City Council - workshop

That's on time.

And is he online? Is he joined yet?

I'm sure he's not.

We don't miss anything because that time. Oh, it's 6.01, my time, so we're going to get started.

It's almost 6 o'clock.

Good evening and welcome to the City of Montgomery City Council workshop meeting for August 31st, 2026. We have a quorum. We are missing, well, Mr. Olson will be with us via Zoom at some point. With that, I'd like to call this meeting to order. If we would please make sure our phones are on silent. Do not disturb. That would be wonderful. And if you'd all please stand for the invocation by Mr. Donaldson and then the Pledge of Allegiance.

Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. Help us to process the information we're about to receive and let us use wisdom and knowledge to know what to do with it. In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen. Now the Pledge of Allegiance to the United States flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands,

indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Now the Texas flag. Honor the Texas flag.

I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state, under God, one indivisible.

All right, we have no citizens' comments this evening, so that'll take us straight to the workshop agenda. Item number five. Presentation and discussion by Tillotson regarding the proposed budget for the Municipal Complex Project. casey is on beautiful all right so um i am assuming it helps that we'll be presenting do you need to set the table for anything mr walker are we good to go let them go appreciate y'all getting this opportunity to be here today to discuss the overall city complex municipal complex budget

Where we've gotten to in the last two and a half or two months, I guess, is looking at the design and the drawings that McFate has put together, John Stephens and his group, that we're seeing a direct cost of that work to be at $12,955,793. Within that number, there's an allowance, the data and communications, audiovisual security for a place type facility included in there at 846,000. We just felt like that was really important to start establishing that. Certainly with meetings that can be taking place with the city departments and the police department, hopefully that number can come down some because we all need to understand how much of the existing equipment you're gonna reuse and how many outlets you need and all those things that don't come until we have meetings develop that design beyond what the drawings really don't cover that at this point so we need to go through several meetings to determine that number for sure.

And one thing that's important to note is that this 846 also includes a delegated or deferred design so that design will not fall under the fate, ultimately it will fall under the terms of a design bill.

There again, we've compiled this cost with not only doing all the takeoff and the quantity survey of all the different aspects of the building, from the floors to the ceilings to the walls, and it brought in our sub-market participants. You know, we went out to various... subcontractors to determine that cost based on our takeoff or their takeoff so that we have a reasonable opinion of what the cost should be. So it's not just historical data thrown on the wall. It's what takes the time. That's what estimators like me do. We love that stuff. And so you dig into it, you try to understand it, talking with McPhee to understand what their intent was to get us to the point of identifying those quantities so we can put cost to it and come up with $12,995,000. What we're presenting here is a way to look at it with a couple of options here, basically. The far right-hand side is the number we're at with the required markups. You know, it's performance of paid bond is a requirement, insurance is a requirement, all the way down the line. And then we get to the plan development contingency of 3%, which is a value of $426,000. As the drawings get developed and finalized, pick a different carpet or go with a polished concrete floor, whatever those costs may be, that's kind of like some lanyard money there to help bridge the gap of what we saw and now what they're drawing and what y'all are approving. As we move forward, if we do another round of it before we get to gmp that number is going to change because now we know the answer to the questions so that number may go down some as we talk about it when we get to it's always your money once we get to the gmp if that's zero five there's still a hundred thousand dollars left that goes back in in your bank not in our bank it's always 100 back to y'all the escalation contingency is just that as y'all

continues to move in price.

And so there's another way of building into the job for those things that do increase in cost as we move forward to the GNP. Instead of having to, when we get to GNP, all of a sudden the price of several things have gone up. You don't want it to be a sticker shock at that time. So that's how we get down to the $15,589,469 with all those markets on.

Fifteen what? Fifteen, $589,469.

So then the other column is cost option adjustments. Working with Brent, he's realized that the energy power company here locally will actually supply the generator. There's an agreement there with, I think, if they need to use it, they can use it. Is that the way they work? It is. But we originally had carried $570,000 in there for a generator now that's not in that $12,955,000 because y'all can realize that savings. The next one, the leak over the over-roof of the existing Preacher Metal Building. Our understanding is that the previous owner did do some work to that existing roof. We don't know what it is for sure. That could probably be investigated more in depth and walk the roof and see where it's at. Over time, a metal building roof moves. sometimes those little screw holes get a little bigger and so we don't see any quick evidence of leaks in the building so we think it's in pretty good shape the steel has got already got some age on it so you proposing to go ahead and over roof that with a new 24 gauge metal panel with some insulation to make sure you've got a good lifespan this building without any leaks with a new roof on top of it which provides for a 25 year

230 deduct the cost of the overroof is in the 12.9 yeah so if so if if you just have a possibility that all of us could get a copy of that absolutely yes ma'am we will you want me to make copies now and give it to you i'd like to read that would be most helpful because that's yes yes an eye chart that's what i'm talking about she's doing to be able to see that and understand it while you're going thank you okay all right

I'd like to see more red.

I will. But it's this, not other.

To get to the $12,955,000, the original, I think the original scope, the way I was telling you was that you were going to basically reuse the existing parking lot. What these two numbers represent is if you want to replace the parking lot completely, as per the L2 design that is put together for 155 spaces, right now you have about 76 to 80 out in the parking lot. You probably could gain another 33 if you reuse the existing parking lot of the pavement around where the old lumber storage was. And over on the north side, there's some gains there with the the loading dock ramp will be covered over but you'd only have about 106 spaces if you went that route so evoking the to replace all the pavement also brings in having to regrade and reposition all the storm sewer and that so there's two numbers here the 809 and the 163 to get a brand new parking lot the way that robert can bring up that big plan on That's basically your existing parking lot. The red dots signifying the existing lots, parking spots, and then the red rectangles are where you might take up some more spaces. So that would give you 76 plus 33, 109 spaces. Go to the other one, Barbara. L2 has come up with this design, which gives you 155 spaces and new storm center, rallies, and those kind of things. So if you go back to the spreadsheet, To get that new parking lot and the new storm sewer, you would add 809 and 163 into the mix. Go ahead and put that in there for right now. If I won't use this Excel spreadsheet, you can kind of see the effects of that. So if you take that upon us to replace all that parking lot, the number goes from

One thing to note too with the parking is that by code we're required to have 150 parking spots with the new design and square footage. So if we don't, if we go the route of the cost savings, we would be having to apply for a variance and having less parking than would be required.

What's the difference of them doing the parking versus what we're doing on McCowan and having those people do it? Is it less money? Because I'm looking at what we're doing with Cali and what we're adding.

We might be able to save if we did it, if we could coordinate that. There might be some savings in there for economy of size there for all the stuff we're buying. So it may be possible.

Yeah, it wouldn't be per employee to put for City Hall.

Based on square footage.

We're not going to have 36 spaces required. I'm just trying to think of what the code was for commercial.

By square footage and then.

A multiplier by the square footage. What is it, 1.7? I think it's 75, whatever square footage you're building.

I'm just having a hard time with the million dollars for parking lot and storm sewer work when we're doing a lot of that on McAllen, a lot more, it seems like, space-wise, earth-wise, and for less. Sorry, just talking out loud.

No problem. We always question everything we do because that's the only way to get it right.

I just like answers too, yeah.

Certainly the design that they'll come up with is a fair amount of earthwork to reshape the parking lot as it is now on all sides. That's a factor in that, not just the concrete pavement itself. It's all line stabilized to make it a good parking lot surface.

Why wouldn't we do that at a later date if we wanted to stay in a year?

You can do anything if you can put up with it. It's like putting a swimming pool in your front yard. How are you going to get around it? Does it take up the driveway? There's complications in operation of the facility. We're trying to do that out front while you're occupying the building. Again, if you live with it, it can be done. Incrementally, though, it would cost more money to do it in pieces. The line trucks and the big trucks and all that, they operate better in bigger spaces than little places. The next item on there was there was early talk, like Brandon shared, to discuss that about Kind of the standard that's been used in the commercial world for years and years and years is the rooftop units and VAVs. I don't know how long DOAS and VRF systems, you'd have to explain what the acronym stands for. But it's a much more robust system, we'll call it, and a little bit more, what's that magic word you used earlier? For the system?

The railing of the two systems that we are looking at is both meet the energy code requirements. So there's no issues there. The VRF system is 10, 15 years. It's been increasing usage. And the energy code is driving us towards that direction. So the next iteration of the code may say, hey, that's our new baseline. The VAV with air handling unit rooftop

A lot of people can maintain it. They know it well.

The control sequences have been used for forever. The VROP just comes with inherent energy savings.

So what does it have today? Does it have the RTU? What does Jim's have? What does the building have today?

Yeah, it just has a standard air handling unit inside that's just delivering airflow. So the difference is the rooftop unit is going to mix your outside. cool it down, send it out, and then reheat it to manage the temperature in each space. VRF puts very small air handling units in each space that just does the heating and cooling in the space, splits the outside air out from it separately, and that's where some of that inherent energy savings comes from. Smaller ductwork, reduced air flow.

So just from what I'm seeing, is this two different HVACs in two different ways? Correct. Okay, so why is it on one line? Because you need this one when you go with this one?

So this is the add to do the DRF versus the baseline, which is the R2.

So if we kept what we had today, then we would take that five, I mean, I know there'll be some modifications.

It would be a brand new system, but it would resemble the air handling unit that you have today with then zone boxes to control each little area temperature-wise.

So just for my mindset, okay, so today we have HVAC in there. What you're saying is we need new, so we could do this one or we could do that one and no matter which system we choose it's going to be 705 500?

The baseline would be the 12995 number, make sure I get that correct, is less than 705 500. To go to the VRF system which gives you energy savings, so a payback over some period of time. you'd have to add 750. Gotcha. Okay.

Added it too. Added it too, so it would be above and beyond that $12 million.

That $12.9 million is $1.5 million for the HVAC system for both buildings. The two 60-ton rooftop units and the VA leaves and all the duct work for a whole new system. When you say energy efficient, does that mean that our bills would be less than they are today? Does that mean energy efficient over a year or so?

Heavy up front, and then we're going to have a lower bill later?

So your bill comparison between the two systems, the VRF would be lower every month. And over time, you'd pay back that initial capital investment. I don't know what that overtime number is. We'd have to run a model to give you more of that information. But there is some level of payback to the VRF versus the VA.

So the life cycle costs might start saving.

Can y'all make a life cycle model of it? Okay, that would be great to see. Because if we're talking the difference of a few hundred dollars a month, I don't know that that's... Over 20 years, that doesn't excite us, right?

Yeah, it's all based on your, you know, the usage of your building, you know, how it's laid out, the sun, you know, there's lots of different things that go into it. So we can probably come up with a pretty quick kind of idea on what that number looks like.

I just want to see what that gap is versus, because if it's only a few hundred dollars, then clearly I think going with the 705 is the way to go. But if it's significant...

And to point earlier, that $705 varies a lot with cost of materials and other things like that.

Pause for a second.

Casey, can you hear us?

Yeah, I can hear you all fine. Yeah, go ahead. Talk. We can hear you too.

So here's my problem with energy efficient. They do their more efficient units out there and stuff. But really, the efficiency comes from the windows and the insulation. If you build the building correctly, you're gonna get 10 times the efficiency out of the correctly built building than you will putting a high dollar energy efficient HVAC unit in there. If you're air conditioning the outside, it don't matter how efficient you are.

Good point.

I hate to get out of order, but I don't understand why we've got the parking added when we've got to spend that much to get up to code. I mean, we're not going to build the building and not be up to code on the parking. Why is that an additional expense? We should have in the price to do it. We should already have our parking settled. Why are we adding it if

When we started this, when we had the $10 million building, we didn't know about adding on the square footage. You know, this has kind of grown over time. We didn't know what the parking needs were going to be, so we kind of built those in after the fact, honestly. And then we started looking, you know, because of the downtown, the extra parking and, you know, how could we maximize that? So that's why it's not already built in because when we started, we just didn't know. And it just kind of grew into that when we got to the total square

That's not an optional price to me. That's something we need to handle.

Well, you're right. And that's a decision on how we handle that. That's why we have it here. You know, the council has multiple decisions in this. And when we get to a guaranteed maximum price, you guys are going to vote on that. So this is the opportunity to say, you know, this is what we want. This is maybe we don't want the air conditioning, you know, whatever. There's not a whole lot to carve out of this if you want a 35 square foot building. But, you know, that's the decisions that have to be made. What are we willing to pay for it and what should be included, what should not be included.

I definitely think, Sarah, if we looked at the option of the gallon streak, how that will impact the price on that? But I definitely think that we need the parking regardless.

It makes sense. It makes the most sense. And at first, when we engaged with Jonathan, we looked at a couple of different plans on this because we didn't really know. There's some funny drop-offs towards Buffalo Springs. And then what are we going to do to 149 with the water? So we had to look at the drainage. So it was an ongoing thing as we looked at going to 100. What was the total? 155 spots. Yeah. yeah i mean that was a lot more than what we originally thought but if we maximize it with all the other things with downtown it's a benefit i think so we we've tried to maximize it because we've been maximizing our parking at this point It's sort of like on some of it, you know that we've looked and looked for grants or help or anything and really the only options we have are the generator and possibly because we're gonna have this as a EOC emergency center and There are some grant monies out there that we can we can try to get through Tiedem for the communications inside the building and some hardening of the building some of the security maybe the cameras so We are looking at others, but otherwise, this is going to be on us.

Is PD able to get us any grants?

They're looking at some for the interior, too. There's just not much out there for building the building.

I don't know if there was any for like equipment.

Well, there is some of that and we can go out after that. That's what we're doing. You know, like the AV system specifically, like if we consider some of the areas with the TVs, the training room, you know, with all the TVs, potentially we could get all that as part of the grant. And we kind of looked at that earlier. I mean, that's potentially $300,000. If we can get $150,000, if we can chip away at some of these things, there's definitely savings to be had there.

And we're going to repurpose the new AV that we got.

Yeah, I mean, this is all brand new. That's not even calculated in there. They just throw a number at this at this point.

Make sure that was still the plan because that was the purpose of getting.

Yeah, I mean, the mic and everything that we've already purchased is going to be repurposed. and the furniture and everything. Right now we're doing the inventory and all the furniture we have, and we're gonna see where it fits, what offices it fits. Mostly in the beginning is maybe some conference tables and then whatever we're gonna do in the atrium, I will call it, or in the entryway, because we don't have anything other than what's out there, but we'll bring as much of it as we can and repurpose it.

And know that when we move into the house, we don't have to have the house 100% furnished for 50 years.

And that's the beauty of it too. And this is decisions that we can make after we get to the GMP or even between is we have offices upstairs that we don't really need to finish out. When we went back, if you remember when we went back and we looked at, okay, here we are now, here's how many employees we have. If we look at 10,000 people, what's the average number of police? We did all that months ago. And so the 35,000 square feet is what will take us to the next 25, 30 years. The hope is if we spend this money and we do it right the first time, we don't have to go back and fix anything. Can we leave a lot of white box and empty spaces in this building? Yes, we can. I mean, we don't have to finish them out. John is aware of some of this, but we haven't really carved anything out specifically. You know, we looked at some things in the beginning. If we took the second floor and didn't do anything in this, I mean, you guys probably remember this, you know, if we left it, but it just didn't make sense. You know what I mean?

No, I think it's right to build it out, 100%.

Yeah, I mean, it just didn't make sense.

It's like furniture that may not be used and necessary for four to five years. It's not money we'll spend.

No, we don't need that. or five years, the options may change.

It may be something different.

So this bid, this 12-9, that includes building everything out, putting the walls up and everything on the second floor.

Yes, that's the full build out.

That's what I want to know what we're paying for, full build out.

And that's why he added the parking lot and the other things. You know, there's some choices in there as far as the air conditioning and the parking lot and some of that. And if you add all that in there, that 12, 9 becomes whatever, 13. I can't see that far either.

13.

13. Yeah.

If you add in the parking lot.

And Sam, you had mentioned the parking lot. We just wanted to... We wanted to provide you guys with options. It is an option. We could apply for a variance to not do all that parking. None of us up here feel like that's the right thing to do, but we wanted to provide you with an option to say, hey, if we have to get the costs down, this is something that we can break out and do. None of us want to do that. We all feel that providing the parking lot and the recreating and the upgrading the utilities is the right way to do it. So we just wanted to provide that as an option for you guys to have some input.

We want everything for Chinle.

A lot of the added spaces that are kind of earmarks, which you all have probably been out there, there's a lot of steep grading. And so I know a lot of the earthwork and stabilization was mentioned. and flatten out some of those grades. The stuff over by that loading dock, if you go there, that's where we can add parking spaces. I try to flatten that out because if you're at a certain percent, you open that door, the door is set to open it for you. You're going to name the door next to you. We are trying to find the balance of where we were trying to maximize the slope, but not have it so bad to where it is going to be opening doors for you.

Some of the other things too, we pulled parking away. We're trying to eliminate any retaining walls. That was something that in a previous iteration there was retaining walls in here. that was expensive, so we're actively working to refine this design to eliminate the retaining walls to bring the cost back.

We are trying to bring in a lot of the storm sewer into the culverts of the driveways because water right now, a lot of it's bypassing and it will here too because we're not creating these low valleys to capture the water because everything just sheet flows.

Say that one more time.

So right now a lot of the water sheet flows across the parking lot and kind of gets into the road. And so there are inlet and area drains. A lot of times in those heavy events it's not being able to get into that inlet because it's not in sag. So you don't have an inlet that's a big low area. It's a part of the grade. as it slopes down. And so we're trying to be able to capture them in areas where we can collect more flow and then tie it into the culvert as opposed to if sheet flowing into the ditch or tying it into the ditch, if I could put it into the culvert, then it looks less intentional that we're just trying to send everything to Berkeley.

So we are fully aware of the water that goes down there today, what it's doing to all of the driveways of the residential. When it meets Anna Springs, you have it from Berkeley this way, Berkeley this way, goes into my ditch, which is my whole entire yard is eroding, yes. And then it goes back under the road. It goes out to the... You're asking for a whole lot more water to go through there.

Well, about 90% of your water.

And there's not any mitigation downstream, only on that property.

No, there's not. So 90% of this water already goes down to Berkeley right now, and we're sending it the same way because we're trying to match drainage patterns. We haven't studied anything for the downstream of what the intensity is.

So what are we going to do downstream from that then? Because it all collects at the Skinner's house both ways. Their driveway is cutting in half.

And I think, at least the way they drew that, most of this is going to the south, though, besides the northern piece of that, right?

Most of it all goes north. Everything has gone north, historically. Everything has gone that direction. It's just a lot of it's not getting collected in the storm sewer into the ditch. And so I think... But it's by sheet now. A lot of it's sheet flow. I mean, I just don't think it's collecting it into the inlet drains as efficiently as it could. And I'm not saying that this design will because there's still a lot of topography, a lot of slope that goes down. And so like this... Inlet here, as this is draining around, this isn't really going to load, so it probably is still going to be able to bypass it. I'm trying to collect some with an inlet here, inlet here, inlet along these gutters to help collect rainwater a little bit more than if it's here as it turns to water and it's just sitting on grade. We're trying to collect as much as we can, but a good portion of the cost is just, there's just a lot of storm sugar that we added as well.

John? Go look at the house right behind this building and look at the drive and look at the thing there and how much it costs because my daughter lives there.

And the property behind there also collects, and it comes down that way as well. And they had to put in a French drain. So not only is it this property, but it's properties beyond that. And it is, I will tell you, it's at max capacity. I mean, we're seeing on smaller rains, bigger impact that's coming through, and it's getting bottlenecked. And it's in the... right of way for the city. I mean, unless the city's going to upgrade all of our driveways and all of the cracking and update the, I mean, we tried to improve the ditches on the east side of Berkeley and that was a disaster and had to be redone three times. You know, it's, this is really going to, with more concrete and more specific targeting, it is going to be

And the only way to slow the water down is to do underground detention on this facility. And so I'd add probably at least a half million, maybe a million dollars into the underground.

Is that cheaper than doing everybody's driveway, if you're doing everybody's driveway?

Maybe not.

I'm kidding. If it's city water, I mean, it's... I mean, literally, you've got two driveways cracking. Huh?

There are two options for... Currently, you know, the water, all that water runs right behind my house, so it's like a raging river back there. I don't have the problems that the Skinners and you have, Sarah, where it builds up in my front yard. But part of the reason why it does do that is because we're making it make two 90 degree turns, and that's why it builds up. We can send the water to the west, which would take more than 149, or we can put a strain line culvert from basically a diagonal culvert that cuts through Anna, it's not Anna Springs, but right there at Anna Springs in Berkeley. That's the way it should have been done is a strain line culvert, but instead they went perpendicular to, you know, several perpendicular culverts. So you're making the water turn at least, you know, one, two, two times before it actually gets under the road. We could mitigate all that water, still sending it to the north, but we'd have to trench out Berkeley, put a big culvert in under Berkeley that just went straight through.

I like that idea. But I do think that the culverts are undersized at the driveways as well. Because if you look at the Skinners, they've got a huge bowl because it's just doing this swirling because the culverts are not big enough to take on the water. So it's a shame.

That's because we're asking the water to turn directions, right? And if we just put the big culvert underneath Berkeley, you don't need to change the driveways because the water going into those driveways would be substantially less because it'd be going straight through.

John, what would be the issue about directing the flow to the west side of the building?

But honestly, trenching under 149 with a collected stormwater, you know, you'd have to put in a collected stormwater into your parking lot and then direct it under 149 to send it west. and get into that drainage, or you dig up Berkeley.

The cheapest route, dig up Berkeley. Well, nothing goes west, and so that's the problem, is that you can't force it to go west, because then you're putting more water on those properties. And then dealing with TxDOT is not going to be, you know, one, that's immediate.

Yeah, that's going to be here for 100 years.

So with Berkeley, then? Yeah. And we're thinking about the drainage across Berkeley and having it on the northwest side of Berkeley as opposed to the east side of Berkeley?

I think what he's saying is that at Anna Springs and Berkeley, having it directly go that way. Yeah. Yeah. Instead of doing all those turns.

Let me take a look at it. That's what holds it up. We're basically stopping the water, turning it left, stopping the water, turning it right. That's why it gets those huge pools. If you just let it blow straight through, it's not going to slow down. We're going to have to do some kind of... erosion control, because it's going to be smoking down through there, but it'll move that water.

In Anna Springs, I get it from the north side of Anna Springs, plus the stuff coming down Berkeley, and it collects underneath my driveway, and it goes out in three small tubes, or whatever they are, closures. And I'm saying like go out this way, diagonal this way. And that way I just collect that and this all goes that way anyway. But go in here and then go right over there. It would really relieve all of the properties around here. Let me look at it a little bit more regionally to see what kind of... You know, Jonathan, on the north side of Anna Springs, at the corner of Anna Springs on the Clevengers property, they have quite a big of a collection I'm thinking if you could kind of turn it and let everything, I mean, it might be possible. I don't think it's a hard collection. I think you could kind of turn it where you're talking about the Skinners, like go underneath Berkeley and underneath Springs. That actually might be workable.

yeah i would try to come out the exact same spot that is coming out now because there's a little angle of property there that is city right of city property that's right um you know part of it part of it comes out onto a clevengers property but there's a little sliver there that is city property so that's what i would aim for But we would have to do erosion control out on the Clevenger property because we've slowed the water down by making it turn left and then slowed it down some more by making it turn right when it zigzags underneath those two roads. But if we go straight through, it's not going to slow down. It's going to be moving. But you won't have the collection problem you have right now.

Me and the skidders both collect from two different directions.

Well, I mean, your site gathers a lot of water from the west, which it would still do that, but at least it wouldn't be having to take both sides of the road, right?

Right.

So let me look at it more regionally.

We can come up with a plan. Quick question, John.

Do you foresee this development adding a lot rooftop, but...

The amount of impervious area versus the amount we're proposing is not that much of a difference.

Aren't you adding, though, the green space is complete, like, aren't you adding another area?

Yeah, so it's probably... Just in the front. Here is probably the additional impervious area.

Well, the other thing too, and I know we're trying not to tear up a bunch of driveways and stuff around the property there, but both of those culverts on the north side of Jim's, both of them have failed. So they weren't bulk headed correctly. So the water runs through the culvert, around the culvert. He's tried to fix it many times, but it ends up silting all that red dirt ends up down in Skinner's driveway. So those both have to be fixed with proper bulkheads. There's no way around that.

And all of a sudden, like to see video. I know probably Casey has video. I know I do.

And I have, I mean, we're redoing the culverts with brand new STTs on them. So all that's being replaced.

Sorry, you just had me at drainage and I'm like, oh, please.

We need to look at whether through the Clevenger property and you look at what kind of easements are back there and if we are going to route everything behind all those homes.

I think it's, isn't it, Casey, like 10 or 15 feet maybe?

There's three culverts that go underneath.

Yeah, there's three culverts, yeah.

So...

Yeah, the two worst ones there, though, on the north side of the property, they weren't volcanic. They were just culvert dropped in, dirt went over them, and concrete poured over that. So they failed. The water runs around the culvert, runs through the culvert. Yeah, it just wasn't done correctly.

Right. That's where you're on the upstream end of those three.

Okay. and your daughter's swimming in your front yard because it's so deep. I've got pictures of that too.

We'll look at that. I know it's more of a budget meeting, but just any kind of things that we're thinking of.

Think about that when you're back from the meeting.

Sorry. It's all important to the community, especially the people that live down in Buffalo and French. There is, like you said, there's a little bit of concrete pavement impervious that's being added to the overalls per foot, and then the The only added roof below it is the 8,000 square foot police station. So those, you add the 4,000 square foot lumber storage. So it's some impact as far as the amount of runoff that's going to be cut off. Mr. Olson, if you can still hear me, your comment about, you know, efficiencies, you know, working with subcontractors and the designers to develop window systems. We have a talent and quality department that's been in place for probably 20 years now that we pre-review the details and drawings to make sure that we do site mock-ups to make sure that we don't have those problems with a lot of air and water coming through the windows. It's not supposed to happen. We just Years ago, I said, let's do this, and then Steve Peter did too. And it's really paid off in the way the buildings are operating.

Yeah, my point was more to the fact of making sure we insulate it correctly. If we're going to cut costs, we cut costs somewhere else. Insulate it correctly, spend the money on the good exterior fixtures, windows, awnings, things like that that make the building efficient, and your HVAC will take care of itself. That's the direction we'd like to head.

Is there anything to add to where we're at here? I'd just open it up to any questions or clarifications.

One thing we would offer Ezra and I, we've got

Not only historical data, but also we had two to three trade partners in each category that gave us a cost opinion. So we feel pretty damn responsible in terms of where the estimate's at, but we're open.

How good are these numbers?

Yeah, we're very open. We feel confident that we've got a responsible number, and we're sitting down and workshopping and going through the detailed estimate line-out and the line-out.

with the soil or the possible, that's what we were talking about last time.

Yeah, at the police department right now, the design is, you're still telling us to take out 66 to 78 inches of leg fill or take that dirt output back in select fill. Instead of pylons or whatever, we're not.

It's ongoing. Still ongoing. We're having other conversations with other geotech engineers at this point to get second. So we've had lots of calls.

What do change orders look like? That's a four-letter word around here, by the way. I don't want to say, okay, we're good with this and then we have $3 million in change orders. How do we make sure that doesn't happen?

They said that's built in what they built in for the part of it is that plan to see the escalation that when we get to GMT, that's a buffer as we get to that point. Once we get to that point, we prefer we intend those to be zero. And whether that money has gone into other costs or other choices that you may have made or the

engineering or permitting says you got to do it this way so likely at gmp the three percent to 1.5 is zero percent and then the two percent construction contingency would carry into the project and that would help safeguard against any unknowns in terms of of change orders i think what What we've done successfully over the last two months is meet with not only McFaith, but their consultants to try to understand what the intent and where the design is heading from here. Obviously, it's not a complete design, but we've gotta work with them to make sure that what they infer is something that we capture and have a responsible placeholder around.

Since they've come on board, I've treated them like my own team. We were a design build team. So I've been working with Ezra and Sam every day. We have conversations and we're open book. So again, I treat them like my own construction team. So we're trying to run this as close to a design building as possible. So we have a really good relationship. We talk every day, we're sharing information. Ezra and I have shared information about different building materials that I've had success with, same with him. So we're actively engaging in conversations to try and give you guys the best product for the money. I'm sorry, just explain what's the general condition

manager, superintendent, the vast majority of general conditions I would say which would only be subject to change if, you know, for whatever reason, the city turned around and said, hey, let's add 15,000 square foot in the generation to extend it.

So y'all are standing behind these numbers, you're confident these are accurate, current, set and start?

That's what we're saying is with the information we were providing and the subcontractor market, we think we had a reasonable response to it based on the quality surveys that we've done.

Including costs that go as time goes by and adjusting for the inflation.

That's why the escalation continues over there and the plan development continues.

John, in terms of getting us to construction documents, assuming we move forward, I think we're inside of how many months?

Three-ish. Three is what I had in my mind, so you're talking about half of a point per month, which I think is a certain. I think that's a responsible placeholder to carry.

And if it comes in at 190, do we get that goodness of $40,000?

Yes, ma'am.

And by nature, once we submit a GMP with the construction documents, if

of the savings go back to the city. And I think that fundamentally, you know,

I just have, I actually have a few questions. So the sheet, unfortunately it wasn't shared electronically, it was showed up and printed out, so I just got it in a picture. Is that it? That's your bare sheet breakdown until you got one page?

We have a detailed estimate to back this up to get you to the 12 million 995 And we shared that on the thumb drive with Brett today And now we've made all the adjustments to get to where we are It's if you're seeing this screen. I guess you're not okay.

See I just sent you a copy of mine What Casey what you're seeing is a summary a Summary of the breakdown, but they do have a very detailed process just a

and you'll see BR1 designation, arc quantity, cost per square foot, burnished block CMU, concrete unit masonry load bearing 12 inches, where Ezra and team have measured what the quantities are and then we've got what we believe are fairly accurate unit prices that are not just informed by this work with data and data analysis but also real time with two to three trade partners at this level providing cost opinion. when earlier when when I mentioned or offer you know hey let's have a working session if there are any any line item or we can you know we can move into as much detail as we need but we feel pretty confident that we've mentioned the project the right way and that we've gotten appropriate unit cost.

You see it Casey? Well, I need to see the thumb drive. I want the information on the thumb drive that's broke down in Excel, where I get to see line items. It's broke down on a PDF. It's not an Excel sheet. Yeah, I want to see the whole presentation. So unfortunately, I couldn't see your presentation. You didn't do it electronically, so the screen is just a big bright screen. I have a lot of questions, but unless I can see the numbers on what line items I go to and actual project layout, it doesn't do me any good to ask. So I just need to look at everything.

Hey, Brent, can we all have a copy of all that?

Mm-hmm.

OK, thank you. And we're not making a decision today, so this is just discussion. Yeah, that's fine.

Let's step over here. Just add-ons. If we took all of these animals, it goes to this figure?

No, sir. Yeah.

I'm trying to read this. Let's just show them everything here.

Add the deduct? Sure. Yeah, go ahead and put it up.

So there's a couple of things, and I'll just share with the council. One place I did over the years of building commercially in large homes and just all the stuff I've built over the years, one thing I've learned, learned it the hard way a couple of times, is I never cut on the bones. Right? On the bones, that building needs to be built like you can park a truck on top of it and handle hurricanes and everything else. Windows need to be good, insulation needs to be good, electrical needs to be done. You know, go the extra mile on your bones, cut everywhere else. because the bones are the hardest to fix once you're done. But we can remodel, we can repaint, we can do all kinds of stuff on the interior if the bones are built really well. So when it comes down to, oh, well, I want it to have this tile or that, or the building needs to be these different colors on the outside, that's all, it's irrelevant. It's the bones that matter.

Yeah, so when we talk about interior finishes or fit out, Division IX is where you see the vast majority of that. And this $1,750,000 divided by 35, I typically conceptually start at about $60 a square foot to build out a building. And I think this is closer to 50, so it's pretty efficient for me.

We've worked with Jenna and myself to kind of highlight the high design areas, and then everywhere else is very utilitarian and very, I don't want to say plain, but we're doing our best to spend the money in the high design areas. Well, thanks.

From my perspective, what I'm going on in my head is we started with a $10 million project, and now it's almost double. And I have a hard time reconciling that amount of money right now. But sometimes when I look at it, I wouldn't want to. And I know the amount of concrete and everything that's going to have to be moved. And I'm starting to think, well, why don't we just take the building down and start from scratch and build it to whatever specs it needs to last for 25 or 30 years. But what I've got to consider is do I want to spend another $8 million I'm going to have to get some advice from my council people here to help me because that's a lot of money and I want to make sure we're going to be able to cover all our bases financially if we go with this plan.

Don't forget, CCPD is paying for 60%, 70% of this, too. So I think if you back that out of this $16 million, it's going to be under $10 million what comes off the general fund.

But I also think we were told it was 60% of the $10 million initially. That's the impression. That's what we told people when they asked about it. That's what the amount is. i understand you're coming up with your amounts and that but it is i i agree with him it's uh it's quite a big difference and it's you know now we're 60 that's just 60 of a much larger number 30 for the city and i can speak to that a little bit you know i was here a couple weeks ago the 10 million was also in 2025 when my team came up with that number uh i had no parking improvements no utilities improvements um So right off the bat, our number would be lock, step, and line. As a matter of fact, I've had some of our team take a look at their numbers. So the scope, the building hasn't changed all that much, but the scope around the building has changed, the parking, the utilities. we factored in shallow foundations going down a foot and now we're going down 12 foot without caissons. So there's been a lot of stuff that my team had no idea that was going on. We didn't have a geotech engineer involved at that time. That was a concept budget that was also given 10 months from now. So, a lot's happened in the world. Prices have definitely gone up. The scope of the building has changed quite a bit. And so, I just wanted you to hear that.

My team has looked at this. I don't have any problem with your figures. I'm not. I know, we just keep it at 10 million. 10 million was a long time ago. I'm just contesting where we started from and where we're at now. Got to take that into consideration because We're fixing to do a proven budget, and I want to make sure we have enough money to take care of everything that we've got going on, and this city is buzzing at the seams, but I don't want to get ahead of ourselves.

I can give you some easy numbers that you guys can think through. I've broken this out. If we issue a certificate of obligation, which is how we would fund this, the portion that would be for CCPD would be approximately, these are approximate numbers, just running them, $828,000 annually. That would be their payment. We've been kind of following this along as we've been going. The portion that would be for the city would be around 350,000. That's your 70-30 split. CCPD right now, their revenue is somewhere close to a million. So that gives them the room to continue doing the things that they've been doing. But the interest rate right now is four, he's estimating 4.36 on a 25 year amortization. So it's pretty good, pretty good. Interest rate. And is that based on these numbers?

So just a point to make off of your $800,000. For the council, if we eat up their budget on a building, and all they have left is $200,000, $300,000, maybe even $400,000 as we grow, their shortfalls come out of the general fund.

Casey, at the same time, I think a million dollars is very conservative based on that's what they're getting this year. We don't have some big retailers and big businesses that are coming in, opening up in the next year. I think that we should anticipate much more than, or they should anticipate much more than a million dollars. That's being conservative. But I also want to make the point too, I agree with you where the difference in prices is due to the bones, it's due to the foundation, it's due to the utilities. So it's kind of whether we wanted to go skinny on other things, it's still the big changes are those changes.

Yeah, I'm going to be there, and that's where I need to see the line items so I can truly understand what it's costing us. You know, just the brief discussions we've had about the foundation that they want to do on the other side. I mean, I'm building a swamp, and I don't have to take out 12 feet of dirt, so I'm struggling with their design.

But we're not taking out 12 feet of dirt, so they're misconceptions.

Well, six feet of dirt, pardon me. Either way, I don't need to take that much dirt out to build in the middle of a swamp. So I know it's not a swamp, so there's a way around that, and that's by pylons. And pylons are a hell of a lot cheaper than digging and digging and digging. You're still talking about putting pylons in because you've got to get down to the dirt that doesn't move. Well, just go there to begin with.

Anybody else have any other questions or need any further explanation or comments? I think that's, yeah, I'd like, that'd be great.

We can send it out, all out, and then you can schedule another workshop, discuss it, see what you'd like to look at.

Okay. Gracie, do you have any other questions?

No, ma'am. Like I said, I just want to look at the total proposals and all the line items. I struggled a little bit with the parking lot issues, but I just need to look closer at what they want to do so I understand that a little better because I couldn't see it on the presentation.

Well, I guess what you can do, if you wouldn't mind sending out the presentation to everybody, and then if there are a bunch of questions, then we can certainly plan another workshop. If there's not, and it's something you can answer, or it's easy, then I guess we could figure out how to do it.

Yeah, I mean, if there's any of you, you know, one-on-one, want to come up, and we can get them to come and answer questions, or we can get on a phone call or a Zoom, too, without having a meeting. But we

but I think that we need to do this as soon as possible because I don't want this project starting ASAP.

Yes, ma'am. We certainly like to talk numbers, Ezra and I do, and Brent, you have the detailed estimate, but what you don't have is we can send you a link with all of the trade partner subcontract market proposals so that you'll have those in hand as well. Yeah, if you want to, just put a whole packet together and send it to me and I'll forward it right on.

Absolutely. Did you have a date you wanted to start, or is it all based on just this, or is there a date? Based on this.

We're getting to the GMP is what we're getting to.

It's getting to decision points to get us to construction documents so that we can GMP and start to procure and lock in these prices. The quicker I can get to purchase orders to the subcontractor with our vendor suppliers and trade partners, the quicker we gain control of Pesco.

finish? I would say probably three months for to have a permit level set of drawings and then after that.

So we would need permit notice to proceed and approved GMP which the notice to proceed and the approved GMP happen at the same time.

So are we okay at three months?

Plus or minus yeah.

Okay, so then say we're three months down the road, are we okay yet? How long do you start turning dirt to get to, we cut the ribbon?

The more we get the GMP documents, it's a three to four week process to go out to the marketplace and get everybody giving their prices. And then at least a week to go through it and make sure we're apples and apples and apples on all those different trades. And then we get to that GMP. So it's probably at least four weeks from when we received the documents, the GMP or CD said. And then we move forward.

So we're still a year and a half out. So that next August time frame is not possible. No, no.

This is what I told you guys.

By the time they break ground, they've got to have at least eight to ten months. I can't really get up. We're talking about foundations and all that. It's not just about building up. So it takes a long time to get your base right. Once they get the base right, they get a good foundation built and everything's settled and set and ready to go, you'll see the building pop up quick. But it's going to take several months to get to that point.

Brandon's team's kind of on hold until we pick a system. Mechanical's not designing, we're not gonna have to do it twice. That would be a waste of money and time. So once we decide to go with the package rooftops or VRS system, then Brandon and his team can get rolling. We're still, trust me, I've been fighting tooth and nail, and so these guys about geotech, we're trying to get that so our structural engineer can move forward. So once we get that, we get a direction from them, then that'll start to move pretty quickly. The structural engineer does have about half the building already done and designed. So it's just really about getting the last half approved from geotech. And then obviously John and his team, if we decide not to do the parking, They have some redesigns to do. We don't feel that that was a decision that you guys were going to do so that they're already somewhat, let's say, somewhat developed on that scheme for their parking. Well, Brent, what are we looking at? I know this is not a vote or a decision today, but as far as at what point is that going to happen? Once we just get our questions answered and then...

Yeah, then we wait for them to give you the guaranteed maximum price. You'll vote on that again. They'll tell you what the price is. Then it's off to the races at that point. There'll be checkpoints, of course, through that, but that's what sends the project out is the guaranteed maximum price.

How are you feeling about it?

Stressful. Okay. No, I think we're getting there. I mean, I feel comfortable in the financing part of it and that's the part I've been watching and make sure we can pay for this and all the things and make sure it's comfortable for CCPD. All these projects always tend to balloon a little bit. To be honest, what Stan said earlier, I mean, honestly, you don't want to really look at... There's a little bit to that building that we can save, but there's really not much there. that was built to be a warehouse. There's no insulation. It's just a metal building with the brick facade. There's no nothing in it, you know, so it's a good property, but yeah, the building wasn't really much left.

So to Casey's point, the exterior walls, it's brick with a little bit of an airspace and a metal panel, no insulation, no vapor barrier. So those walls we were looking at, Ezra and I have spent, again, lots of time looking at ways we could salvage that if possible. I know you guys love the red brick. We'll put red brick back on, but from a building envelope, I agree wholeheartedly with Casey. It just didn't make sense. So those walls will come down. The pre-engineered metal will stay, you know, the structure will stay, but even the floor slab inside of that, By the time we get all the underground plumbing and everything run underneath that. And the new footings. And the new footings. And there's just not much of that slab that's going to be salvageable. So there'll be a new concrete slab being put in there. So yeah, I agree with Brent. It's a good property, but the building for a city hall and a police station, it's a tough retrofit. But we did look at demolishing the building. Ezra and I looked at that. We deemed it probably not cheaper to do. So that was the direction. There's still value in keeping some of that building We talked about the roof. I'm in favor of putting a new roof over that. You're going to spend $12 million and then not put a new roof on this thing so that in two years, like Ezra said, some of those exposed fasteners start to shake loose a little bit. That doesn't make sense. Again, I know it's a $230,000 hit, but it's the right thing to do. It adds more insulation. It goes back to what Casey was saying. That's the bones. That's the structure there. You're going to have more insulation in the roof. Some of the systems that we've been talking about, you know, if we go the route that, you know, we've talked about, Butler has a seamed roof where there's no exposed fasteners, and it gives you a 25-year warranty. So, you know, we're trying to give you guys the best exterior envelope for sure.

We got another meeting in two weeks. Is that for budget? To approve the budget for this year?

It's at the end of next month.

Two weeks from today.

So we have two meetings in September. We have to approve it for the end of September. October 1st. New budget.

Yeah, we can add it to those if that's what you're asking. We can add a conversation about this.

Yeah, because I'm just trying to figure out when we can have our next meeting. And a lot of it depends on, you know, when Casey can get his information and be able to simulate his questions. When's he going to get it today?

Yeah, we'll send them out later when they send them to me today.

Thank you all very much. We appreciate it.

Thank you all. All right.

If there's nothing else, we'll move on to the closing agenda, council inquiry. I'll figure out the next few weeks. Nobody has council inquiry? We'll do number seven, items to consider for future agendas. Since there's none, I'll entertain a motion