Facilities and Construction Committee - Regular Meeting

This is the Facilities and Construction Committee meeting for March 4th, starting at 4.25. May I have a motion to approve the minutes for February 24th? Do I have a second? All in favor? All opposed? Seeing none, may I have a motion to bring the F items to the floor? All in favor? Mr. Perez, good afternoon, sir.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and some board members.

F2, please.

F1 is authorization to finalize negotiations and execute a non-exclusive lease agreement between the school board and South Florida Stadium LLC, doing business as a hard rock stadium for use by SFS of the parking facilities at Northwood Elementary School, Brentwood Elementary School, and Norland Middle School for parking during Formula One Miami Grand Prix racing events.

Colleagues, any comments? If Board Member Gallin has a comment, we'll bring this item back in case he has anything to address. Any comments on F2? Okay.

F3, please. F3 is authorization to execute a public school concurrency proportionate share mitigation development agreement by and among Alcazar Development Group 3 LLC in connection with a new 211 residential unit development.

Colleagues' comments, questions, concerns? No. F4, please.

F4 is authorization to execute a public school concurrency proportionate share mitigation development agreement by and among Alta Princeton 2 LLC and Alta Princeton LLC, the school board, and Miami-Dade County in connection with a new 226 residential unit development.

Board Member Santos.

Thank you. Through the Chair, Mr. Perez, one of the questions I asked here, because between F3 and F4, we have very similar impact fee credits, but different proportionate share mitigation payments. So can you just quickly walk through the methodology that's used to calculate both of those?

Sure, through the chair. So the impact fee is calculated by the number of units that the development is going to basically create. So if you look at both F3 and F4, they're pretty close in the amount of units that it's developing and the square footage of those units. That's how the impact fee comes about. When you're looking at school concurrency, that basically has to do with the time that the application is submitted. Then it goes through our concurrency system. It is analyzed, and that is where the delta is. If you look at F3, there's a 16-seat deficiency at the high school level. And if you look at F4, the delta is 23 seats. So therefore, the higher payment in F4 by the developer for concurrency mitigation is due to the additional 23 seats.

Thank you for explaining that, that makes a lot of sense. And I may sound like a broken record, but month after month, I don't know how many months in a row, there is a South Dade proportionate share mitigation agreement. I don't know what else can highlight for us the urgency of launching our new high school option in South Dade to address this and the many others, the other F items that have come before us. I know we all are committed to that longer term strategic, innovative decision that will outlast decades, not just addition here, addition there. Totally the right call and we'll continue supporting that. My ask is that we continue to have that every week, something gets done to get us closer to that new high school option being a possibility. And I know, for example, the ABC process did include some advised schools this year. That's a big step that was necessary in this process. And I see the work that you're doing there. Whatever we can do to accelerate that together, please let us know. As we saw in D65, there are additional seats being approved for charter schools in the area, and we can deliver a really great option here, and we are going to. I just want to make sure we don't... do it too late. So thank you for all the work you're doing.

I was just going to mention through the chair, Ms. Santos, there is a sense of urgency. We have met with academics, with operations. I think we've settled in on a program now. We've engaged with one of our continuing contract architects who's doing sort of a master plan of the facility that's going to be converted. And we're also having discussions with our AE selection office. to get that solicitation on the scheduled path. So absolutely, as you mentioned, we have numerous items that have come forward, and it's time to get that process going.

To complete it through the chair, thank you.

Of course, and this is a soft day comment, but at least for my part, whether it was I-PREP for Dr. Benros-Mendigal or Hialeah Hive for Board Member Alonso, especially down south where the focus is on where there's growth If we have to divert resources to make sure that we're meeting that growth where our potential clawing of market share is, then that's what we've got to do. Again, I'm trying to think of analogies for everything, but it's not too dissimilar from chicken restaurants in Miami-Dade County. Seriously, no. Follow me. Just follow me here for a second. I'm serious. Exactly. The city of Doral has more chicken restaurants than anywhere else I can see in my district. And they're all trying to gobble up market share. It's the same thing as hospitals. Hospitals will sometimes put up an urgent care in a freestanding emergency room just to eat up market share for another hospital from coming into the market. And we have to be strategic like that where absent our growth in a market means somebody else will grow faster than us. So that's, I mean, whether it's hospitals or chicken sandwiches, I mean, I'm with you on the recruitment. So anyway, thank you so much. F7.

F7 is approval of the master development agreement and ground lease and related ancillary agreements with related urban development group for the redevelopment of the former JRE Lee Education Center.

Yes, thank you very much. That's my school. And I wanted to take this opportunity first and foremost to thank everyone that has been involved in this process. This has been ongoing. And it is really the first one that's really gonna kick off all the others that are going to follow. One of the greatest challenges that our employees face today, and especially our teachers, is the cost, a rising cost that exists in our community for housing right now. And if we wanna recruit, we wanna retain, we wanna reward, and we wanna respect our teachers, We need to start working to make that happen for those that simply cannot afford to live, work, and play here in Miami. And so the project that we are talking about at JRE Lee has involved many, many people throughout the years. And since the Brickell Solutions project, which was the one at Southside, which is the first one we had, which happened to be mine as well, At that point, there were only 10 individual units for the teachers that were going to move in there. It was a start, it was our first time, we had never done this before. But we're past that point right now, and so the proposal that we have in front of us here states that the redeveloper, when we redevelop the JR Ely location, and we look at the mixed use development, it's supposed to include 355 residential units that are going to be available for affordable workforce housing options. But it doesn't tell me how many of those units are strictly for teachers, just teachers. Not other members of staffs, but for teachers. Does anyone have a number for that?

So through the chair, Madam Chair, the agreements have a prioritization period for district employees. Once we get to that point in time, we can maybe, and we've been having conversations, we can maybe open up the window for teachers first and then have a separate time frame for other district workforce.

Thank you. So through the chair, I'm very interested in the number for teachers because that's the main group that we're talking about right now due to the fact that there's a shortage locally, statewide, and nationally that we do whatever we can to help teachers before others. And that has been the conversation that has been ongoing for quite some time. So I hope to be able to hear the numbers for our teachers per se as soon as you can provide them because I think it's very important. The other thing is in order for a teacher to qualify, there's a threshold. So then the question is what is the threshold and Are there enough teachers that fall within a specific threshold to qualify? Because a beginning teacher starts in the mid-50s, and then they go up. So that's my next question through the chair.

Through the chair, Ms. Rojas, so the project consists of 355 apartments, and there is a breakdown. The average median income for for those apartments there'll be a certain number at 20% another number at 60% and then another one at 80 and 120 the breakdown are in the agreements and I can actually, I can provide you with those apartment number breakdowns, but all 355 are identified for the workforce, for our workforce.

Right, but the workforce through the chair is, it could be the bus driver, it could be the cafeteria employee, it could be the aid, it could be, you know, many different people, right? And so my interest is with reference to all employees, and I think it's great, but the primary interest is, is the teachers, which are the ones that are in those classrooms making a difference for our students each and every day. the percentage that is going to be given to teachers out of the full amount of 355 residential units.

So through the Chair, Madam Chair, Ms. Rojas, it depends on the number of teachers that apply. All 355 units will be made available. There will be a window once those units come online for them to apply. We can give them prioritization over other district staff. If they qualify with their average medium income, then they would be provided an apartment. That's how the process would work. At this point, I can't give you exact numbers on how many teachers are going to be in the development due to the fact that we're not even at the stage yet. We're not at the application stage. That will take place later on as the project develops and as we actually start construction. and we start completion of the project, like we're going through Southside right now, we're going through the application process, we'll be doing the same with this particular development. Madam Chair, if I can contribute.

When you think about the range from 20% to 120%, it's unlikely that a teacher, especially a starting teacher, will be anywhere near the 120% AMI range. they'll probably be too high for 20% AMI. So they're going to be somewhere in between the 60 and the 80, depending on what year of teaching they're in based on their salary.

Yes, and that's the problem. So anyways, we'll talk, I guess, more as we continue this process. That's why I asked, because I know what the ranges are for our teachers.

And just to be clear, Madam Chair, and through the Chair, so this isn't a parameter that we establish or the district establishes. These are established by the state with the financing that developer will be applying for, and so there's an average medium income, and with that there's a salary range. It's not the district that's putting in those types of parameters. It's pretty much tied to the general affordable housing act in the state.

Thank you. Through the chair, the $100,000 that's capitalized lease payment and the 12.5% of the developer fee, are these numbers a one-time cost to the developer or is this an annual cost?

No, so through the chair, Madam Chair, those are actual payments to the district. So once we close on the construction contract, the developer will pay us $100,000 capital fee along with the 12.5% developer fee. Along with that, they will be building at no cost to the district the 25,000 square foot educational facility and the 13,000 square foot office space within the residential complex. And then along with that, there will be a series of yearly revenue payments So the total value to the district in this particular project is over the 99 years is $405 million, which represents in today's net present value anywhere between $50 and $70 million. And our appraised value for our land is $31 million. So as you can see, we're getting more value by proceeding with this particular project than just if we were to sell our land today. And this is not a sale. At the end of the lease, the board retains ownership of the property.

I appreciate that. And through the chair, and this one is not for you, but I believe that I see Angie back there, Torres. And there is a section... within the whole project that is going to be used, I believe, for students in the special area arena. Can you expand on that a little bit? What does that entail?

So through the Chair, Madam Chair, the facility is a 25,000 square foot facility. It is originally contemplated to be an early childhood center. It's going to have approximately 242 student stations. It's a three-story facility, along with parking for staff and visitors within the structured parking of the entire complex. And then there will be, like I mentioned, there's a 13,000 square foot office space, a space, storefront space on the ground floor of the residential building that can be used, that will be used by the district either to continue the testing for students that was taking place or currently taking place at the JRE Lee Center. There's also been conversation of a parent resource office there as well for our parents. So that space, again, there's still time as we start this process with the developer to look at and establish what that space is going to look like with their architects. But the educational facility that we discussed with academics and their team is for it to be an early childhood center since the elementary schools around there have capacity. So this would be something that would feed into those elementary schools.

Okay, thank you very much. I appreciate that. My last question, Mr. Harvey, sir, I believe it's 147 pages long, the proposed agreement. I'm assuming that you have read it carefully, reviewed it, and approved it, because it's a lot.

Yes, we've been active through the chair.

Okay, great answer, Mr. General Counsel. I love it. All right, so we have the blessing from the General Counsel, and it's been a good process working with Mr. Milo and his team and all of you. Raul, you've done a great job, again, dealing with so many different situations. But I think that this particular one is going to hopefully, as we addressed earlier today, we want to see things being done more expeditiously. And I think that this is the beginning of starting that process. It took quite some time to get here. Again, we've been at this for years, but we're here. And hopefully from this point forward, we're going to move much much faster and be able to finalize projects in an expeditious manner.

Through the chair, Ms. Rojas, and I've mentioned it to every one of you, it's been a long road, also a big learning curve. The developers have been very helpful. My team has been very helpful in growing through this educational process, let's call it that. But yeah, we have many projects that are kind of like on that approach and gonna be landing on our MDCPS runway, starting with this one, but you'll see more of these in the next few months.

Okay, thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Board Member Alonzo, you had a comment? It'll be very brief. First of all, congratulations to the team. We have all been watching these projects, and I know it takes a lot of work and a lot of effort in areas that we've never had experience in. We build schools, and here we are now managing these properties. But to the board chair's comment on the AMI, not for this deal, but just for us to understand creatively, we do own these partials. So we can, when we're negotiating with these different developers, if they're not obtaining state credits or local credits and tax benefits for these, we can adjust the AMI and work together as a district, because we can then adjust the valuation of the property, but understand though at the end of the day that that would then affect what our district's return would be on investment on those. we would have to understand those and look at those on a project basis, but we do have the flexibility to make adjustments to that, and we don't have to necessarily adopt the state or the counties AMI for what they consider workforce housing. We could create our own within there, but of course, that would then limit the developer from being able to get those state dollars and local dollars, but congratulations on this project, and I look forward to seeing many more, because this is going to make a major impact in our community, and one that we've all been looking forward to, not just to help our employees, but to help the overall Facilities outlook of this district and being able to reinvest into the schools and at the end of the day Impact the students in the classrooms. Thank you.

And you're right Berman Alonzo I mean if someone's getting a surtax from Miami-Dade County or a sale grant from the state some of those programs have prescribed You know, I've never actually seen a project with 20% AMI I've seen 30 which is extremely low income 20% I mean we're talking about that would go towards our janitors and some of our service staff and but they'll be locked in. If somebody comes to us clean and says, hey, what does the district need? As long as it keeps it under 120 AMI, which gives them 75% tax abatement, because that's what they're used to doing in their other private projects, it might work. They might know how to deliver that. So, Board Member Santos.

Thank you, congratulations, ditto, on getting this project to this stage, and I know Board Chair Rojas, this is your school, so I'm sure you're very excited. I just wanted to put on the record that you did clarify the improvement as written in the agreement. do mean that the entire building, buildings, including all of the structures and improvements would be owned by the school district, turned over fully to the school district after year 15. Through the chair, is that correct?

Through the chair, Ms. Santos, yes, that is correct. All improvements related to the early childhood center and the site itself.

Thank you so much. And then I was curious to see, because I know in some of these projects parking has become a conversation, at least the ones that are being developed in my district, and this was a closer sort of one parking per bedroom. whereas in other projects I've seen one parking per unit. And thank you for clarifying the breakdown of units because it's one thing I'm really looking out for since my community has asked a lot of questions about it. So thank you for that and can't wait to see it go up.

Thank you so much. F27 please.

F27 is authorization for a one-year extension of the Architect Engineering Project Consultants Agreement for miscellaneous projects with VIA Design Studio, with construction budgets up to $4 million each under the same terms and condition as fees as the original agreement. Member Santos.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly-Perez, for following up with the... I keep having this question of if we're going to renew anything, what is the... Quality control how have we measured quality and you shared the ratings?

Can you explain very quickly the the range and how we measure because you just I don't even know you sure average But I don't know what that means so so they're they're different ratings when it comes to our architectural and engineering consultants It's a scale of one to five five being exemplary three being Four above average, three average, and then two below average. So this particular firm has a 2.86 average, and so they're right at the cusp of being average. And we've had some conversations with them, and the work that they're performing now is their current. So that's their average on all their projects going back, I think, for like two years. their current projects are above three at this point.

Okay, thank you. If you could please include that in the items moving forward through the chair.

Through the chair, Ms. Santos, you're absolutely correct. I don't think I mentioned it in our communication, but going forward, I've already instructed our office to make sure that we do it when we bring commissioning items. I don't know why we don't do it when we do the extensions, but we're going to be including the evaluation scores. Thank you.

So through the chair, you'll amend these before next Wednesday? You can amend them, absolutely. Awesome. Thank you.

Perfect. Thank you. Anyone else? F28, please.

F28 is authorization for a one-year extension of the building code consultant agreement under the same terms, condition, and fees as the original agreement.

I'm not seeing any comments. F29?

F29 is authorization for a one-year extension of the environmental asbestos consulting and testing services agreement under the same terms and conditions and fees as the original agreement. Board Member Santos.

Thank you. Similarly, I asked about quality control because I want to make sure we're only renewing people who are doing quality work. here the response I got was acceptable, which is different from the other ratings. So is there a difference, Gail, through the chair?

I was going to mention that. That's why I started off previously. So that particular evaluation is not done by the facilities office. It's done by the team that uses them mainly as our safety department. And they have an evaluation form that has a different designation. So that is their evaluation. their particular designation for the firm that is performing.

Thank you. Through the chair, is it also a one through five?

No, I think it's three. It doesn't have a number. It's, I think, three designations.

Okay. Through the chair, I just want to make sure we're keeping quality. and holding everyone we work with at all levels, firms, architect, construction, to a standard, and that standard, if not met, actually leads to a consequence, so that, you know, we got past it, we reviewed it, we resolved it, but there was definitely some work I was very concerned about in my schools, and so if we can continue to center that in our conversation for any contracts, for any outside business entity that we are engaging with. That is very important to me, so I'm sure this item will also get amended so that we can have that moving forward. And maybe re-evaluating and aligning how we evaluate all external, as far as quality, maybe it's time to do that. Thank you so much to the chair.

Thank you. Finally, F80.

F80 is the authorization to approve the prequalification of contractors for educational facilities construction.

Any comments, colleagues? No. Entertain a motion to approve the F items. Do I have a second? All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Any new business from the board? Okay. Facilities and maintenance comprehensive update. Mr. Perez?

Mr. Chair, facilities and maintenance comprehensive updates were provided. If you have any questions, I'll be more than happy to answer them.

Not seeing any comments. Office of Community Partnerships, Education, and Business Access, Dr. Amica Roberts.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. Through the Chair, the report was submitted, and if there's questions, I will answer them.

Anything, colleagues? Going once, twice. That exhausts all business. Entertain a motion to adjourn?

Move it. Second.

All in favor? Thank you so much.