Travis County Commissioners Court
May 19, 2009,
Item 37
>> 37, approve contract award to broadus and associates for consulting services for the Travis County central campus study for strategic needs analysis and facilities master plan.
>> good morning, judge, Commissioners.
sue grimes, Travis County purchasing agent.
we are here this morning to bring forth a contract for us to get started on our central campus study for strategic needs analysis and master planning.
at the table with me are members of the negotiation team and the project leaders, christian smith who is going to be the executive project manager, leslie strickland, who will work in conjunction with belinda powell as project managers, roger el khoury, our facilities director, and we also brought along and put in the hot seat our consultant, steven colston from broadus and associates here to talk.
we had a very what I thought was one of the best negotiation meetings that I have been in, and I've been in a lot of them.
it was the team and the consultant talked out specifically and made sure that everyone was talking the same language.
when -- joe harlow and walter are not at the table with us, but they were also part of the negotiation team.
when those guys were talking to the i.t.
data guides, it was a little over some of our heads, but they understand what they were talking about.
we worked very hard to ensure that they understood what they wanted and -- what we wanted and we were all on the same sheet of music.
so broadus was able to also whittle their number down and the contract that we are asking you to sign today is for 1 million -- 1.5358 -- let me say that again.
$1,535,823.
and there are several phases to that.
and christian I believe is going to speak to a little bit of scope of the work.
i know that we've been trying to give y'all information so that y'all could be prepared for today.
but we're here to answer questions and I'll turn it over to christian to give a little bit more detail.
>> let me ask a couple of questions real quick.
in the organizational structure of this situation, why aren't all of the executive managers included in the structure?
>> we have an organization chart that includes that that we're passing out here right.
that includes the presentation --
>> it includes all of the executive managers?
>> yes, all of the executive managers.
and I would like to give you an overview of how that happened and where we are.
but yes, we're proposing all of the executive managers and an elected official on that general government team because we also did not have an elected official and thought that a more robust general government team would add value.
>> not to mention the importance of the diversity.
as we have spoken about in previous issues that we've had on our agenda today and that is especially important as we head out to the public, I would like for all of us to be on the same page, promoting the bond election, which most certainly will be necessary to get all of this done.
>> my question, though, is why weren't all the -- why weren't all the executive managers listed before?
in other words, it's been modified here.
i want to know why it wasn't listed before as all executive managers.
what happened?
>> what happened was a recognition for diversity of opinion, diversity of perspectives, diversity of backgrounds trumped speed, smallness of that group.
and a recognition that what you saw in the organization chart should have including all of the executive managers in the first draft, and did not.
and I will assume responsibility for that.
and that was an error in judgment and it has now been corrected as a result of a recognition that we need at least one elected official as well as all of the executive managers because one executive -- actually, two executive managers don't reside in the downtown campus, and there's a recognition that those two could testify as to the implications of being approximately 10 minutes away.
so in any event, that general government committee should have been larger, and it is now larger.
with your approval.
>> Commissioner Davis?
>> those are all the questions I had at this point.
>> I chatted with ms.
perez late yesterday.
she prefers to be under richard avery, which is under the data center.
any problem with that?
>> I defer to the wisdom of the court as to how it wishes to direct its executive manager talent to these various committees.
i am happy no matter what.
>> I'm not misstating.
your position is that you would be more effective, more helpful if you were under the six people under the data center committee?
>> yes.
yes, sir.
and my original question given the scope of my responsibility, both over facilities management and over i.t.s., why I was not included as a co-chair under one of those functions.
again, I have responsibility unlike the other two executive managers, unlike joe gieselman, unlike rodney rhodes.
i have direct responsibility for both facilities and data center.
there are about nine people that serve on this committee that work in my department, yet I am not represented.
i had worked on this project and in fact, as you recall, Commissioner Eckhardt, the data center was not part of what we wanted in this master plan because there are other needs, short-term needs in the data center that need to be addressed.
i advised the council -- I advised the court about this about a year ago.
we continue to work on that and as part of this rfq there is a short-term plan for the data center.
dleaf if it were any -- if it were any other organization looking at this, one would expect that the executive that had supervisory responsibility for these important functions would also be included in the -- as part of the steering committee.
so that was my original request I think from an organizational perspective, and you can ask any of the people that you know that have experience in public administration on organizational management that that would indeed be the case.
i understand that there may be some issues or some agenda that would preclude that.
so again, it is the pleasure of the court.
i prefer to be in the data center because I think that that is important.
my first preference as opposed -- is of course to be on the coordinating committee.
i have spoken to my staff and they are of the same sentiment, but we work at the pleasure of the court.
and that's where it lays.
>> well, ms.
perez and I chatted at 6:30, 6:40 yesterday, and I looked at the names here in all of the managers that are involved in some way in the project, but they seem to be involved one time.
so my question to her was, well, if you have to be listed among the managers, would your preference be to be under general government or facilities or data center.
and what you told me was data center.
and my recommendation would be to put her under the data center committee.
some of the others there work in other departments, some in facilities, but instead of her being under the dolores ortega carter, between dolores and roger jeffreys, she would just be after richard avery, we would just slide her over.
so there's a recommendation I would make to the court, and the question is are there recommendations as to the others on this chart?
>> I'm fine with that if that's all right.
does that sound all right?
ms.
perez?
>> again, you know, I work at the pleasure of the court.
i've always promoted a balance between authority and responsibility.
not being part of a planning process that is this large, yet being given the authority -- being given the responsibility of operations seems to be an imbalance.
>> although there is representation from administrative operations on the project steering committee in that one of the project managers is from within the administrative ops as well as representation on the facilities committee and the data center committee from administrative ops as well.
>> yes.
yes, there is.
so I will work through those channels.
i am yet to be told why.
my education, my experience, my work with the historical commission, my knowledge of the heman marion sweatt building, of technology, of courthouses, all those add value, but clearly there are other factors which -- and personal agendas that I think impede my participation.
the court supports those, then I am willing to certainly do as the court wishes.
>> judge, do we have to make a decision on this work chart today?
>> I think we ought to do it right now.
it's part of this.
we don't have to.
>> because this is new information and I'm not prepared to make a decision on it.
>> perhaps we could --
>> the bottom part is new information.
if we've got to delay it, we have to.
i don't know that it would interfere with broaddus' work.
>> I don't think it would, but I certainly want to say that I think truthfully all of the executive managers put in a lot of time on all of the issues that we have assigned to each one.
and alicia, I know you have put a lot of time in to learn all about i.t., the heman sweatt historical commission, the data center, and I just kind of want to make sure that there is a good fit so that all of the energy of everyone is pointing in the same direction so that we don't have any delays for whatever reason.
and I appreciate christian going back and recognizing some kind of error in judgment or exclusion arrest whatever.
i just didn't want anything be exclusive.
and this whole process has to be inclusive.
and that means the inclusion of diversity as we've spoken about here many times, and especially today we've spoken about it a lot.
so we need to kind of put that into practice as well.
and so whatever works for the entire organizational chart.
and I guess I need to to know where all of this fits well.
i'd like to make the decision today.
>> I would second the judge's suggestion.
>> on the change in committee because that was new and because I don't fully understand the dynamics.
>> sometimes it's better not to understand, Commissioner.
>> [ laughter ] but if one week is what you're looking for, we can do the one week courtesy just by pulling this out if we need to do that.
your call.
lts do that then -- let's do that then.
we'll act on the internal organizational chart next week.
>> may I make one point before we move off the subject?
i think it's important for us to recognize that the org chart is about representing perspectives, not necessarily individuals.
so I think the goal of it is to ensure that a diversity of perspectives is represented.
>> christian, you were about to lay out the rest of it?
>> yes.
>> okay.
>> the project is in two phases.
the first phase is a needs assessment through 2035 for 33 county services and departments.
in essence it is to determine what do we need, how much space and what type of adjacent sis and location.
the second phase is a facilities master plan.
now that we know what we need, how do we get it?
looking at the existing buildings, existing land and other land.
the scope of this project is to help develop a consensus on priorities and goals between the Commissioners court, the jewish and other key stakeholders.
it will provide a thorough analysis of our space needs and establish what departments could be relocated to less expensive space outside of the central campus with much more parking than we have here.
it's probably enef table that there would be suggestions to reorganize our functions and spaces based on the goals and improved staffing efficiency.
it will identify project costs for capital renovation.
in essence, establish a road map over the next 25 years for new construction projects and/or expansion.
it will identify potential sites for acquisition and address the challenges that are inherent in any acquisition.
activity.
it will address parking demand, make recommendations.
it will deal with the short and long-term needs of the data center and provide a vision for the central campus.
it will reinforce the central identity between buildings and improvements to the urban fabric.
the schedule is 18 month.
phase 1 is eight months to February 2010.
phase two is 10 months to December 2010.
the organizational structure we've talked about.
the next steps would be a June 5th kickoff for the steering committee made up of the chairs and co-chairs and the project managers and the consultants.
june 24th visioning session, which would take place at the capitol.
legislative conference center, senator watson is our sponsor.
it will hold over 100 people.
next week -- and that visioning session is for county officials to lay out what they see as the major goals and priorities and objectives for not just this study, but for the downtown region.
and we -- with your approval of this contract we would get a save the date out soon and we will also with your permission, we would like to be able to serve the participants at this all day conference some coffee and some water and a lunch and not ask them to take it out of their pocket, but have it be approved for the use of county resources for water and coffee and lunch.
the cost as mentioned are just under $700,000, which is located in the fy 2009 budget.
the budget transfer was made to the planning and budget office.
the phase two is $841,152.
that will be a fiscal year ten budget item.
the leadership of the planning and budget office advises that a capital acquisition resource money should be available.
with your approval of this contract, I would expect that money would be in the preliminary budget.
it's a one-time item for the total cost of just over 1.5 million.
members of the court subcommittee were focused substantially on benchmarking.
how does this cost relate to others?
it is not easy to find equivalent projects around the country because most governments and most private enterprises or universities for that matter have a site, they have a building.
they take the site, they build the building or they have a needs assessment, but the needs assessment is more narrowly focused on juvenile justice or a specific subcategory of functions within an organization.
so it is hard to find across the country organizations that have pursued the dedzth and witdzth and depth of this study.
but we did find johnson county in a suburb of kansas city that in $2,009 spent about a million and a half dollars for a needs assessment and a facilities master plan over decades with identifying over 300 million dollars' worth of construction.
franklin county, which is columbus, ohio, did a similar study.
that was 1.2 million.
and they had 105-million-dollar new court building as part of that study.
the university of Texas has just recently started its needs assessment for the brackenridge tract, that's $5.1 million.
and the city of Austin has approved its downtown planning study and cost of that is $1.4 million.
you have a document that suggests why you should approve this, and perhaps more importantly than any other is the better planning up front.
it means more effective use of taxpayer dollars.
planning dollars are probably arguably the most effective dollars you can spend.
you will do planning.
there is no question.
the question is whether you do planning at the front end or during construction or you do planning to fix the problems that were caused by the construction.
and we are promoting and you have agreed to as part of the rfq to do as much planning up front as you possibly can so that you have a road map and 10 years from now, 15 years from now when some of you are still on the court or there are others on the court, I would expect that the question will be how does this compare to the master plan?
there are clear benefits to the taxpayers demonstrating the county's commitment to thoughtful long-term planning.
the project is complicated.
there is no question.
the downtown campus lacks physical cohesion and identity.
there's no sense of place.
wooldridge park is underutilized.
there is little pedestrian activity.
there's no retail ground floor activity.
there's limited transportation opportunities and there are few architectural features that make the campus a place that people want to visit.
and hopefully this master plan will result in a positive contribution for the urban fabric, a vibrant place where people want to visit and place a face to the government.
we need outside expertise.
there are over 12 technical professional disciplines involved in this study.
over 40 consultants.
this is not done very often.
this is done very infrequently.
county staff is competently focused on more routine tasks.
this is something that an organization does very infrequently, but when it does, it sets the master plan so you have a road map.
county staff has been involved already and will continue to be involved.
we have the -- the planning and budget office has already had a thousand hours for planning guides for all 33 departments involved.
the i.t.s.
is going to be working specifically with the data consultant on identifying data rooms and specific technical aspects of that study.
and the facilities management department has already identified a wide variety of assessment reports that will be available for the many consultants that will be coming in and looking into the existing buildings to assess what are the opportunities for renovation should they stay, should they go?
and that in a nutshell is what this study is about.
>> so the $700,000 that was in the budget items in transfer over the last weeks or couple of weeks ago, which abstained on, I think.
and then on top of this another 800 some-odd thousand dollars that will end up making this total consultant study a total a little more than $1.5 million, that is is that correct?
>> that is correct.
>> a special note, about 20% will be to hub firms.
we have committed to 20% hub participation.
>> I hear what you're saying, but I'm being very reserved on some things.
i may have to abstain on this one too.
i don't know if I want to commit -- because we haven't even identified the source of that other money, the 800 some-odd thousand dollars that's coming up into the fifth year budget.
is that correct?
>> it would be capital acquisition and resource money that is anticipated to be available in the fy 2010 budget.
and with your approval of this budget, my assumption is you will see that $8,941,000 in the preliminary budget, which is presented to you as a draft budget, and our budget officer can speak to that so that you will be able to address the issue in September.
there's a funding outclause should the Commissioners court decide not to fund this.
>> okay.
i understand that, but I'm trying my best to get a hold of next year's budget as best I can.
with projects and everything else, I mean, it's going to be a tough budget year, up through 11.
that's what I'm hearing.
that's what they have been telling me all along.
i'm still really concerned about this project and other projects that we haven't really gone through the budget cycle yet and we're doing things to them.
i'm very nervous about this.
and by all rights I should be nervous.
but anyway, if you want to say something about the situation coming up in the next budget as far as laying it out for the preliminary budget and having everything laid out before us, it's something else.
i haven't seen it yet.
i don't know what's going to be laid out overall that I may want to give other priorities to other than this.
so I'm kind of concerned about doing things prematurely.
maybe it will be phases.
i don't know.
but right now I'm just very nervous about this, I really am.
i'm just expressing my sentiment.
>> mr.
rhodes?
>> yes, sir.
the commitment this past summer for the current year's, fiscal year's budget, the 700,000 that was put into reserve and transferred last week was done so with an acknowledgment that that would -- we anticipate it would cover the phase one costs in this contract that's before you today and it does in fact do that.
phase two, if the court approves the contract, it's my anticipation that we will include that in the preliminary budget.
of course, the court will have the discretion of whether to approve that at the end of the day, but we do anticipate that it will be included as a part of the fy 2010 budget and the appropriations will be made accordingly.
>> well --
>> so the different part is that in addition to a needs analysis, some master planning has to be done.
and phase two is basically master planning.
>> yes.
>> and that's what we asked for in the r.f.p.?
>> yes.
>> okay.
that was a little higher than I either thought it would be or hoped it would be.
but looking around, it looks like these services are pretty expensive at the u.t., city of Austin, other jurisdictions that have done this kind of work in the past.
so we talked about doing this, I guess, how long?
>> long time.
>> years.
>> 1998 is when the first identification of over $200,000, 200,000 square feet of space was needed for a new civil courthouse.
that was over a decade ago.
we still need a new civil courthouse.
that's a key driver of this.
in the meantime, we also have extraordinary space shortages in county-owned facilities in the downtown region.
and we have extraordinary constraints in the downtown region.
there are underutilizes pieces of land that the county owns that are controlled by capitol view corridors which this study intends to retain and honor and respect those capitol view corridors.
>> thank you.
>> you're welcome.
so when you look at the county owned land and you look at a map, it is not obvious where to put what is needed.
and if it were obvious we would have done it awhile ago, I submit.
>> and the other thing that the restraint of space does as well is for cars, not only for people, but for cars.
and one of the promising things that I saw here that I liked is that we will consider alternate transportation, modes of transportation to the downtown area, which has forever been addressed as a goal of trying to minimize the number of cars downtown.
and so I'm very enthusiastic about the fact that that's part of the city that will take place.
and I think that will address the shortage of space.
and better utilization of the existing space.
and so that was a did thing to include -- that was a good thing to include.
>> any other comments from committee members?
>> I would like to thank tinnily for her hard work on this and richard in my office.
and anybody else I didn't mention.
>> I am concerned that because of our space constraints that without contracting for these services, although it is a high price tag, that this commitment will increase the quality of life for our employees in the central business district enormously as well as the experience of the public in seeking out services from the county.
and it will -- my hope is that it will be money very well spent on both of these -- in both of these agreements.
>> any other discussions?
comments?
your request for a week delay went --
>>
>> [inaudible - no mic].
>> move approval of the proposed contract.
>> second.
>> discussion?
are we all shocked by that motion?
>> [ laughter ]
>> we're just happy.
>> but this is the commitment to the phase one, which is covered in the budget.
and then we'll see what comes of this particular phase.
and then we can see what the next phase covers as well as the money that will be required to cover that phase.
>> not quite.
>> well, the money's not there for phase two yet.
>> correct, but the contract is.
>> so it will have to go through the budget process, though.
and which is what Commissioner Davis is addressing.
>> when I said no --
>> but that's the way we work here.
>> right.
when I said not quite, the contract is for phase one and phase two.
phase one would be fully funded.
phase two has a funding outclause so that if the Commissioners court decided that it did not want to fund phase two, it could pull the plug in September.
but the contract is for both.
>> so we still have to look for the money.
>> and the scope of work has been marked out too for all of it.
it's just a matter of funding next budget here to continue.
>> contract of phases one and two.
phase two is not funded.
we'll address that during the budget process.
if for some reason we cannot afford phase two, we don't budget the money, either broaddus works free or broaddus stops working.
>> correct.
>> but our intention is to do one and two.
needs analysis, followed by the master planning.
we think the results of these two phases will form our land use decisions really for decades to come.
this is one of those future decades documents, not just a few years.
however, we -- it's left up to us whether we follow it.
we did a little campus study.
did we do that in-house completely?
we did a little campus in-house study that I guess we followd for a couple of months or a couple of years and sort of abandoned that.
>> it followed very well until you got to the complexity of the downtown.
and the last decisions about who truly needs to be down here and how you want to use your assets.
so I think this is an analysis that picks up that last piece and takes it to a different level so you can make more decisions than you could with the in-house plan.
>> any more discussion of the motion?
all in favor?
show Commissioners Eckhardt, Gomez, Huber and yours truly voting in favor.
>> and Commissioner Davis abstain for the reasons that I stated earlier.
>> okay.
Commissioner Davis abstaining.
thank you very much for your hard work.
cid, you made a friend in tinley in that process, as you stated a moment ago.
>> I hope I didn't make any enemies.
>> thank you.
>> thank y'all very much.
we'll have that chart back on next week.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, May 19, 2009 2:00 PM