City Council - Regular Meeting

News for a great American city, great news for the great city of Annapolis, which is after many years, FEMA has released the $35 million in funds. $35 million in funds. That includes the $33 million that was part of the original City of Annapolis grant and an additional $2.5 million to help with related upgrades for stormwater management. And this has been the result of work of Team Maryland. And you're going to hear from so many people who were part of that effort. But there were also many more who are represented here today that you won't hear from, but who you see here and others who could not join us today. including somebody who could not join us today, Mayor Buckley, the former mayor of Annapolis. And it was his vision that really set this project in motion. And I heard from him last night. He said he couldn't be here. I think he's taking one of his kids to college. But he was just thrilled, of course, that we were able to secure these funds. And to the new mayor, Mayor Lipman, and to the council, city council here in Annapolis, thank you. Thank you for carrying on that vision with absolute perseverance. I was just telling the mayor that I have right here a text message.

that i received from him that's all much for why we're saying virtual for thursday september 17th 2026 will be called to order at 501 pm at this time would everyone willing and able please stand for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice Alderman Chandemeyer, I see you now. That's why we're calling it a virtual meeting.

I guess it's hybrid, nothing else.

Mr. City Attorney Coopersmith, please present the first item on the agenda.

The first item on the agenda is ID 17626, 932 and 935, Spa Road City Council briefing.

Okay, thank you. Central Services Director Flinner, please join us at the table and introduce yourself. I'll try to tee you up for the softball, what we're doing here. So for those who don't realize, city government partly takes place here in City Hall and city government owns this building. City government also takes place next door in the Gorman Street building. The city does not own that building. Instead, the city is paying a rent of $600,000 per year, which it has done for how many years? 30 years, roughly. So certainly if you multiply 600,000, and I don't know that we've paid that amount all 30 years, but that's what we're paying today. If you take in what we've paid in rent, multiply it by whatever number of years it is, and you can see we should have owned that building by now. CITY GOVERNMENT ALSO TAKES PLACE IN OTHER LOCATIONS. WE HAVE THREE FIRE STATIONS, WE HAVE ANNAPOLIS POLICE DEPARTMENT WITH EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS, WE HAVE A FACILITY AT HUDSON STREET, WE HAVE A TRANSPORTATION DEPARTMENT ON CHINKAPIN, WE HAVE A SMALL BUILDING ON SHAW STREET, AND PROBABLY NUMEROUS OTHER BUILDINGS THAT I'M NOT EVEN THINKING OF, BUT I'M NO DOUBT THAT YOU ARE, MR. FLINNER, DIRECTOR FLINNER. Conversation this afternoon, it's not quite tonight yet. Conversation is what should we do going forward? The current lease at Gorman Street, it runs out in 2030. If we are going to build a different building to house at minimum what's taking place in that building before that lease runs out so that we have places to put all those important offices that are currently next door, 2030 is tomorrow basically. We need to get cracking. You see how long any project takes. We need to start doing planning, designing, construction, and then moving in. So that's the bigger picture. There's lots of other options, and Director Flinner is going to be describing some of those other options. In theory, we could do a small facility that has just what's currently going on in Gorman Street. In theory, it could be a bigger facility that has lots of all those other buildings, potentially parts of what's going on in City Hall. potentially we collaborate with other government entities to even be a bigger facility and if you also have the foresight to think what might be across the street because when we're talking about far i'm sorry when we're talking about spa road we're talking about the ball fields side of spa road if you anticipate what's going to be on the other side and an expansion of housing think of how wonderful it would be if we had services available for people who will be living in walking distance and so you could think big that way just big picture So there's lots of different choices that we will need to make. Ultimately, this is a decision that is going to be a council decision. Whether I have certain roles or not, I am absolutely going to be collaborating with you. This should be a joint decision, whether it needs to be legally or not, this will be a joint decision. And the operating side of the administration is asking the legislative side, give me some guidance and get cracking because we need to get shovels and ground if you want us to build something in time. Set you up, Roel? Thank you. Couldn't have done it better myself. All right.

Well, please take over and tell us what we need to know to make some smart decisions. Thank you, Mayor. Good afternoon, everyone. I am Matt Flinner, the Director of Central Services. And just piggybacking on what the Mayor said, I'm coming to you at really step zero in our process to develop that property. I wanted to update you on the work we've already completed, the work that's coming up next year. And I think a really critical takeaway before we even start is that we're not past any points of no return yet. So everything can shift and can change. And the reason why we're really pressing this issue first is because the decisions we make for Spa Road really impact all the other decisions we need to make over the next five years to get us into this new facility. So I'm gonna jump right in. Feel free to interrupt me at any time. This is a free-flowing conversation. And I'm gonna start at the very beginning. There is a table of contents at the beginning if anyone loses their place or wants to jump ahead. But Spa Road, what are we talking about here? So you'll hear several different terms tossed around. We say east side, west side. We say 932, 935. This is just a map to help you kind of conceptualize the site today. So that's Spa Road running north to south right in the middle of the picture. The west side of the property is where Reckon Parks is currently operating. It's where the old salt dome was, and that is the portion of the property where we're planning to develop with HACA. On the east side, that's 935. We have our fuel site up in the very, very top corner there. You hear a lot of talk about Weems Whalen Field, which is also highlighted just a little to the south of the Bates Athletic Fields. But really everything we're talking about today revolves around lot one on 935 Spa Road, which is just that front portion, that skinny portion of the property from the tree line to the street where I have that dotted yellow line. That little sliver of land is lot one after we've broken the property out into different parcels. And that's what we're gonna be developing with the new government center, another facility into the future. So a little background on the property itself. I kind of broke down the addresses, the east side, west side, how the property is being utilized today. We currently have Annapolis Recs and Parks operating on the west side. They're doing a lot of their small engine repairs there. They're storing chemicals and equipment there. DPW is currently operating on the east side. They have vehicles there. We have signs. We have extra trash cans and different public works equipment there. The old salt dome that used to be at that property was recently taken down. We've removed that completely. And then the only other thing that's continuing into the future at that site is the city's fuel site. There are no plans to move that in the short term and central services expects to continue operating all city refueling from that fuel site on the north side of the property. The history of the property and why really it's slated for environmental remediation comes down to how it was used in the past. So initially this property was used as a landfill around the 50s. They built an incinerator there where they then began burning the trash. That is one of the big things we're trying to remediate is all of the toxic waste that resulted from that landfill and the incinerator operations. The other thing is around 1970, Public Works built a new automotive facility at the property. And due to, you know, things like oil, gasoline, grease, and different things like that getting into the environment, getting into the groundwater, that has also partially polluted that site. So that's kind of the background and why we need to do environmental remediation is really just all based on how historically the city has used this property. So now let's talk a little more detail about the environmental analysis. So Public Works is working with Haley and Aldrich. They're our environmental vendor on this project. They've done two site assessments. The first site assessment was really trying to establish what are the environmental concerns at the property. They use this acronym REC, Recognized Environmental Condition, which is basically a flag saying, hey, you have a hazardous substance here in the soil or in the groundwater that we need to address. So as you see further down on the slide, the two main areas that they flagged on this project are one, the pollutants that resulted from the former landfill and the incinerator at the site, and then two kind of how the city has historically used it oil and water pollution storage hydraulic lifts and some of that fluid may have filtered in the soil those are the big things they flagged from an environmental standpoint Moving on to phase two, they started doing sampling. We still have test boring in at the property where they're continuing to collect samples today. They have found higher than we would like to see levels of metals in semi-volatile organic compounds. What the environmental vendors have told us though is really nothing setting off any major alarm bells. It's all actually pretty minor if you consider how long we've used this site this way and how industrial it was used in the past. And then they're continuing to sample water at the surface level down in Spock Creek and down in the groundwater. A footnote I'll add is at the end of this presentation, I included Haley and Aldrich's environmental analysis. So if you'd like more information on that piece, actual, you know, the screening levels and the different compounds they've screened for, all of that is after the presentation in the slides that you have. You're welcome to check that out. The other thing is all Spa Road environmental remediation information is up to date on Haley and Aldrich's and DPW's website. That link is active today. The most up-to-date information is there. It will always be there and you're always welcome to go back and check that or refer questions that you receive to that website. So when we talk about environmental remediation, everybody wants to know, oh my gosh, what are we doing? And a really big thing for y'all to understand is we don't know and we won't know until we develop the site development plans. So the remediation itself is really gonna be based on how we build there. So a lot of things like can we cap certain land, maybe with a street or with a patio, in which case we don't need to remove soil. Maybe we do need to remove a foot or so of topsoil in different areas. We will need to seal the foundation of all of our buildings and our structures and how we do that we won't really know until we know what buildings we're building and how big they are. So again, the reason why answering the question of what we're doing at Spa Road is really important now is because we need to do our feasibility, build our site design, and then that'll tell us how we're remediating the site, and we can then have public information meetings to share that out and collect feedback from our constituents. So some of that remediation may include, it's hard to know today, but what we're expecting is a soil management plan in disposing all of the contaminated soil. We will cap parts of the property where we can, like a good example of this is Weems Whalen where we're considering a turf field. That's actually a cap that'll seal the pollutants down underneath of it and create a safe playing surface for students. So we might try to leverage different strategies like that. They will try to remediate or remove different hotspots on the property, creating vapor barriers between our buildings and the soil, stream restoration if needed. And then there are some controls on how we can use the land. Nothing really prohibitive for us. It doesn't seem like we can use the groundwater. We'll probably need to maintain these different remediation options into the future, but none of that is problematic and it's all in line with our typical facility management workflows. But this is what we're expecting the remediation plan to include is much more detail on each of these items and what actions we'll specifically take to mediate the pollution. So good news, the Brownfields grant. Last year, many of the other people who have been here a little while now, they recall that we subdivided this property into different parcels. That was really important as kind of a first step because we conveyed or we We kind of gave ownership of one of those parcels to the resilience authority, and that is because as the polluter of that property, we actually can't clean up the pollution. So we partner with the resilience authority. They technically have control of this land right now, and we're working with them to spend the brownfield funds and remediate the site. Weems Wayland is kind of outside of all of that. So we have not conveyed that property to the resilience authority. The city retains control and ownership of Weems Wayland and that CIP is advancing with DPW. This is our federally available grant funds to remediate environmental damage. We applied for the grant last year in January and good news, we found out in June that the grant was awarded to the Resilience Authority and by default, the city. And so what that means for us is we are getting $4 million in federal funds to help us remediate the pollution at the site. But a very big string that's attached to that 4 million is that we only have four years to spend it. We expect to receive that money in October of this year, which is then gonna start our clock and we'll have four years to draw down those funds. Something else just to kind of key you in, multiple departments are involved in this project. It's actually kind of complex as far as CIPs go. We also have different property owners on the site, which also adds to the complexity. But I wanted to break down all the projects that are occurring, who's kind of in the driver's seat, and how they're all interconnected. So at 935 Spa Road, lot one, what I showed you on that map, that's really the new facility we're hoping to build. And that's the project where we're leading. We would engineer that facility. We would maintain that facility. And that's something that we're working on and why I'm presenting to you here today. At the same time, DPW is working on the environmental remediation CIP also attached to that project. So both of these projects are advancing together with us worrying about the building and DPW worrying about the environmental remediation. On the other side of the road, on the west side, Planning and Zoning is taking the lead on what we're calling the HACA side. And that's the side of the property where we're planning to partner with HACA to add new workforce housing. And Planning and Zoning is taking the lead on those workflows. And then as I mentioned before, Weems Wayland is a different CIP project where we're trying to remediate that environmental damage. And DPW is leading that project in partnership with Rec and Park. They have already begun feasibility studies and that project will probably wrap before any of these really get going. That's very close to starting construction now. So that's everything that's happening at this site. Different departments are involved in different pieces. Next time I come present to you, I will probably be here with Planning and Zoning and DPW so we can get you all the full picture and all stakeholders represented. Subdivision plat, which shows how the parcel's been divided. I showed you on that map with the dotted line kind of where lot one was. This is just a different rendering of the same thing. So our buildable land, if you want to think of it that way, is this sliver here between Spa Road and roughly the tree line between the old DPW building and Weems Wayland. And then that very top triangle, that's where the fuel site is, don't forget. So that's already covered right there. What might we build there? The previous administration had an artist create some renderings of what the property might look like if we built a new government center with affordable workforce housing across the street. I'll add these drawings aren't really based on any operational reality. It's just a theory of what could be, but I thought they provided a good visual to help you kind of see and wrap your brain around what might we build out there and what might it look like. So this shows with the government center on the south side of the street, those would be four housing units on the west side or the north side of the street right there. And then the previous administration envisioned a pedestrian bridge, which connected the HACA side to the city government side and eased with crossing Spa Road. And then this is a rendering from the back of the housing. You can kind of see our pedestrian bridge there on the right where that other picture connects, but really kind of making it a nice, clean, beautiful community where any family would wanna come, stay, raise a family. And so this is what we could potentially build up there as this project advances. For your awareness and really the big 2 areas are timeline and budget. So, on the timeline, as I mentioned before, our brownfield funds must be spent in 4 years. We think that clock is going to start taking some time in October of 26. As I also mentioned before, our specific remediation plan is going to totally be based upon our site development plans. So we could, in theory, hold public input meetings now, but we don't have a lot of concrete information to share. And we're trying to understand those specific remediation steps before we schedule those meetings so we can actually let them know what we're going to do at the site. planning and zoning is just starting the hacker coordination now as i'm kind of starting to introduce this topic to all of you so that project should also be advancing from step zero to to full completion um and i know that's just getting off the ground but kind of we're going to be advancing these projects at the same time hopefully delivering completion dates also around the same time In terms of who is moving to Spa Road, what we're building out there, what purpose it will serve, all of that is TBD. A big thing we have to figure out is that is a critical area. As it is zoned today, we can technically only cover 50% of that site. that site coverage includes our existing site coverage which the fuel site is covering the site if we have to widen the roadway for increased traffic that will take site coverage away from us also so when you look at that sliver of lot one and then you think we can only cover 50 of it that includes driveways and parking lots and everything else you kind of start to understand something that i'm focused on which how big of a building can i build how many people could we fit there how deep of an underground parking garage could we build in theory and i hope to know those answers soon but that's why we're doing the feasibility now because who moves and what purpose they have at spa road will really be based on how big of a facility we can construct how much of that site we can cover The only other thing for your awareness is that planning and zoning and central services are talking a lot. It's not lost on us that having a hacker community across the street provides some opportunities to provide resources and amenities that that community might not otherwise have access to. So we could explore things like first floor retail, a coffee shop. hair salon maybe a small restaurant that city employees and hacker residents and any resident in annapolis could come and take advantage of so hopefully as these projects advance we'll have more information to share with you and how we try to weave these properties together and share give them a shared purpose and a shared goal On the budget side, I've already mentioned the Brownfield grant. I will flag for you that since the resilience authority is technically the grant awardee and they technically control the property, that they're going to do all the procurement for the Brownfield grant. So they're going to help us out that way. But one of the downsides of receiving federal funds is we have to do fully federally compliant procurements, which is just a different, slightly more technical process than our typical procurements. As the mayor's introduced at the start of the meeting, I have information in here about the Gorman Street lease, which is about 600,000 a year. I also flagged our current budget allocation for the spa road property. It's just shy of $500,000 now, which isn't problematic for us at all. That should help us get the feasibility started. But for your awareness, after the feasibility phase ends, we don't have funding in the CIP to launch a design or construction process. And I'll be coming to all of you for help with that in fiscal year 28 and beyond. And then lastly, there are so many unknowns here, but if you kind of want a ballpark of how much this building may cost, Hudson Street, our newest city facility out on West Street, That was $16 million just for the Department of Public Works. Now, granted, we have multiple buildings there. A lot of that cost was the property acquisition itself, not so much the building construction. But in my mind, I kind of have a $10 to $20 million price tag on any building we would build out there from scratch. And the devil's gonna be in the details, but we'll have more information for all of you on that topic as we advance. Any questions about the background before I kind of move on to the work that's ahead of us? Yes.

Alderman, hold on a second. Wait until your call, please.

Yes, I am. I wasn't, that's why you didn't hear me speak yet.

All right, I thought you were about to go in.

No, I'm not.

All right, before we get into council questions, I just want to lay out a number of questions I suspect may even come from Alderman Smith-Brown, and they might be from others. But I think we'd like to have an understanding of What is the possibility of buying the Gorman Street building as an option in our consideration rather than moving at all? Why don't we just buy it? What is the status and availability of other buildings that are currently built that we could either rent or own? what is the input of various stakeholders of the employees themselves who would potentially be who currently working here who would potentially work there of the business community here of having different tenants and the I'll call it the customer base of people who engage with city government of currently working currently they engage by coming here who would now have to go out to spot road potentially with different parking situations and potentially easier parking situations. So what is our effort of getting that data from all those community groups?

We have some of the information today. We do have a path forward if we did want to purchase Gorman Street outright. And I can get you information on the costs and everything that would be associated with that. I also know our landlord there is trying to get us to extend our lease because the rent pricing dropped significantly due to our time in that building. and so it gets more cost effective for us to continue leasing that building into the future but then we're still making lease payments regularly but i have that information available today i can double check it with the office of law share that with all of you to understand how keeping or offloading gorman street would affect the bottom line in the total budgets would that information all be uh something or information that we would need to keep confidential so is that closed session type of information

from a negotiating standpoint? I would believe so, yes. Okay, so just flagging that. And what about the other questions that I threw at you?

So other property, commercial property is always available in the city. We could go out and I could lease property today. So it's just the how, what, where, when, why. And so if we wanted, say we wanted to put everyone in Gorman Street and Park Place today, we might be able to do it. I don't know how many units they have available, but we call the landlord, sign a lease, and move forward with that. So leasing property in the grand scheme of things is very easy compared to these other steps. It doesn't take a lot of effort to enter into a new lease with a new property manager and move staff into that facility. So if at any time we say we don't want to build a government center, We don't want to keep Gorman. We want to keep staff in leased facilities. I would just find all the properties available today. I mean, I know there was the building right by the shopping center, by the Eastport Firehouse, which would have been a great location, but I believe they found a tenant. I know there was also a location at Forest Drive and Cherry Grove by my old house that had corporate real estate available. I think the previous administration entertained some of these options. Um, but I heard before I arrived, the guidance was, um, they prefer to have city office workers closer to downtown. Closer to the kind of heart of downtown. So if that's also something that the council cares deeply about, then that might limit our least properties available to us. But we can try to find locations as close to city doc as possible. So on that question, Mayor, I think we have the most flexibility there. There's going to be high costs in the longer term. It will be more cost effective to own the land, to own the building outright and to not pay a middleman. But we can certainly leverage all of those opportunities as different decisions are made and we need to find real estate for other departments. You asked about buying property as well. That's a little more complicated. We would have to find vacated property that's suitable for building. You know, as I've mentioned here at Spa Road, the critical area.

I'm sorry, I was more specific. I was talking about buying an existing building. So buying property where there's already in a building is what I...

I mean, we could do that too. Same thing. We would buy a commercial property, keep the building, whether we bought Gorman Street outright. I mean, these are all real estate options available to us. If we didn't want employees to work out at Spa, I would come up with, well, here's five other places where we could fit 50 people tomorrow and we could discuss those. If you all asked, I would just go out. I would find everything available today. It's hitting a moving target because new things are always coming on and off the market. And so if we don't find what we want today, we can wait six months and something better might be available.

And then the question is about getting more data from the employees, business community, customer groups.

So we are planning robust feedback processes. However, we don't have much to share with them today, and so we're trying to get the project to a point where we can entertain that stuff. That'll probably come as we're moving from feasibility to design. We'll collect public input, we'll collect input from all the departments who might be impacted, make sure we're building out an office that suits their needs. We would have to meet with all of the residents around spot road to make sure they knew everything we were planning, how we were protecting their property from potential environmental damage. So all of that is in the works. Actually, the EPA brownfield grant. Actually mandates certain meetings at a certain frequency and so our hands are going to be tied by that anyway, but we have the capacity to. do more, do less, send surveys, have forums or town halls. We can approach it however we like. Now we're trying to understand the feasibility, but with that feasibility information, then on the what we build and where and why, that's when we're planning to collect all that feedback so we're making smart decisions.

I understand that challenge there of you want to give enough information that you can get useful feedback, but it almost seems circular and catch 22 of if if you've gone down that road too far in the feedback is no, you shouldn't been thinking about that. You should be thinking about that. So it almost seems like we should be getting that information. earlier than the point where you're comfortable of not having enough to share as options to get some of that.

Sure. And that's a good segue into feasibility because that's where I am today. And I'm trying to answer the questions because I know you all want to know how big of a building can we build? How many staff members could we in theory fit out there? How many housing units could we build? These are the questions we're getting. i cannot answer those questions with any certainty until we have conducted our full feasibility process which is really a land and zoning critical area analysis tells us how much of the site we can cover what can we build there how far underground could we go in theory if we built underground parking and all of these are trade-offs right if we find out we can't go underground then maybe we have to build a parking garage on that property no problem there but now that's less land we can cover for our building right so then we might have to build a smaller building if we build a parking garage versus if we can go underground the building footprint that might help us build a larger facility so we really need the feasibility answers to know for you all and for the public and for the employees well if we build a 50 000 square foot facility we know it'll hold x number of people who are the people that go how do we build the space etc so we're on that step today it'll take us about six months The reason why I told you really nothing has been finalized or set in stone yet is because we are on this step and I don't even know the basic questions. What can we build before we start designing those next steps? So I'm intending to come back to all of you in six months and say, hey, good news. we've completed feasibility here's what we know about the building we can build and then we can start having really serious conversations about what do we want that site development to be and we can take all of your feedback and considerations take that to our design vendor and then start coming back with viable drawings designs for plans and that sort of thing to collect feedback on the 50 rule that that would only factor in lot one we wouldn't we can't draw the circle bigger to include williams whalen We didn't talk a lot about critical areas a lot when I was in Pennsylvania, so this has been an educational experience for me since coming to Annapolis. I'm not the expert in this, but the site has different critical area designations depending on how close you are to Spa Creek. So we're sited on an LDA portion of the property, but there are other designations on that property. The reason why we're saying 50% is because the current zoning at that property is R3. That zoning only allows for 50% site coverage with a special exception for government buildings. So we know we can build our building there as it's currently zoned, but we do have those site coverage limitations. If we can work in the fall and spring to rezone the property, which myself and Eric Leschinski are gonna try to work on and come talk to you all over the next few months about, if we could say zone that to MX, then we could get away with 90% site coverage, which then totally changes this conversation, right? So we also need to work on lining up those pieces to know how are we structuring the property itself to then know what critical area considerations we have.

Thank you. Alderman Smith-Brown. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you as well. I only have a couple to a few for now. The first question was, will the $4 million that we received in the Brownfields grant be enough to fund what we're looking for in remediation?

We think it'll cover the remediation steps and we are limited that funding can go to certain things, but not other things. But the Resilience Authority, DPW and Central Services all feel that 4 million, we should be able to use all of that on the remediation and then just use our CIP funding for the vertical construction of the building.

The next question was, Alongside what the mayor was just referring to with data, are we also able to make sure that we get maybe the totals we've spent over the past 30 years on the property at Gorman Street. I think that would be helpful to know how much we've spent total, seeing that our residents are gonna question, why are we wanting to spend 20 or so million dollars on a new building in these times? And so just giving them the facts and the data to show, hey, we're actually spending more than we would have spent. I was wondering what that noise was. We were spending more than we can actually spend if we just build our own building. And I'm actually in the process of working with that through TAC, our Teacher Association of Anne Arundel County. We purchased a building and we're remodeling it and all, and it was a heavy conversation to have with our members to tell them the need for this investment. So I can only imagine what we're going to face when this comes about. And that was my second question. and you that was a yet oh yeah we can get you that information you said 30. we've been here for over 100 years so how long did we own that property over 100 years over 100 years on gorman street oh i heard sorry excuse me what was the 30-year amount that's gorman street yes that's a that's a okay so where our current building is excuse me our current site for hosting our um employees that's the amount that i would like to see how much we've spent over the time of the day And that's the two questions I have, at least for now. Any other questions?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Director Flinner, thank you very much for bringing this to our attention. I'd like to start with a couple of tactical questions and then go to strategic questions. Could I ask us to go back to the diagram that has the possible buildings, the first one on Spa Road? I just want to clarify.

This one or the picture of the buildings?

The picture of the building. I just want to clarify something for the residents. Currently, there is no discussion, is that correct, about having a, I'm trying to pull it up on my computer, a Belichick Library and Auditorium, just to clarify that. That's a dream diagram from past, right? So I don't have any problem with you using it. I just want to clarify it.

That's my understanding, yes, that that was a vision the previous administration had. I currently don't have any plans to build a museum or a library at the site, but if you all say that would be in the best interest of the city, we can make that happen.

Yeah, and my concern just, I'm aware of those conversations, and I don't think those conversations are happening anymore.

Those conversations are not happening. They were happening before Mr. Belichick got himself under the spotlight in a negative way, and the thinking was that if we had, the prior administrations, I don't want to associate them with my thinking, That administration's thinking was, again, prior to him getting himself in some hot water, that if the building was named after him, it would bring money to pay for it. But that's an old line of thinking.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just to clarify for the public that that's not an ongoing conversation. The second point here that I'd like to make, and it's not a question for an answer today, but I would like to include it in the discussions, is the fuel site. My question would be, are we open... even having recently invested in that fuel site for the above ground tanks to doing something else with that part of the property and using the county's fuel system, which is fairly close by. I don't need an answer now, and that's another conversation, but I would ask that we put that on the table.

Alderman, if I may, the new above ground fuel tanks that we put in are mobile. so it it would be far simpler today with our new equipment to relocate that site than it was in the past i'll say one of the key considerations about that site is due to where it's positioned on that triangle we get the turning radius for our fire engines and our ladder trucks which we don't get at most other gas stations and so um we couldn't site that anywhere in town. We would have to find a very specific property with very specific parameters that would allow a fire engine to turn around. But if we could do that, in theory, we could move that fuel site to wherever we like.

Yeah, and I don't want to dwell on this, but when I was growing up here, it made all the sense in the world to store the salt there where it's stored because nobody went out that far onto Spa Road. And so I think we're going to be in the same, to your very point, if we have so much area where you can turn a fire truck around, is there a place within a reasonable, I would just like to see it on the table as a discussion item.

Sure, and selfishly, it will give us more usable land that we can build upon for that new facility. Whenever we get to that point, because then we wouldn't have the site coverage from the fuel island.

Yeah, thank you. So to my more of my strategic points 1st of all again, I want to commend you for this conversation for putting this on the table. I'm struck that. the lease ends in 2030 and we're in fiscal year 27. So this brief couldn't come a day later. And overarchingly, the sense of urgency I think we need to have with moving forward on this should be tremendous. I mean, I think even if you came to us today with a decision on building a building wherever and that you're beginning the the process we would be fortunate to have a building open in 2030 um and so uh mr mayor i i applaud the initiative and and boy you know foot on a gas pedal on this one so so thank you um thank you And on that note, I really think you've teed up the conversation really well. And I think the next step, and you're probably gonna tell me you're already thinking this, But I like the idea of hard and fast options. And to the mayor's point, maybe this is a closed session, maybe it's actually you and the mayor and the city manager and all that. But I think we're overdue for these are the three viable options or four or two or five. that we want to invest in to look at, and here is a timeline to get us there. Because I think if we don't have a timeline, we're gonna nickel-dime you with questions until this thing's perfect, and somewhere in 2037, we'll make a decision to go forward. So I think a timeline would be helpful, and that you can hold us accountable, that you need this decision by this date in order to have the appropriate options by 2030 or some other deadline that you find necessary. I would tell you that I think the value of the staff being in close proximity can never be understated. And I know people will disagree with me, especially in this post COVID era of virtual, but there's nothing like the director of, of planning and zoning, being able to get up from his desk and going over and talking to the city manager and saying, hey, Yolanda, I got a tough one I just got to talk with you about. Otherwise, it's a phone call, it's a meeting, and that value of having everybody together should not be undervalued that's my opinion but you will hear me say that forever because i've seen people spread out and then spend a lot of money to come back together i've seen people spread out and then the directors have two offices an office with their team and an office next to the the boss the city manager

And if I can interrupt you, it goes beyond that. Employee morale, employee retention. There's something about a brand new, beautiful office with great workspaces and bright colors and natural sunlight that makes people want to come to work in the morning. It can totally change someone's mood in a day. So you can accomplish a number of objectives with having one centralized facility where all of your staff work, brand new facility at that. And I think we would try to leverage as many of those options as we can.

I mean, we could talk about this forever, right? There's something we said for the mayor and the city manager to walk through the. The planning and zoning office and say, hi, I brought donuts as compared to making an appointment to drive over somewhere, et cetera, et cetera. So thank you for that appreciation. The last question I'm gonna ask, and I don't want an answer to this one either, but I would like to know from the mayor in three or four days, or whenever you feel convenient, I would like you to answer the very hard question, being this is fiscal year 27, and being that we are on such a tight timeline, and you're talking about building a, either building or buying a tremendously huge office building. would like you i would like to know from the mayor not now that you have the assets to do that and now's the time we need to have that conversation um i mean i after sitting down with you and having long conversations i could not be more respectful of your qual your qualifications your ability and all that um so this isn't anything about you, but it's recognizing the amount of expertise you're going to need to stand in front of this body and make that collaborative recommendation to spend millions of dollars and either invest millions in future rents or buy it. And I think we, early on, need to ensure you have the people, the assets, the capability to make that decision and and i will tell you personally and i think the rest of the council would agree with me that that's we owe that to you because we're going to hold you accountable for the future of the city of annapolis quite frankly and so we got to make sure you have the the assets to do that i think i'll probably aiming that at you more than him but that's okay thank you

Another question I'd like to ask, and then Alderman Shannon-Meyer, I didn't get to your questions yet, so give you a chance to get set up. Alderman Shannon-Meyer had sent me his questions in case he didn't get here in time. You mentioned that the gas pumps are mobile and the tanks are mobile. I would think that the most efficient place to have them is where there are already a lot of vehicles. So as I'm looking at maps of police department and fire stations, probably two of the fire stations have no space. maybe they do anyway i'm not going to try to pretend i know the best answer or just ask you to take a look at where are there other locations you mentioned needing space for the fire trucks to turn around well if you had them at a fire station they're already designed to have space for the fire trucks to turn around so it might be an option

You're absolutely right, Mayor. We have a CIP today where we're beginning to analyze our three fire stations in the hopes that we want to ask for a new CIP to renovate all three and give the fire department three new facilities. That is going to be a multi-year, very complex project because we can't vacate those facilities. We're going to have to develop new on top of our old and figure out how to make that work. But we're at the perfect point now where we could design those facilities in a way knowing we're gonna site our fuel site there in the future and we can work around that and plan for that. So all of that is on the table. And Alderman, I'll say thank you for the setup too because I'm gonna be coming to you all with funding requests in 28 or 29 or 30 and knowing your views on all of these topics help me know how much to ask for for different real estate actions, construction actions and so forth.

I had asked Director Flinner early, many months ago now, for a decision tree analysis to help us. What is the path and what gets us on the track to get an answer? And he already had produced something for that. So to Alderman Thorpe's point, we should probably take that back out and refresh it and i actually haven't looked at it many a couple months at least maybe a few months at this point so we should give some comfort that we're on a path or said differently highlighting the urgency of when do we need to decide what by and make hold us accountable to help you stay on time

i'm happy to share that presentation as well to show those different options you'll recognize probably a lot of the content from this presentation but you all will have that when uh i leave you here today alderman chandemeyer you ready thank you mr mayor and i appreciate you letting me tune in uh on my cell phone while i was coming back on the bus and of course thank you for making those arrangements absolutely

So Alderman Smith-Brown had asked one of my questions about the price difference between renting versus buying this new building, so I won't bore us with that. But what triggers that four-year shot clock? Like, what is the official start point of that when the grant money is capped down?

So the Resilience Authority is negotiating the terms and conditions with the feds right now. Once they sign on that line, that's the start date. The information from the resilience authority suggests that that'll be sometime in October of this year. When in October, we don't really know, but I'm expecting to get the green light from them at some point next month, and then that'll be the official start of the four-year timeline.

Is there any potential risk of the grant not coming through? We have a unpredictable federal government at the moment.

we asked those questions in our last work group meeting and um the answers we got suggested that that no one has those fears that i think they they feel as if we're far enough along now they feel very confident that we will receive that funding It's good to hear.

The other question I had around was the procurement process. So the city has a painfully slow procurement process. A good example is it's taking us two years to fix an elevator in a garage. We have a four year shot clock on building potential workforce affordable housing and a potential whole new government building. What guarantees do we have that we'll be able to get that done in that four years? or am I misunderstanding the timeline here? Like we have a little more time to actually put shovels in ground.

You're spot on. And I'm the director responsible for those procurement timelines. So, you know, we'll need to work on that internally to speed those up ourselves. But what gives me hope is that the resilience authority is leading the procurement on this project, not the city. It'll actually go through the resilience authority's procurement partners and they will work with the federal government to meet their procurement qualifications. So they have volunteered to take over the procurement piece and just make sure they're getting us the vendors and the funding and the tools we need to execute our tasks so i think that should help us speed along our timelines and they can pull in outside resources to help get those solicitations posted thank you uh that wasn't me blaming you by the way it's you were following the process on our books that's been set up over 50 years which

We got a lot of red tape to clear. And I got one last question. If you hear me, Mr. Mayor, is one of those federal procurement process that we have to follow going to be prevailing wage or project labor agreement? Do you know?

I don't have the specifics on that now. I would venture to guess the terms and conditions in the agreement will specify those items. And as soon as I receive that, I'm happy to share with you all for your visibility. Thank you.

Thank you, Alderman Savage. And then we're going to go let Director Flinders get back into the slide deck and finish the rest of the slides and ask the remaining questions. I can just wait until... Thank you, Alderman Smith-Brown, for reminding me that we had slides left to cover.

It's okay, we're getting to the tail end anyway, but Alderman, about timeline, I have some very high level timeline information on the next slides. We've talked about feasibility a lot. I think we're all pretty clear on what we need to do the next six months and probably when I'll be presenting to you all again with new information. After feasibility wraps up, then we can enter into site design and really we need to know the size of the building, how many parking spots we can fit before we can even begin designing the site. This is also when stakeholder meetings will really kick off and we'll have to collect all that feedback from those who are impacted. um we have no finite plans on what's going to go into this facility but dpw planning and zoning and central services have all been talking about maybe in a perfect world what are some design options we would try to leverage in this new facility and we just briefly listed them here for you so you can kind of start seeing where our minds are at and what this new facility might look like and of course all of this is subject to feedback and change so if you all have any thoughts on these topics by all means please share them and we can try to accommodate your wishes design probably an 18th month process so we're talking two years from today between just feasibility and design before we ever break ground on construction Two unknowns in this process. I mentioned before the public input meetings. We are required to do this by the feds and the EPA. We don't fully know the timing or the frequency of those meetings, but we'll share that information with you as soon as it's available. Central services, planning and zoning, and public works are all available today. If we do want to set up any public input meetings, employee work groups, anything like that, we could get started on right away. um and then as i mentioned earlier in the presentation all the environmental analyses supporting documents that's all available online they make those links and documents available every time we do have a public input meeting so you'll be seeing if you go to that website the exact same information we're sharing with the public at any given moment in time The other big unknown at this property is our current tenants. I mentioned before, Reckon Park and DPW are currently occupying the site every day. They have staff in and out of the facilities and the property doing various tasks. These are some other things I'll need to figure out in the next five years and different questions we'll have to answer. So for public works specifically, we don't know their landing point. um we've been batting around some ideas one is exploring procuring a warehouse space for the city in fiscal year 28 and moving all of our heavy duty equipment in different facilities files records snow equipment whatever we wanted to house at an independent storage site for the rare you know a few times a year it's needed That could be an option for some of the DPW equipment out at Spa Road today, or we might need to reconfigure or reuse existing property like DPW operates the landfill. They have a Butler building out there today where they store some of their items and they may be able to store more out there. Rec and Park is a little trickier. They actually have a current CIP that we're working on that's assigned to Central Services. We're building them a new maintenance shed at Truxton Park. Our challenge with that project is kind of like Spa Road. We have several projects at Truxton Park that are all competing for usable land in a critical area and trying to navigate what are we going to advance and what are we going to stop. There's just a lot to kind of break down and analyze there and Jackie Geild's been a huge help on that piece. But if all goes according to plan, we'll answer the questions about site coverage at Truxton Park. We'll get the new rec and park maintenance shed built. and all of that will happen before we ask rec and park to move out of the site so they can just shift all their equipment from spa road to their new maintenance shed and continue their operations as normal i have the timeline on this piece as unknown but this will happen probably about two years from now somewhere in between when design ends and construction starts is when we'll need to vacate that property And then after that, it's construction. Not a lot to report out on here. This is a long way out. Obviously, site access will be limited during construction. We do anticipate the fuel site will be able to remain open if it's still there at the property five years from now, and the construction timeline is anticipated for 24 months. So to answer your question, Alderman, how are we gonna get where we need to get to in four years? This is our high level timeline. You and I know a lot will probably change between now and then, but this is our plan and we're gonna try to hold ourselves accountable to hit these goals. After that, ribbon cutting, move in, furnitures, fixtures, equipment, but this is a small piece that'll come at the very tail end of the project as we're just finishing punch list items and finalizing the site. And that was it. So I open it up to all of you for additional questions or any other information you'd like. Alderman Savage.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you for all your work on this. I really do think we need to keep in mind the perspective that this is really a monumental project if we can actually achieve this. I mean, this is a site we've owned for, what did you say, 100 years, probably contaminated for a good portion of that, and we actually have a plan where clearly moving forward with to clean that up for the public. That's huge. And I'm so glad that we actually got the federal money as well. So huge. If the Resilience Authority was here, I'd give a, I'll still give a big shout out. Thank you to Matt and the Resilience Authority. So, but also on top of that, this is, part of the headwaters for Spa Creek. And so, you know, I think anything we do on this site will most likely be an improvement, right? As far as, because currently there's, minimal stormwater management, if any, as well as the constant runoff of pollutants. So I think this, I'm very excited about this. And also one of the historic uses on the west side underneath, I believe Mayor Moyer and may have changed under Cohen, I'm not sure, but was a transit hub for the bus system. So as far as the fuel site, I would just, caution and i think we should really hear from public works and oem before we go too far with moving that but i'd like the idea of relocating them to fire station somewhere else if it makes sense but the um also as far as the use on the proposed uses i am fully supportive of the idea of using, ideally in my mind anyway, both sides for public use and public facilities. I think public land, it's really expensive to get back once you sell it. And so I think we need to be doubly cautious about selling this or using it for a separate purpose that separates it too much from city ownership. But I do think, obviously, I think there's a need for city employees to get more workspace. And that's why I think it's one thing I'd fall to get added to the resolution, I think, last term to be more clear about that desire.

But that also, this area is also a hub. It's kind of a natural...

Am I looking for a hub for micro mobility? There are a couple bike trails going through there. Another thing just to keep in mind as we move forward, as well as if we do put employees out there, they're gonna be not too isolated, but it's gonna be a lot different than being downtown and be able to walk places. We're gonna need, I think, some improved cycling infrastructure on Spa Road and a cycling hub of some kind for micro mobility. But I do have some concern with the residential, use well not not the use of residence per se but it goes back to the the idea of i really think we need to be cautious before we give property away for residential use because again it's difficult to get back i also think part of it is residential remediation typically is more expensive you know this has been historically an industrial use and so that's another thing i think to factor in and i've mentioned this before but i would prefer to, and I know we've had this link to the CNI, the stuff on Eastport before, and I would, it's not my ward, but just in general, I would prefer like to see more density in some of those areas as far as adjusting the parking requirements so they can have more density and less parking, less impervious surfaces, right? Which instead of having them be relied so much on putting housing on this, one of these sites. But the big thing I really wanted to mention was some coordination with some of our other efforts. The Resilience Authority is working on, it might be awarded already sometime this week, a feasibility study for high value transit, a feasibility study for west street corridor and that's again in partnership with with the city county state one of the things that that consultant's going to look at is potential location for a transit facility for that high value transit and so this is one of the sites that they likely will look at they're probably also going to look at state sites city sites But this, so I guess I'm cautioning a little bit of, or asking for some more coordination between those efforts, because I would hate to get too far along. Last I spoke with the Resilience Authority, they would expect that the feasibility study for that effort would be completed around May, 2027. But it may be worth a conversation with them to see if they could bump up some of the analysis of the location of the facility to have it work with this. Because if that feasibility study says, hey, that doesn't make sense anyway, then we have a clear green light. But if we do get a recommendation that, hey, this is essential, great, you'd save so much money to put it here, industrial use, cheaper, that would really hinge, thinking big picture, which I'm trying to again urge my colleagues to think big picture, long game is if we do end up having a path for that high value transit, then that really opens up housing along that corridor exponentially. that is gonna be the, and I would hate to have one single housing project here hold up the effort to really unlock the zoning in other parts of the city. And so that's the only thing is I guess I would just encourage you to work with the Resilience Authority to get that timing worked out and see what they can do to speed things up to make sure we can get a clear answer as we move forward as far as what would make sense or not.

And on the coordination point, Deputy City Manager Guy reached out this morning to communicate the movement with that work group, and it sounds like they're going to get me involved so I can help join that and influence some of those conversations and those processes. um but everything is still on the table so if we did want to build a transit hub there at on our east side lot one of spa road we could that could be the only thing we build there we could try to build a transit hub and a government office building we're going to face the same critical area considerations regardless of what we build so my hope was to come to you and say here are just some basic concept drawings of a big building with parking, and this would get us at 50% coverage, or a building in a garage, 50% coverage, or a building, a transit hub, and a garage, 50% coverage. And we can present those different options to you. I'll let you weigh in, and we could try to combine all of these projects together, have multiple uses for our facilities, and try to do as much as we can with the limited real estate that we have.

Yeah, and please do keep us informed, because personally, one of the things I'm trying to push for, even with some of our own code, is allowing for more exemptions. We do currently allow for some exemptions, for example, to some of our environmental requirements for stream restorations, as far as limiting the forest conservation and grading requirements. I think we should try to do the same thing for some of our other transit and desired development that we're trying to seek and and and my point is like with this case you know if if maybe we could talk to the state about about trying to get some exceptions to some of the critical area regs in this instance, because it would be helping us meet all of our, and the state's housing targets, climate targets, transportation targets, go down the list. And the TOD, they're big on transit-oriented development, and so it might be an opportunity for them to get money from them, but also some variances, I don't know, but.

We're gonna do everything we can to give ourselves as much buildable area as possible. But thank you, and I'll keep you posted as all these projects progress.

Alderman Smith-Brown, are you looking to speak?

Yeah, sure. Thank you, Mayor. So what are our thoughts currently With the Williams will and field in the East side, 935 spot road. Where's that fall in the conversation? We haven't really spoken much about those 2 sites and. Alongside the conversation that Alderman Savage was just sharing about our property and any thoughts on it being residential. Um, I drive by there every day, of course, our city, and I do my best to go all around. But I do think today when I drove by knowing we were having this meeting, I looked over at the little sliver of spot creek that is still trying to survive there. And I thought about the runoff that the residential area would bring, or the amount of pollution that I know would take place even further in an area that comes into ward 3 as we go down. A little further in those woods and so I do want to be clear. I fully support affordable housing in our city. Whereas. Though I do not believe, and I've said it in the beginning, that I would have signed on that paper if I knew that that area over there would be residential for HACA properties to be housed, especially for the long run of us trying to determine how do we get that property back? What do we have? Would it be an MOU? Would it be an agreement of some sorts? And then what would happen in the next 25, 30 years. That was just a side piece. I love the fact that you mentioned in this slide about solar panels. I do believe in the city. All city buildings should have, if possible, 100% powered by renewable energy. And so that's a long conversation. But what are our thoughts around Williamsville and Field and the East Side Road, Spot Road?

So we can start with Weems Whalen. Well, let me start with Spock Creek. So I think one of the best things that will come out of this project is it's going to be the best thing to happen to Spock Creek in 100 years. We will end our active pollution of the site. I know Public Works is planning a robust stormwater retention area back there on lot two. Kind of in that brown section in the bottom corner triangle. So, because we're developing the whole property, and because we have the remediation and all these other considerations at the site. We're going the extra mile to make sure that we're being good stewards of the community and the waterways and everything else that we need to manage. So. when all of the dust settles on all of these projects, we should see a measurable increase in the health of Spa Creek. On Weems Wayland, it's identified here. This picture's probably only a year or two old. It probably still looks very similar to this today. I know we have demolished an old concession stand building that was by the field there. but the construction on the new turf field that they're envisioning there has not started yet. They're in the design process, so they're more long than we are. I would venture to guess probably in a year or two, we would see that project get wrapped up, but I don't want to speak for Public Works. And at that point, once that project is completed and really into perpetuity, We do anticipate that Rec and Parks will continue to operate that site as a park, schedule programming there, reservations, team practices, all of that sort of thing. So probably well before our building gets developed, Weems Wayland should be activated as a sports field again, and I think you all will. be involved in that process. So there are no plans to do anything else with Weems Wayline. We will keep it there. We will build our facility in front of it. I think in a perfect world, we would try to add parking capacity that maybe the HACA community could leverage on the weekends, or if there are families or students coming to practice on the field, we would have parking. They could just walk over. Something I didn't mention before, but that will also feed into this is there are a lot of trail networks of going through the site or stopping at the site not really continuing and we're going to try to combine all of that so the chesapeake children's museum which is another facility we manage is just on the other side of spa creek from that little triangle in the bottom there's a bridge there we hope to connect that and and then we can engage with the children visiting that museum they can come over see our city property and we can kind of break down the barriers between us There's a lot of school children. I understand that that that commute to school through here and take these trails. So we would also hope to build a more robust, safer trail network to accommodate all that traffic and. Really help make this kind of a wreck and park destination also here in the city on the East. Sorry you said the West side, the hack aside you wanted to know about last.

No, the East side, but since you did mention, it seems as if the conversation.

about this is that that'll most likely be the case is that what we're saying that that will most likely be the case of there being housing there i'm just trying to matt can i just add context so so one of the things i think we should consider the council should consider is that um i think about a month ago maybe a month and a half ago we talked about the need for a housing plan for the city of annapolis and one of the things that we have to consider as part of this is that Making a decision without a full scope of where we can place housing, the plan for housing, and what other land use areas we have for housing is something that we want to try to minimize because I think you need to understand by putting housing here what that does for the rest of the space that we have for land use. So part of what we hope to do as I've talked to Director Flinner is to have a conversation with our planning and zoning folks. We have a meeting next week. I just got confirmation, so I will invite you to really start talking about how these two things, the housing plan itself and this decision-making matrix that you all have can be done in conjunction so that you have a good sense of is, building hecka housing here the final decision or you should be looking at housing as a much more global conversation.

Thank you. to our city manager. So yes, the east side, 935 Spa Road.

So the east side, the lot one, which is that front portion in between the dotted line and the street, that's where we would plan to build our new facility. Everything to the right of that dotted line is currently considered lot two on that parcel. Um, the city will retain ownership of lot 2. I mentioned Williams Whalen is going to stay the same. But, um, there are public works easements back there. There is a sewer pump house back there that dirty that area that we, we will have to build a service road to that back corner to service those facilities back there. We think that might end up becoming a stormwater retention area, but that'll all be settled in the design process. But for the most part, we might have trails going through there. We might have extra storage or parking or different things like that back there. We were talking the other day say we couldn't build underground parking we might be able to build a parking garage on that lot two somewhere maybe closer to wean's whalen or closer to that dirt patch in the back so we're not hyper focused on lot two but i think whatever we can't achieve on lot one that we could leverage lot two for we'll consider that uh and there'll definitely be a road going through there um so you know city vehicles city staff can access the rear corner of the site

Thank you Mr. Mayor. This conversation has really also brought a focus on Truxton Park. And planning and zoning specifically, Mr. Lashinsky is working on a master plan for Truxton Park. And master plan, and I think there's 2 different master plans and works. There's 1 from a utilities perspective that public works is working and there's 1 for what is the future of trucks didn't park. And I think. We have a lot of priorities in our city, but I think that master plan of how we're gonna use Truxton Park ought to be really an A item as compared to a B or C. And I would ask for that because when I hear, and Public Works is gonna build a shed for this, and what we talked about the other night with Mr. Leschinski's brief, Truxton Park is this huge piece of land that's so inviting to do so many things. Like why I talked to Mr. Lashinsky about a master plan was Public Works and Rexham Parks both use it as an area to dump old concrete and things like that. It is our crown jewel. And so I'm afraid if we don't have a master plan, then the natural place to do something build something one more shed one more whatever is going to be trucks and parks so I would like to ask to to really accelerate that on the priority list so that this body can look at what's the future of it and that the city staff can protect that that crown jewel.

I'm glad we have our entire city manager team here tonight. Thank you all for being here because we're talking about a lot of different projects happening in a short amount of time that doesn't get a lot of attention. And from the public, at least, and frankly, from us, while we're also making a lot of demands of a lot of department heads of a lot of different projects for all of our personal preferences. And so I think 1 of the things that we should be, or I guess I am asking our city manager's office to think about is. What is the scope of, you know, let me back up, give some context. Last night, Alderman Schandlmeier, excuse me, Alderman Savage and I, and part of our city manager's team did our first budget town hall. And part of that was capturing a slide of 97 capital projects going on this year. Ninety seven projects, and I don't think any of us really have an appreciation of how all that work stacks up in addition to all the operating challenges and all the changes we're all trying to bring. So I think I guess I'm asking for help. from the city manager's office to help capture what that workload looks like and the project timeline for all these things. On one of these slides that you have, you have in six months, you're doing all this preliminary work, including, and we need a traffic study. I think the word should be done. It doesn't mean that it's budgeted and planned and will be done. I like going to be done, is done, is being done kind of language. And I'm sure you were careful not to use those words because you can't say those things yet. and so we need to have a better better visibility to either give us assurance that the scope of work we're expecting to get done and expecting you to get done frankly and can be done or we need to reassess what resources you have to get them done to the alderman thorpe's earlier point or figure out a way to get by some time if things aren't going to be done if it's just not realistic we will work on that mr maria thank you Okay, any further questions?

I don't know if it's good or bad, but I'm concerned about the pedestrian bridge.

Is that going to be out there too?

we haven't gotten that far in design and it's funny you bring that up because when we were talking about it in our work group um someone in the work group was like yeah we're never going to get that pedestrian bridge and that that that's going to be too expensive than it's worth was the point and then the material has to be really yeah

I mean, weather, you know?

Oh, totally. And clearing it in a snowstorm. Yeah. Even without the pedestrian bridge, we are going to have to find a way to keep pedestrians safe while they're crossing SPA and kind of interacting with both of these properties. So I expect some sort of safety improvements on that roadway based on what the traffic analysis tells us.

It made me nervous when I looked at it. I said, oh, I'm not going to walk across that.

Those were just drawings, I guess, to get everybody excited about what could be.

Okay, I understand that. Okay, good.

Mr. Flinter, when we talk about this again, I don't know what that means essentially. I don't mean like you and I happen to mention the hallway, but when we get to, when we were at a presentation or city council closed session, at least perhaps I'd like to have a better analysis of opportunities throughout the entire city of Annapolis of where else we might buy. You'd mentioned looking for vacant properties. I don't think we need to limit ourselves to vacant properties. As I'm looking, I've been looking at the map a little bit more carefully while we were having this conversation. And there's probably some buildings in the city that We could potentially buy that's already being that's currently being occupied, but we could. And it might make better sense because it's further away from a sensitive area critical area. It's closer to supporting infrastructure. I'm thinking of like restaurants. If you have a bunch of employees working someplace, they're going to need want to eat lunch. Um, and so just, I'd like a better analysis of the potential, uh, real estate options we have throughout the whole city and. Particularly as you look at Westry and, you know, Alderman Savage talks about transit hubs and if we got this building on West Street, for instance, how much that could be aligned with the goals that you're talking about. And for very good, you know, I applaud you for pushing the transit options and bring it together. Um, so just I'd like more analysis, a deeper analysis of that.

Thank you, Mayor. I can't wait to give that to you as well. A big thank you to the council for giving us our real estate manager position, which will be a huge step forward in having the staffing resources that we would need to do that. But day one, I would like to get that individual working on cataloging our current land and building. And then number two, I think what you were talking about is what I would call a strategic real estate plan. where over the next 10 years, we would know this facility is coming offline, this facility is coming online, different properties around town that are available. And then when we have these meetings, we're not really starting from nothing, but we all know the 10 year plan. And if something changes, then we're just kind of talking about how we're pivoting the other pieces of that plan. So I hope to work towards that in 27, in the hopes then that in the future, when I come talk to you, we have a much more robust plan for addressing all of our real estate needs in the next 5, 10, 20 years.

The next question to you is, what questions do you have for us when we've engaged in person or by email? You've said, well, you're looking for direction from us. Are we looking for the cheapest building, the cheapest solution? Are we looking for the most environmentally friendly solution? I'm putting some words into your mouth now. The solution that puts us best for transit, for engaging, what direction do you need from us to help you continue doing your work?

I think it would just be helpful for us to know what motivates you the most in the real estate space, whether that's cost, whether that's location, whether that's other factors that maybe I don't care about as much. But if you could help me understand your parameters, then I can try to build a plan that fits within those parameters. And again, if you all say, you know, Director Flinter, all we care is keeping our real estate costs as low as possible, then I would sit here and I'd say, we need to offload all of our leases, we need to leverage this, we need to use shared office space, et cetera, et cetera. So if you all can help me understand the big kind of bold vision that you have for city real estate, then I would see it as my job to effectively make the work happen to get us to that, to fulfilling your vision. So any information you can share along those lines, whether it's cost, location, type, size, it would all be helpful to me and we can work towards that.

Well, maybe go around and ask all the council members that are here to offer a few thoughts. I'll go last, I'll show better discipline. Alderman Thorpe.

I think we should start with the question, 10 years after 2030, what are you gonna wish you had done? So I would ask you not to come with a plan that you would not want to be a part of 10 years later. It might be too expensive. it might not be workable but come to us with that plan and tell us that but if you as as somebody is scored away as you are come to us with an 80 or 70 solution because you think that's the best you can do you'll never get the plan that we should have challenge us, here's the solution. In 2040, this is what I think we're gonna wish we would have done. Now, here's how to do it, here are the problems. Be bold, don't hesitate for us to go, well, Matt, that's not doable. And challenge us to go find that, go help you find the solution to get to a plan that you feel really good about 10 years after it's done.

Thank you, that's very helpful.

Alderman Savage, you want to go? I'm just going to plan going around the horn.

I would just say think about taking consideration of some of our other plans and targets that we have and goals that we've adopted, particularly the comp plan. And I know a number that Deputy City Manager Guild's office is working on, like the climate action plan. And I mentioned those because you know, we have various energy standards, goals, renewable energy, right? We just had a meeting with Maryland Energy Administration and all the money they have available still to help pay for a lot of the solar panels and renewable energy that I think we'd love to see us take more advantage of. But also just like, Mobility is so key. I've become a bit of a fanatic on it because it just enables so many different things. Once we actually have connectivity with cycling or transit, then it doesn't matter so much where we are because we know they can still get around within a reasonable time. They can bike five minutes to get downtown or whatever. And accessibility for those who may be challenged, not have a car. So many people in our city don't have a car and we often forget about that. So I think that's the key. as far as when we're thinking about where to locate, let's not get hung up on parking. Let's think about our goal, our aspirational goal, where we want to be, which is not have to rely on our cars so much. We want people to be able to jump on a bus, jump on whatever it is, streetcar, a bike, a ferry, maybe, and get to where they want to go without having to get in the car. And, you know, because it'll help clean up our air, make it quieter, et cetera, et cetera. So anyway, that's my two cents.

Thank you, Alderman Shendelmeyer. You want a hot stir?

Thank you Mr. Mayor. We debated this property to death last term and the best way to spend it. We debated it so much that we literally rewrote our code for how much we can assign things to certain committees. But one of the benefits out of that debate is we came up with some really inspiring ideas around one, our need for more office space. The mayor laid out a very clear need and a very clear path to how we can save if we take advantage of land that we own, build directly, and offload some of these rentals that we have. I will also say the potential for transit-oriented development right along a piece of property that is an easy walk and bike ride to Ball Fields, a middle school less than a mile from downtown, restaurants less than a mile from our library is such an amazing opportunity. and any redevelopment that we do is going to improve the situation from what is there now environmentally speaking because what's there now is a leaky arsenic laden mess that has zero storm water protections so every time it rains we're just getting chemicals flushed into the stream So I think we should really take advantage of the housing opportunity that we have there, and we should take advantage of the office space opportunity that we have there.

Thank you, Alderman. Alderman, also Johnson, what are your priorities for a new government center?

Changes are good, but if it's to better the area or better with the help with the residents, employees, I mean, it sounds great, But some things we have to, it's little things we have to add into the big things. And like I was worried about that bridge thing. So now I feel a little better, but I was thinking of being more congested. Are we gonna have extra roads or streets to get out? Cause it's congested now. You know, when we have our events over there, it's a mess. You know, getting in and getting out and finding parking in the area. Are we going to have meetings to let the residents around that area be aware of what's going on? Because y'all could help us by putting things up. This is going to be done, you know, put those signs up to help us. That way we'll have to keep. getting a whole lot of slack from some of the residents in that area because they've been there a long time. And of course, some of them houses I have reported and someone had been sent out to a band, a couple of them on that road, because that's my area. But it's just little things that we're going to have to key in with the big projects.

Looking forward to working with you.

I always find little things. Okay.

I'm a little thing too.

So we're going to have to communicate. All right. Communicating.

Looking forward to it.

That's my area.

Thank you Alderman Smith-Brown. What are your top priorities for locating a government center?

So I wouldn't even want to put all of my priorities out there in this very moment as the project is really just, I've been looking at it obviously for a while, but it's still sitting on my mind. I obviously care about the environment. I love the environment and I do want to make sure that that's a priority as well as just finding space for our city staff. and also doing our best to minimize any negative impacts we're going to have on Spa Creek. And also, if possible, making sure, too, that we have a direct partnership with Anne Arundel County, saying that across the way is a middle school where you mentioned about pathways and bikes, et cetera. And a question I had, if you don't mind, Mayor, just because it came up, is there is a parking lot there currently where the Bates Field is. if at all, could we do in partnership since most of the time that parking lot's not even used. So what would we do, unless of course fellow Annapolis may use it, but usually throughout the days it's not used. So what would our partnership be to possibly use that parking space for any city building that we would have there, or if we could work out an agreement to expand that parking lot that's currently there since it's right across the street. And so that was a question I had, if that even came up in thought about that parking lot that was there.

We're not that far along yet, but I think everything is on the table or if you all have preferences about the direction you'd like us to go, we can. I see a need for covering or providing parking for any Williams Wayland activities or those cars are just going to end up on the street or around the building that we build anyway. So I do envision some sort of community parking, public parking, surface lot parking, something at the site that can be used by all these different entities that are using that area. But specifics we won't have at this time, but probably six months from now, we're going to have to answer the parking question and I should have more information for you.

Great. Yeah, just because I know we're looking to use as much of that space as possible, not for parking, especially with the whole underground idea. For me, I'm really prioritizing the people's interest. I know we haven't had any surveys sent out yet or asked the residents what they would like to see, particularly in the area that my fellow person represents. But I care about that area just as much if not to really measure that. And so I would like to see what the public would like to see in this area. I think that's what would help guide my decision making in this. Because for me, of course, I would support a government building there. Low cost is, I think, a priority. Low cost. Close or proximity to downtown is a priority or near is I think transportation is clearly a priority as well as just food services or any other opportunities for our employees or whoever's in that area to go travel to a close nearby restaurant or whatever they would like to grocery, whatever that may be. But. I would like to see what the public would like to have here in this space. And I know that we're a little earlier on and we know how it can get when we have so many people with input. But this is going to be, as said earlier, I completely will say a major project. Like this, what? And when you build something, it's kind of difficult to go back. You know, will we tear this building down in 50 years and do something else? I mean, it's going to be there for a pretty decent amount of time. And so we want to do our best to come up with the wisest choice in this area. just like we did earlier on with our budget priorities mayor where there was a slide or presentation showing how each older person viewed the budget priorities or for our residents i think even if it's something slight or small if you wanted to send out a little survey with some you know, checks of the things that we should consider, whether, you know, environmental needs or concerns are a priority, I would check that. You know, or if we sent out that little survey to us and we said, you know, transportation proximity is, I would check that. And I think if you can see the consensus among the older persons, that may be helpful in guiding you for presenting to us some additional ideas for the space.

Thank you Alderman. We welcome feedback. It makes our work more successful. It makes our project stronger. More minds are always better than one. So in hearing you, what I'm kind of tentatively planning is six months from now, we're happy to go have maybe that first kickoff meeting and here's how we're planning to develop the site. We can collect some of that citizen feedback. And then when I come to present to you all again with the findings from the feasibility studies, I can share that feedback with you to help you all make an informed decision. Thank you.

Thank you, council members. Certainly from my perspective, I want to ensure that the council members' priorities are reflected in the direction we go. So I adopt all the points, including obviously your final one about making sure we collect data from the various stakeholders. I can't help but think that if you were if you didn't have ownership as the starting point of the existing property, there's probably very small likelihood you would say, that's the site I'd want to build this on. And I get that ownership is a critical factor, but you can create ownership. So as far as important factors for me, I don't think we should be in a lease situation. So to me, owning is a much higher priority than leasing a property. I don't think and I would like to see verified from the engagement that ultimate Smith brown was talking about. I don't think employees would feel working downtown is inherently a benefit. I would. Maybe it is, and I'm kind of curious, but I also suspect there's a lot of employees who aren't able to park in Hillman and have to park elsewhere. And if we instead had a facility. That was not the most expensive real estate in the city because it's further out from downtown. We could provide parking for all the employees who actually work in the building. And if it was connected to a transportation hub to to facilitate that, that would be a big benefit. I mentioned the access to other services, supportive services, and certainly from an environmental perspective. I don't think we would. If we were looking at a blank slate and we weren't starting from what do we own, we wouldn't be looking to build in a critical area, fresh, you know, green building, green, you know, as opposed to brownfield to be a greenfield. So yeah, I would factor those, all of those pieces. Thank you, Mayor. All right, we're a little early, which planning commission's probably gonna be happy about, and the audio department, video, AV departments can even be happier about, so they have time to switch over. Looking around, I don't see anyone ready to ask a question, so I think we're ready to wrap up. Let me just go through the final verbiage. That's not it, here it is. Mr. City Attorney, please present the next item on the agenda. The agenda has been completed. Is there anything else for the good of the order? Okay, seeing none,