Council Worksession: Public Utilities Facility and Comprehensive Planning

Last Wednesday before the regular City Council meeting, the Council met at 4:30 to hash out and get a better grip on the process that will be followed for the development of the Public Works Facility for Grand Marais. There was a set agenda for the meeting with 2 major items:

-Property Issues (what to do prior to development)
-Next Steps (Timelines, proposals, decision points)

There was another item though, and that was a discussion of the Council Priority Timeline, which carries a lot of significance for the work that is planned for 2016 and beyond. It was brought up by Councilor Benson that we should discuss these things in a timeline focused manner so that we can start making plans for the many projects that have been brought to the Council's attention and that have been planned. Here is a short list of the projects that fit that description:

-PU Facility (2016)
-HWY 61 Reconstruction (2018)
-Municipal Parking Lot (2016?)
-Public Bathrooms (????)
-Liquor Store Renovation (????)
-DNR Boat Launch (????)
-City Hall (????)
-Dark Skies Certification (2016-2017)
-Workforce Housing Development (2016-2017)
-Ordinance Re-Codifying (????)
-Community Solar Farm (????)
-1st St. Reconstruction (????)

*I want to be very clear that I put estimated dates on these projects and did not assign a date to other projects because they are estimates or simply have not been spec-ed out and accepted by the City yet and thus do not have a viable timeframe to mention. These are all simply projects that have been discussed by the City and that got our specific attention at this particular meeting.

Taking that one step further, these timelines were being discussed in the wider scope of Comprehensive Planning, which the Council is committed to taking on this year (2016). As a result of this commitment, the Council will have a "Comprehensive Planning 101" meeting in February to get the process started and to create some specific expectations concerning what we would like to accomplish through the process. This is very exciting for me because I believe that we have a lot that we can do to create a Comprehensive Plan that reflects the desires of the residents of Grand Marais and the type of City we want to be and can be.

So that conversation mainly resulted in the Council agreeing to set a date in February specifically for Comprehensive Planning conversation and that we would begin to pull in the expertise and resources of the Moving Matters group to assist the City in this process. It was stressed a number of times, however, that Moving Matters will be supporting the City in putting together public meetings and other information gathering events, but the City Council will be driving the process at all times. With that said, now would be a good time to start thinking about what Grand Marais means to you and how you would like to participate in the Comprehensive Planning process. The more people that participate, the stronger the plan will be.

Ok, moving on to the Public Works Facility:

We started the conversation by asking what we should do with the property before we begin construction on it. There are currently a number of buildings on the property in widely varying levels of repair that the City needs to figure out what it is going to do with.

It was clear that the buildings on the South side of the property, where the construction of the facility will mainly occur, will need to be removed. There has also been interest coming in to City Hall about the buildings on the North side of the property. The Council spoke generally in favor of having a sale/silent auction in the spring (April or May) to find new homes for many of those buildings if there are community members who would be interested in moving them. This has not been finalized, but it seemed that there was strong sentiment that this would be a good way of getting rid of some of those buildings.

Another consideration was the overall appearance of the property and the fact that it is now in City control. Should we invest any staff time and resources into performing any site maintenance? This could mean taking down various unsightly landscaping elements, it could mean adding landscaping to improve the appearance from the street, etc. The Council thought that there are a few things that could be removed to improve the appearance, but largely leaned toward keeping the lawn mowed and the trimming done, but not really investing much more time into it... this is because there isn't a strong feeling as to what should happen with that front piece of the land and thus we should hold our hand on it so we don't unnecessarily spend money doing something that needs to be undone later.

That was another conversation that we had: What DO we want to do with the extra land up there? The conversation really didn't bring up any solid ideas that were unanimous, so we left that conversation in the "brainstorming" status and will return to it when we have a better idea of what we will be using of the land.

Moving on to the NEXT STEPS!

The City's architecture firm, LHB, has been contacted and gave us an estimate for about $3000 to provide us with detailed drawings of how the facility would fit on that property. This piggy-backs on the plans that LHB drew up for a previous Council that was considering building this project in the Cedar Grove Business Park. That original design came back with a $3.5 million price tag, which included almost a million dollars of "grade and fill" due to the landscape of the lots identified. It is assumed that the estimates for the new property will be significantly less than that. The Council also charged LHB with giving us options. The primary estimate they will provide us will have the full buildout of the facility, which would allow the City to store and house all of its Public Utility equipment and offices in one facility. The estimate will then offer suggestions of different items that could be removed from the plan and how much money that would save the project and its consequences. We viewed this as an ideal organization as it gives us flexibility to customize the project and keep our costs down as much as possible.


That gets us to the timeline. When can we expect these plans? When are we going to start seeing something happen up there? There is a tentative schedule for these events and although it is ambitious, I believe that it is completely do-able. Here is the tentative schedule for this project:

February - March: LHB will prepare the estimates and site design/assessment
*Decision Point #1: Council will have to choose what the facility will include and total project scope

March - April: LHB will work up a full facility design for the new site which will include architectural drawings and material lists... In essence these are the building plans for the project.
*Decision Point #2: Council will have to approve the design for the project and the building plans

May: The City will have to put together a financing plan for the project that will include monies from the capital reserve accounts of the PUC and the City as well as some borrowed money. Once this is complete the City will authorize the bidding process and the request for bids will go out.
*Decision Point #3: Council will have to decide on the financing plan that the City will be taking and will have to select a contractor from the bids received.

June - October/November: Construction of the facility will take place.

This is the plan that the City is going for. It calls for a steady movement through the project and relies on good bids from contractors, which we believe is very possible.

That was the bulk of the meeting and the items that the Council considered. If you have any questions, please let me know!