advancing equity, access and inclusion, uh being stewards of city assets responsibly, promoting health and wellness and environmental stewardship, and upholding accountability and sustainability. So we're working to ensure that this project forwards these goals for the city. um past the completion of this project. Thanks. Sorry. So again, this project didn't start when the bond passed in April of 2025. This has been conceived as a plan all the way back to the 1990s. So in this picture here in the upper left, this shows a concept plan developed in 1994 for use of this building as a city hall and establishing the rest of the site as a parking lot. Since that time, the city's engaged um a master planning team spearheaded by Reynolds Ash and DLR group that was used to educate the bond effort. What they did is they looked at the existing conditions, what program this space could hold, um looked at parking studies and concepts, um identified the space needs for those uses and identified over go overall

goals. This was a publicly and engaged process with several community meetings and it also helped educate um what financing should be targeted to progress this plan which resulted in pursuing the extension of a sales tax measure in the April 2025 block. So since that time um given that this residents of the city of Durango voted to move this project forward the city was able to invest a lot more time and resources towards progressing this design. Uh that included geological geotechnical investigations uh deeper dive into the historic preservation of the new city hall building looking at traffic multimodal analyses um evaluating more of the land use process that would go into this project and looking at cost validations for different options to fulfill the goals of the bond measure. Above and beyond that, um, HDR as a project designer has done a lot of additional investigation work which we'll get into in the upcoming slides. With that, I'd like to turn it over to Julianne.

Thank you, Julianne Shear with HDR. So, as you just saw, a lot of work has been done to date, and we're super um happy of all of you were involved with trying to create this sort of sort of uh platform for us to work on. And so, what we did was we looked at all the existing documents, doing our due diligence to ensure that the work that we were looking to to do was going to meet the budgets, was going to meet the program. We gathered that information and also looked at it with our historic preservation architects and we also did cost validation. So this highle opinion of probable cost to understand the magnitude of cost that we were doing and pulling this information together. We also looked at design solutions in alternates in a similar fashion that there was a 1994 idea, there was a two 2023 idea. And so let's see what we came up with next. And so when thinking about these um options, we had to look at where are we now? We're in 2025. Uh well, actually 2026, right? We're in 2026 now. on the modernization and the codes that are required to bring the um buildings up to the level of code requirements of IBC which is adopted by the state and by the city. And one of those is risk category 4. And what is that? Well, where's category 4 means that buildings that are buildings or structures that are designated as essential uh functions that they need to to represent um things like fire, rescue, ambulance, police, and emergency vehicle garages. They need to withstand substantial hazards um to the occupants or users that are in those buildings um and those facilities. And this is the type of facility especially

the police department that falls within that category. So we need to design for those standards. Um we refined the building program. So looking at predictive analyses of forward of the program looking forward. We also did facility tours of similar types of facilities to identify how those you know what is a modern facility look like uh this day and age and making sure that we are designing to be sort of futurep proof for you all and understanding that this is the heart and anchor for your community. revival, revitalizing that, bringing the prominence of your historic structure back into view and really elevating its um its intentions and making sure that we're preserving those important interior elements as well as the exterior elements like the uh auditorium for community use uh as well. So with that, we have some al alternate ideas. Um, so as you can see here, HDR did a lot of due diligence, pulled together a lot more information that could only be done um with a significant investment that happens after the community decides to move this project forward. That evaluated several different design concepts um and we're presenting the project concept that really satisfies those goals we set out to achieve. um described up front. There's a couple changes to this plan as opposed to the 2023 concept plan. Uh first and foremost, uh the current community development building 215 East Second Street. Um the previous concept plan had contemplated renovating that building and including a new addition to make that into our police

department. Um, this concept shows demolishing that building and building a new police department behind the city hall. Uh, this allows for a much more efficient square footage. So, we're able to accommodate that same program in a smaller footprint. The other consideration is with risk category 4 that Julianne described. Um the 215 E2 building would require significant structural reinforcements um that drove up the cost of that option. Secondly, we're looking at parking solutions that are surface level parking. So here on the right hand side, this parking is for the police. This is a secure enclosed space, but it is surface level parking. And then on the left side, you'll see parking for city hall. So, this plan does still integrate into Buckley Park. Um, we understand there are several needs that still need to be satisfied. One is multimodal connectivity through the site. Uh so we are looking at trail connectivity and multi-purpose access through the alleyway. Uh thoughtful integration with Buckley Park, still maintaining the sled. We saw a lot of active use on that this weekend which was good to see. Um good to see snow as well. And then preservation of community assets like the rose garden in front of the building.

John, can I ask a question as you go along? You said something and I couldn't catch the first part of it. said something related to that arts and science building that drove up the cost of that option. What did you say? Yeah, we'd be happy to talk more in the breakout session, but that was a risk category for structural enhancements to 215 East Second Street. So, we and and again, we will dive into that in a lot more detail after this presentation.

Yes. Um the other consideration is the city proposed city hall is really at a point of prominence at the end of second a um as that building originally functioned um with the police department behind the city hall that really highlights this historic civic function of this space um in the historic nature of that building. So the site um because it doesn't include a parking garage structure again that parking garage structure is also subject to risk category 4 structural requirements. So we are looking at surface level parking as uh a better solution for this project. Our site currently accommodates roughly half of the needed parking spaces for both the PD and city hall function. So we are exploring other solutions within a quarter mile radius. uh looking at the existing city hall site and existing PD to satisfy all the parking requirements for these buildings. Um so again with this this is a a more budget aligned solution. Uh we like that this preserves a lot of the mature trees on the site especially along Buckley Park. preservation of the sledding hill still maintains the public alley usage, complies with city codes, and satisfies the programming requirements in the 2023 master plan concept. Now, I'd like to turn it over to Stephen to talk a little bit about what the site will look like during construction.

Hi, good evening. My name is Stephen Stewart, project manager with FCI. Um, obviously our main focus will be the construction of this, but uh we have a big focus on public safety. So the kind of the okay. Okay. Sorry guys.

Um public safety is going to be a main focus for us. Uh this red block shows the entirety of the construction site. U want to talk about a little bit of the phasing of this. Um it'll kind of start as a smaller job site demo and the city hall construction and then it'll grow over the two-year span to include the police departments. Um couple of key points on here are the green boxes. We'll utilize some public area that that are parking spots right now that will be taken over for city parking lots and for construction parking as well. Um it's kind of hard to see in this photo here, but uh there's a red arrow on the top. Um, part of our public safety plan is to make sure all of our trucking and and construction traffic comes in on one path and doesn't do circles around the neighborhood. Um, knowing that, uh, there's a lot of important areas to take care of there. So, most of that stuff will be coordinated through us, my team. Um, this will be a phased approach that will start and then kind of relay this to the public as the project progresses. Um, so again, we wanted to highlight opportunities to still be involved in this project, give input. Um, we're here tonight discussing the conceptual design. We're looking in May to have dedicated meetings discussing the landscaping around the site as well as the campus connectivity to the surrounding community and those assets. And then in June, we're looking at what some of the public spaces with community rooms uh for the police department look like. And then those same public community spaces for the city hall. And here we have a QR link to our civic engage page where you can upload questions um and find additional information about the project that will be updated regularly.

Okay. And with that, what we're going to do is we're going to pivot really quickly since we are s starting to see some hands raised here. We're going to do a strict 10 minutes to this so that we can get back out to the uh to our breakout sessions, but we will answer questions for 10 minutes. So, Charles, I believe your hand is up first. So, I was just going to request that we have a general question and answer. Yeah, that's what we're going to do right now. So, 10 minutes. I would also like to suggest that we do all the questions in public here so everyone can hear the answers as opposed to the breakout session. So, we can have it. more like a real meeting and we can hear everyone can hear the answers um to the questions. It feels like the breakout doesn't

allow everyone to hear some of the the real concerns based off the forum that we have and the number of people we have here. We want to make sure we address everybody's individual questions and also have enough uh and to respect everybody's time as well this evening. So we are going to do the 10 minutes and then we'll break out from there. So um does anybody have a question we can start off with? Yeah, I got the question. That's right.

So, I mean, I'm just curious how you you reconcile putting out a plan. I don't know if any of you have seen the original plan that was put out in 23 and 24, lots of community input, 500,000 plus in design work with historic architects from Denver, police specialists from Chicago, DHM architects from Durango, Tracy Reynolds. This was a year's process with specialists and then with bathrooms for Buckley and multimodal wide pass through the campus and landscaping and an alley redone and we were sold this and when they knew they didn't have the money to do that and they had been told by their people, they have been told by me, they have been told by many people and that they got everyone to vote on this and now they're changing the plan. They were going to save the other building 30,000 square foot 75 year old building that was part this actually was a campus. I know you guys are claiming you're creating a campus but there was an old high school that was built and 20 years later the Smiley building was built 20 years later the arts and science was built. this really was a campus and now it's changed to you're going to demolish a 30,000 square foot building when we've asked on I'm looking at your information gathering nowhere on the information gathering does it say I'm just curious what study that was done to that building that you're sure it doesn't already meet those standards I would love to see some engineering when we wanted to get it they said we could get it through Kora and it would be $500

plus dollars plus legal fees to see if there was even something like that. That's a lot to I know I know I'm just going to do it because I'm here and um anyway I'm just how do you reconile?

It's a question sile changing the project and the scope that it has changed and all the public things that have left project. Maybe we should re-examine. Is this actually a good site now that you're demolishing the building, you have surface parking in a pretty fancy residential neighborhood, all night security lights, wall. Maybe we need to re-examine whether this is good. Um, this administration was in denial of what the project costs and they sold us a bill of goods knowing this was over a hundred million project. This gentleman over here, they were insisting it was 60 to 80. Of course, it's not. That's why you're not doing the project that you all promised us. And so, maybe we need to re-examine this. And then, do we want to move forward with this administration that after $500,000 of experts plus $1.2 million put into the building that they're going to demolish? Are these the people we want to build this project for us, this historic building? Are they capable? They couldn't figure out that they couldn't afford it. this is are these really the people we want to move forward with on a project of this scale.

Okay, that was a lot of information there, but we're going to try to boil this down to the primary question on that. The initial portion of the planning we did a couple years ago with uh Ralph Anderson and with DLR that was to give us a conceptual master plan so we could figure out the ballpark of everything that's going to sit on this campus and what that initial dollar amount was. That was also to give the public information on what this campus could look like with all the wishes that we have. We then moved into the bond. We knew exactly how much money we've had and now we're going through all the issues that he's talking about to come up with the master plan for this actual project. And it's all coming in alignment now with the groups that we have in order to make this a reality with the financial abilities we have to be able to spend the money we have that's allocated by the bond amount of $61 million.

Yes, sir. Does the police department have to be there? Why can't it be located the old city hall site combination of it and presenting police department?

That's a great question. So, we looked at a study back in 2015 to see the feasibility of the current police department and city hall to see if that was going to work based off of this of of the dynamics of parking, based off of the structures of that. We'd have to go subtrain and then build above it. it still didn't meet all the needs for the for the police department. So that was a study that was done in 2015. This actually makes it work. So we do have the room for growth. We have that 40 to 50 year projection with the space of this building is going to be able to continue to serve the community from central location within the city which is also best serve all the residents with the adjacencies of the courts and the city hall. Yes.

So that really sounds like a shutdown kind of thing. You're saying the study that you just did before 2A was passed study all the half million dollars that went into that work has been set aside. Are you talking about the 2015 study that I just referenced?

No, I'm saying you're saying the study from 2015 we're going with that and it's just I'm sorry if I create confusion. That was a 2015 study that we did for all facilities throughout the city. that was with the BLE group that was under a previous city manager and that study looked at that and it looked at those specific sites to that. Our focus on this one was this campus here because it was the property that we owned at the time and it's all again coming to fruition at this point as you can see through the conceptual plans we have with the with HCR.

Uh let's go over here and I'll come back to you. Do you have any expected time frames of construction? Yes. You want to get there? I'll see. We're hoping to start construction in September and it's a little bit more than a two-year construction project schedule on that. September 26. That's correct. Yes, ma'am. Yes, sir. Is there any intention to have the opportunity for community input and transparency the way the pre most recent plan was developed similar similar in scope in regards to the the schematic design of this um that's what we're here for right now.

Okay. So I don't think this is anything like occurred with the previous plan. The other one was it was plan was presented and we started taking feedback on that and that's this is the plan that's being presented and this is the feedback that we're receiving on now. Good. So why did you switch design consultants and architects from pre vote on the ballot to a totally different team and who made that decision and lost?

Yeah. So similar to all projects on this scale, um consultants are hired for that master plan effort. It's confined to that. We were competitively selected as an owner's representative. It helped guide the procurement process that adhereed to all the public requirements that the city needed to uphold. So it was really two separate scopes of work. One for the master plan. We issued competitive procurements for all trades involved in this project. Uh once this project was approved and moved forward um all teams were allowed to compete for that scheme scope of work um and the two teams you have here um through extensive vetting very select uh open public process were selected as the top candidates to move this project forward. So it's all through a transparent publicly procured process. Are there any plans to have a citizen advisory group that follows through on this project for the next two years? I know parks and wreck, which spends a lot of taxpayer money, used to have a citizens advisory group, and I thought it was really helpful um being a citizen in town. I could reach out to those people.

Uh is this project considering the scope and scale going to have such something along that line? Uh the fab board would probably be your best outreach on that. is and the historic and the historic preservation board and so yeah so there there are several groups that are overseeing the the financial portions of it along with the historic portion of that and I think that would be a great opportunity where you could connect with them on on providing your input on that one but their focus is much broader than just this project. Um it is but this could be a specific topic for for those conversations with those groups as well. We probably have time for one more question. Yes sir.

What happens to the current city hall and police department once the project's done? Um, so we're evaluating that right now and we're looking at a couple different options. I know that they just presented that, you know, we're looking at, you know, what can be done with it. So we don't have a definitive answer on that yet, but we're working through that process at this time to see what's going to do the best interest of those buildings. One more. I really appreciate Charles comments by the Lord Fiery. I think gave an overview of the lack of process that occurred here and the disconnection between what you did and the citizen advisory. I think there was that was missing. Okay. And how can you improve that from now on

again? I think through those boards that we're talking about those will be the connection points to be able to provide feedback as this process moves along further. Okay. Okay, with that um if you there's bunch of departments all around here you can ask questions about this project specifically and or what their departments represent with their city and the service they provide. So thank you very much.