City Council - Regular Meeting

I know Jim moved to rehab, right? Doing doing really well. Trent said this morning we were going to try to stop by on way Cher. He said this there's a lot

The one

I'd like to reconvene and call to order the city council meeting uh Today is October the 14th, 2025. Um, we have to one thing to consider and that's award of a contract for engineering services for the rebuild of Kataba Metas Park. Sally, would you cover that please?

Yes. So, um, again, another one of those things that we've been talking about for a while and this is the contract to rebuild Kataba Meadows and the Kataba River Soccer Complex. obviously our two largest parks and a regional tourism attraction and and something that our community and others are are definitely still missing. Um staff issued an RFQ for soliciting engineering services to oversee the the rebuild and um work at the parks. We received 14 proposals uh reviewed those, selected six firms to interview um and in a staff committee did the interviewing and at the end of those interviews staff uh recommended and started working with McAdams to um negotiate a contract and that's what we're here to talk about today to to do this work for us. We are fortunate in that we have Nick Low here with us who is a senior project manager um with McAdams and he is going to come up and introduce himself, the firm and talk just a little bit about the process.

Thank y'all for having me this morning. Um I'm a senior project manager but um by trade I'm a landscape architect. Um also one of the owners of the company. So, I'll be managing the project um keeping all our civil engineers and all of our different consultants together. So, I'll just run through a little bit about our team and some of our experience that's relevant to you all's project. Um so, if you can see up on the board, we have a large team. Our firm um actually has offices in Charlotte, Raleigh, Durham, Asheville, um some out of the state, but I have a lot of resources to pull on to get this done quickly. Um, and you can kind of see some of our team, our civils and our landscape architects. Um, one specifically, one of our subconsultants, fit fields. Um, Dan Dodd, he actually, that's all he does. He's our sports field specialist. Um, we do fields as well, but he's a specialist that does this all over the state. Um, that's all he does. Um, but then we've got our MP and our architect. Our architect is local to Morsville. We worked with him on a lot of projects, so he'll be looking at some of the renovations on the buildings. Um we also have a structural to assess some damage to see what's going on with that. And then we also have um geotechnical engineers that can assess asbestous but they can also help us understand what's going on with the ground. So a large team to get this project together. So we've got all the experts that can execute. Um just to look at where we are and where we're coming from. Basically we've got y'all surrounded. Um these are just a list of sports field parks and FEMA projects we've worked on. Um just a long list. One of the ones um that I'll talk about that's probably the most similar to y'alls is Lee County and we're just now finishing that one that we're working with Dan Dodd as well on that. Um also some FEMA projects. We're currently working with Wesville um to help them replace some of their softball fields. Um also working with the city of Salsbury. that's one of our other

consultants within McAdams that he's helping manage their FEMA grant. So, we're bringing him along to help make arguments with you all's city team to help bring that home that yes, we deserve money for these projects. Um just an overview of of the the projects. Um so, this is Lee County. Um you can see it's very similar to you all's. There's um of course the grass baseball fields and we have grass soccer fields. That's just the before and the after. So, we pride ourselves in what our plans say, what it looks like from the 3D models and from all of our planning. This is what it looks like today. That what's built is what we plan. So, very similar to what's going on with the two sports complexes. Um, also done renovations. Re, this is a rehabilitation in Wilmington. This was actually on a trash dump. So, um, whole soccer complex, synthetic and grass fields. Um, this is one that, um, I'm helping manage managed with Dan Dodd in my hometown. I'm from Morsville, so I'm only an hour away. Um, we're renovating an old baseball field that was probably been there since the 20s to a wooden bat league field. So, and then this is just some of the process with FEMA. We were actually with Wesville. That's some of the FEMA representatives observing damage and we were able to help suggest, hey, you should replace this too because they didn't really know the sports fields that well. So, bringing that knowledge to help FEA understand exactly what needs to be replaced and why. So, this is working up in Wesville. And I think that will definitely be something we'll be involved in with this because when we did our site visits out there

tournament quality type fields is not their expertise at all with FEMA. So, and those weren't tournament quality. They were looking at them, they're like, "Well, is this field destroyed?" I was like, "Yeah, it's completely destroyed. You have to regrade this whole thing." And they've already taken fences down. So, getting them to understand that that quality is very different than it was back when this field was built. There's some things that are very different as long for resilience as well as for playability, what teams want to come play. And that's one one expertise Dan Dodd brings with us is he builds fields for Ripken. And you know Ripken's kind of the standard in sports tourism. So he'll be along with us, but then I'll be along with us to make sure we keep things within budget.

So to make sure we don't go too far with the fancy things. So, but this is just a um stream restoration alongside a soccer field. We worked with him on our we have a stream restoration team, but the thing is is to see that it's flooded, but then after the flood, you see how resilient those fields are and they're back to playability. So, that top picture was um I forget which hurricane it was, but after the hurricane, people come back. So, hopefully that's what we're looking to do is to build some of that resiliency back into these fields. And then just a little bit um just to look at schedule um one to one to three months to kick off get all the data collection all the survey um a month to do site investigation and get to that evaluate to that 30% level. So that's how we're seeing this project and you'll see our um scope is broken down into that. So we have all these things we got together. We have to assess them all. Some things could have changed environmentally on some of these sites just depending on what happened during the hurricane. Um, so we'll assess all that data, come back to a schematic design. We have an idea of what the city wants to come back with to stamp right back where things are, but we just want to confirm that with what we're seeing on site with the new site data. And then we'll bring it to a 30% level. And the reason why I say a 30% level is that's a level where we can get our cost estimators to give us a real good number of actually what it will cost. So, we're using professional estimators. That's all they do. So, they have lines to construction projects and relevant numbers for right now. And so, we'll bring them in. They'll tell us what the price is. Then, we'll make our decisions on do we feel like FEMA will cover this, but then also what things are resilient, but what things are to bring it back to what it was. So, we divide those two things out and then figure out, you know, how much can we pallet to spend on both these parks. And then once we make that decision, hammer down let's get permitted and then let's go get a contractor to build these

because we know we want to be playing soccer next fall. So we really have to make quick decisions and this cost estimator helps us with those numbers to help you all make the right decision and what you're comfortable with with budget. So just to look at our schedule there and then we'll come back down to 60 and 90. And some of those are just pauses in design to recalculate the estimate to make sure as the estimator gets more detail we hone in that price. So we know we're getting on bid day. So let me escape out of here and bring up contract. So I'll just skip to the end. What our budget is to go from site investigation through permitting all the way through um construction administration. So, we're taking the project all the way to completion. For both fields, it would be 1.5 million. And looking at these projects, I know we've been back and forth. There might be some things that are in and out. We're thinking that these are probably right around 15 to $18 million worth of projects to do. And that's about 10% of that. But we're thinking hopefully we can look at some ways to bring that cost down. That's just a general what we're thinking these fields will cost. And you know, these are all the subconultants. McAdams, all the site investigation, all the experts we have to bring in here to assess things. And then we actually have worked with the city. They've give um city staff. They've given us a lot of information on the survey side that's helped us cut a lot of our original budget out. So things that are already done, we've been able to go back and forth and remove those from the process to help bump down what our original number was. So with that, um, were there any questions with fee or any of the tasks within the fee or what we're looking to do?

First of all, thank you for being here. City council have any questions? I know we have a a 28 page proposal here in front of us. Uh, and that's just us trying to explain every step and what you're getting with every step to be clear on what's the value. And we need a lot of explanation, I'll be honest. So, thank you so much. Uh, Butch, you've been in recreation. Have you got any questions? No, it's incredibly thorough and I'm looking forward to be able to dig into it.

It is. And we, you know, we started, we were around 1.8 million when we started and and we've been through this scope with this staff committee and and and Nick and and members of his team twice to to get to where we we are today. Um it's extremely large project and there's a lot in it and and it's not just the fields, it's the buildings, it's everything surrounding it and and so the scope is fairly large. The McAdams proposal is extremely detailed and in our understanding that this is where we think we're going to be. Um, obviously if there's things in here that we end up not using as much as we proposed, this is a not to exceed figure at this moment. Likewise, if we get into the middle of it and we find something in investigation or something that we just didn't know about and we need to change it on the other end, we'll be back before you to do that. Right.

And that's with a lot of the investigation on the front end. We're in a flood plane and that adds a lot of extra things to a project you normally wouldn't have to have for permissions to build there again. So I think we've gotten used to that come back to us. Well, especially a project of this kind. Oh, absolutely. That that's right. And it's important that we do this right. As as we all know, these facilities are super important to our community and to our ability to be the tourism draw that we are in the region. We're losing money every day that those fields aren't being used. We are. And then not just the community, the people that come in here from outside. I mean, we're Yeah,

we are. This is extremely important to us. That's right. But but for the citizens and and and I know that we're in this period where every meeting we talk about tens of millions of dollars because that's where we are. So so all in when you start to look at this and you heard Nick say and you think about our wreck maintenance building that you awarded uh engineering contracts on a couple weeks ago. these two parks and and putting them back to what they were and considering some opportunities for making them more resilient in the future, right? Knowing that they do exist in a flood plane, you're looking at 20 million. Yeah.

I mean, that's the number and and our folks need to understand that. And I and I know we still keep having questions and things about why can't you get them back up and running? Why can't you just fix them and all of that? if we could just throw some grass seed on it. That's right. Put the fence back up and and let's go. It It's a little more complicated than that.

And I'd like to thank staff because the last two weeks, I know this has been tough putting all this together and getting it ready so that we don't have to wait another month. So, uh, hearing no questions. What's the wish of councel? And I'm going to ask you to change the amount that that is in the first action to a million 570,618.

We accountants like even numbers. Engineers don't. They really just don't. They're like exact. What is the wish of council? I'd like to enter a motion to award a contract for engineering services for the restoration of Kataba Meadows and Katawa River Soccer Complex in an amount not to exceed 1,570,618 dollars to McAdams and to authorize the mayor andor city manager to execute said contract and other necessary documents. Thank you, Butch. I have a motion to have a second. Second.

Thank you, Chris. The second piece of this is we're recommending that we pay for this and use part of the proceeds from the cash flow loan that we applied for and were awarded from the North Carolina Department of State Treasurer and and so for the two budget amendments because we have to basically move the money around properly in the two Helen funds. Um if if you can do those in the amount of 1,57618 also. Okay. Does that need to be a separate motion or uh the motion as we've written it um as long as we understand what the amount is the motion that's in here I think is still adequate. I don't think we got a vote on the the first one.

We just got a motion in a second. I don't think we got a vote. No, I didn't. Okay. That's what I was wondering if we both if this if we include it before we vote, but you can do them separate or together. I think really either way. But I have a motion, a second. All in favor of the motion say I. I. I. Motion passes. I need a second motion. Motion to transfer cash flow loan proceeds to Helen Capital Projects Fund for Kataba Meadows and the soccer complex. Thanks, Chris. I have a motion to have a second. Second. Thank you, Wendy. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Motion passes. Anything else to come before council? If not, meeting is adjourned.