Travis County Commissioners Court
March 6, 2007
Item 22
Number 22 is to consider and take appropriate action on request to approve a participation agreement between Travis County and a private developer for improvements to elroy road in precinct four. By the way, Commissioner eckhardt has a sick child at home and will not be with us this afternoon.
>> good afternoon, I’m from t and l public works. What we have before you today is a participation agreement with the developer to complete a 2001 bond project, which will improve the road from an existing two-shoulder section roadway between fm 973 and mckenzie to the east about 1.5 miles, convert to go a four-way roadway, curb and guttered, with turn lanes. We originally started in 2001 as a bond project but before that had a phasing agreement with the developer who is developing the property out there. They kind of were married together into this document. This is the third time we have had this before the court. Reason being is that after each time we have presented to the court, the developer has looked harder at it and wanted to make changes to it and wanted to continue the negotiations. Third time being the charm, this time we made him sign it before we brought it before you. So it is in your court, whether or not you want to approve as it is. It includes elements of the developer being responsible for the construction manage management. He has already bid the project for us, and that resulted in a significant cost savings below what our engineer's estimate of $1.1 million. I truly believe that's because of the developer went through, he used a competitive process, but had he limited the number of contractors that he to ones that he--that he approached to ones that he knew could do the work and efficiently. He got a very good price from a firm that e e had done business with in the past and that resulted in a very significant savings. He also wants to manage the construction process for us, that is do the day-to-day monitoring, materials and testing, taking care of quality control, getting it done on time within budget.
>> we know that he can do that.
>> yes, sir.
>> he has done it before.
>> yes, not in this capacity but as a developer building infrastructure in that part the county.
>> okay.
>> including also is several real estate transactions. He owned property that we needed for our project. He wanted some property that we would no longer need once our project was in place. We went back and forth on the values of those different trades and ultimately came to agreement on that. That's included in here as well. We are giving him credit towards the amount that he would pay towards the design and construction of the process for the value of the property that we are getting from him. The value of the property, of his prompt was was--of the property was more than the value of ours. He is getting credit towards the design and construction cost. The project is broken into three segments. Splitting the project is sh 130. To the west is a small piece that we are referring to as segment one, and that piece of it is designed by our consultant. It will meet the management and construction will be by the developer. Segment two runs from the east side to the elementary school and that piece was designed by our consultant and construction will be managed by the developer. Segment 3 runs from the school over to mckenzie road and that segment was designed by the developer and he will manage the construction of that. He is poised to begin construction of segments one and two on March 15 assuming the court approves this. Included in that is a road closure that we brought to the court last October, and we will go ahead and proceed with that road closure. Segment 3, when the design of that gets done, currently underway by the developer's consultant, will be probably added by change order. In doing that we will complete that and we'll have a complete roadway, four- four-lane, from fm 973 to mckenzie road. Those are the major elements I can recall, tom, do you have anything else to bring up? It's been a long negotiation process but we are ready to go now.
>> the encrotchment of sh 130 that goes through and also crosses fm 812, will that basically, what type of improvements are they going to be making there as far as impacting 812? Right now you have maybe, you know, two lanes on each side going each way, going into elroy ondown into 21 and points south. My concern, though, is this far enough away where it won't be any direct relationship with the 812, with the sh 130 over 812 for this particular project? Won't be any impact on that at all ?
>> Commissioner, I think there will be some impact but I think the majority of the trafficrb the people are passing from east to west and going back home in the evenings through this area, most likely going to go to the north of that whole area.
>> okay.
>> they will use pierce lane.
>> okay.
>> some people that need to go that direction. For whatever reason, the construction of had this section of 130 has been kind of in a holding patrpment we actually expected it to be underway right now. The interchange at elroy has been hung up because of utility conflicts, which we can fully appreciate those kind of problems. We still think, though, that they will be able to get though interchange under construction during the time that we have our road closure in place. So as to minimize the amount of disruption that the community will have to deal with.
>> okay. Thank you.
>> you're welcome.
>> we are dealing with a 50- 50-50 ard ner ship agreement at one point.
>> yes.
>> and it became 70-30. I didn't understand how that happened.
>> it actually flippedlve for segments one and two it's 70-30 where the county pays 70 and the developer 30 and in segment three it switched. The reason, the original phase agreement was set up as a 50-50 split but the time we got to the 2001 bond referendum, things had changed. Our design standards had changed, the sh 130 impacts on the roadway system had changed, all resulting in a different design than what was contemplated at the time of the phasing agreement. You have a thicker pave am section, much more expensive expensive. We now have water quality and retention component that we didn't have in 2001. Those were elthat were not contemplated at the time of the phasing agreement. They were add ons by the county so we felt it appropriate that the pick that additional cost up. That's where we are at 70 percent for segments one and two and 30 percent for him. On the other side, the developer initiated the re realignment of elroy road for that segment. Initially in the bond bond-- bond--referendum our charge was to get the road to mckenzie, actually elroy as well on the east side, and we had a straight section of road between those two point point. The developer proposed, you know, if you allow me to change the alignment of el elroy on the east end, I can put a s curve in it and line up with elroy road coming in from the east and then you no longer have the stair- stair-step type of an intersection situation, which is always ber, safer and more efficient. Since he initiated that we thought he should pay for the higher share of that. He would have had to pay more for construction because he owned both sides of the road and it's part of the development process.
>> so what's the percentage on segment three?
>> sorry, I didn't catch.
>> ing isment one and two county pays 70 percent, he pays 30.
>> screckcorrect.
>> what's the percentage breakdown on three ?
>> he pays 70, we pay 30.
>> that's what I was looking for. Second ?
>> okay.
>> Commissioner Gomez's motion to approve. Anymore discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Thank you very much.
>> thank you.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, March 7, 2007 8:00 AM