Travis County Commissioners Court
November 13, 2007
Item 24
24 is consider and take appropriate action on request to approve first amendment to road construction agreements with village at north town, sealy-heatherwilde and new wells point partners for the construction of improvements to heatherwilde boulevard and wells branches park way in precincts 1 and 2.
>> I apologize for the mass amount of documentation I asked to you take a look at.
>> thanks.
>> steve, it's a lot closer than where it was before. You kind of let it percolate up to the top because it was really just a job bringing this stuff together. But anyway, go ahead.
>> that's okay. This is probably the most complicated public-private arrangement that we have. Of all eight or nine of our public-private partnerships, this one involves three separate developers, three separate public agencies and three consulting firms. The original agreement started as two road construction agreements with three different developers. Those agreements were consummated in 2005. Since that time, the developers have been working to get the design of the project completed. And according to the roads of -s of the road construction agreement they pay all expenses up until construction. As they got into the design, we invited the city of Austin into the process and they wanted certain elements added to the project that was beyond what we would have expected to pay for so they agreed to pay for them because we didn't think they were sensible. The city wanted them nonetheless. This amendment brings everything up to current date. It allows several things to happen. Number one, we're very close to bidding the project now so they want to bring a construction manage other board and I agree with that. This is one of the larger projects, it's got several parts to it that are more complicated than many of our projects. $13 million is what the construction estimate will be. It's something that I think it's best to bring someone in to keep track of it, monitor it, do the testing, deal with the construction contractor if issues come up, and so I think it's worth that additional cost. Also during the design process the primarily consultant who was working for the developer lost their project engineer. He went to another firm. And so during this last eight months, they've been struggling to wrap everything up and so we'll use that same firm that the developers want to use for construction management to help wrap everything up and get the documents bid ready. So they've been working on that as well. What the amendment actually does is it allows the developers to reorganize themselves as a limited liability company. It introduces into the agreement bringing in the construction management official, hntb. It ajust the cost that their prime consultant consort have expended on the project. They've done more things that were originally envision understand the original scope including design work for the city of Austin, which the city will be paying for separately. It will introduce into the -- into the agreement with them that we will be including city of Austin work in the project. A portion of the project is in the city's full purpose jurisdiction and so what you have included as an exhibit to the amendment now is that interlocal which has already been approved by the court so you do not need to sign. That the interlocal still needs to go to city council which is now scheduled for November 29th.
>> that won't interfere with the notice to proceed?
>> no, sir. The actual schedule will be that they will bid the project out during December.
>> okay.
>> so all these should be in place. Another moving piece to this is the north town mall wanted us to incorporate in the project the waterline. Included in the backup is exhibit no.5 that is a draft of the north town m.u.d. Agreement. I am not asking you to sign off on that yet. I知 still working with chris and the m.u.d.'s attorney to wrap that up and I値l bring that back as a separate agenda request. Just so you can see the form of the agreement, it is included here as well.
>> and just for grins, what's the difference between 24 and 24 revised?
>> there were two things that are important to us. One is the bottom line number of the county's cost change, about $60,000. And the reason for that is there was an error in the original spread sheet so we corrected that and then we also allocated the funds for the testing for the project. The cost of going out and doing the density test and keeping track of materials, that sort of thing. We had allocated that incorrectly in the original spread sheet so now that's been corrected. One thing to keep in mind on all of these numbers, particularly the construction dollars is this is an estimate, and the estimate has been increased a certain percentage to account for unforeseen conditions, contingencies, material escalation prices, so these numbers will change. I think these numbers are a bit on the conservative side so hopefully that rings true and we won't have to pay this much. All the numbers will change again once we get the bids open. We know exactly what we're dealing with and we can rework the numbers from there. The other issues of issue on the revised document you got this morning is that we did complete exhibit 6 which identifies all the costs that the different developers have paid up to this point in time. Moneys that they've paid to consort, moneys they have paid to hntb are all identified on there. And they want that to be a part of the amendment just so there's no confusion over what they've spent and when the time comes for us to start giving them credit, we understand exactly what they spent and what share of their expenditures are ours. It's more of an auditing type of document than anything else. I could go through each exhibit1 by one if you want just to make you comfortable with it. The first document is the amendment. Like I said, the amendment has all the exhibits supporting it. Basic is the reorganizing as a limited liability company and they are incorporating a lot of the exhibits into it which means bring on hntb, dealing with the city of Austin, dealing with the north town m.u.d. Exhibit 1 is is the master agreement they have developed with hntb corporation which in effect brings hntb under contract with them to do the construction management for the project. Hntb also did some work for the developers as an engineer rather than a construction manager and that was to get the project ready forbids and they are still doing that work today, working in concert with consort engineering. Again, consort lost their project engineer six or eight months ago so they've been struggling to get this thing wrapped up.
>> steve, let me say something to you real quick like. The portion of the city as far as their participation in all of this and we are going to go out for bids on this project in December of this year --
>> yes, sir.
>> -- would we -- would anything that has to go through the city interfere with you going out for bid in December to make sure we get the notice to proceed in February as far as scheduling concerns? Would that alter anything, what shape, form or fashion?
>> we're in good shape with the city, Commissioner.
>> pardon me?
>> we are in good shape with the city. They have to go to city council at the end of this month for approval. Staff is going to recommend approval of the interlocal.
>> cook.
>> and the one thing that's not entirely tied down is the north town m.u.d. Agreement and I値l talk to that in just a second. The master agreement and the supplement to that, that is a document that was created between the developers and hntb corporation and we've reviewed that. Hntb, by the way, would also be required to sign a collateral assignment. That's a document we're using on all these public-private agreements wherein if the developer fails to perform for whatever reason, then we can take over the contract arrangement with hntb or consort or anyone else they have a contract with. Exhibit2 is the changes to the consort engineering agreement. It started out as two different documents with the different developers. What we're doing subpoena dating the prices. The additional changes this the scope of work. As they got into design, things came up that were unforeseen that they still had to work through to get the design included and we added in the city of Austin design work for the elements they wanted. That's bringing that up to date. Exhibit 3 is just a location map showing where we are going to be building for detention and water quality ponds. These -- three of the four are solely to be used by the -- for the roadway purposes. The fourth one is being used 30% by -- for road purposes and 70% by the developers and they are paying for 70% of that facility for that reason. Otherwise in the very original agreement the county agreed the pay for the design and construction entirely for the water quality pond. The wells branch parkway agreement that you've already approved is exhibit no.4. You need to take no action on that. We're just awaiting city approval. The north town m.u.d. Agreement, which is in draft form, we still have to work out the final details with the m.u.d. Essentially what it does is the m.u.d. Is asking us to include in the documents the extension of a waterline. They are paying for all the design using paid engineering. They will pay for the construction, even paying hntb to do the construction management and that will all be incorporated into this agreement and brought back to you for approval. Hopefully in November or early December. Item 6 I値l smengs a breakdown of the expenses that the developers have already paid out to consort, to hntb and to their own selves for doing the design work on this. And number 7 is the spread sheet that shows how all these costs are allocated amongst the different parties. That's in a nutshell everything you've got before you.
>> let me mention that this on the -- may need to be -- as far as looking at the wells branch go from four to six lanes.
>> that's correct.
>> and, of course, on the heatherwilde end it would maintain that ratio but would give you four lanes.
>> that's right. The scope -- it's been a while since you have heard about this project. I should give a brief description. What we've got is two campo arterial roadways. Heatherwilde boulevard which does not exit today, and a section of wells branch that does not exist today. The limits of the project are heatherwilde will extend northward from the intersection of howard lane at mcgowan pass, which is a few miles east of i-35. It will go due north and intersect with an existing intercession. Wells branch parkway will take off from that intersection and go due east to cross into the city of Pflugerville city limits, and they just completed a four-lane roadway from that point farther east to immanuel road. So wells branch parkway in the campo plan is intended to be a six-lane roadway. The developers dedicated right-of-way for all six lanes. They designed it as six but are only required to build four. At some point in the future another two lanes will be added. We're talking approximately two miles. The construction time once we get started will be 15 to 18 months. Can included in the construction are two pretty large culvert crossings. One is the 13 cell box culvert structure, the other is a 6 cell box cull certificate which in our standard will be considered bridges when txdot does their inspections. They also have a signalized intersection and a modification to the signalized intersection at howard lane and mcgowan pass.
>> and also within that context, the heatherwilde and also the wells branch construction, at least the length of the construction, will be about one mile for each.
>> one mile for heatherwilde, one mile wells branch.
>> two miles of construction.
>> correct.
>> so this is a real big deal here and something
>> [inaudible].
>> they also have -- excuse me, Commissioner -- sidewalks and bike lanes are included in this.
>> so I壇 like to move approval if we can with the recommendation -- if anybody has any questions, that's fine, but I would like to move forward with this.
>> have we previously approved the agreements that you just described?
>> we have road construction agreements that were approved in 2005. One in January of 2005 and the other one in December of 2005.
>> okay. Because based on the wording of the item, we are requested to approve the first amendment.
>> correct. This is the first amendment to those agreements.
>> to agreements already approved.
>> that's correct.
>> okay. So what is the agreement as to bids that come in under or over these cost estimates?
>> the estimate -- we have included in the -- with the road construction agreements and that's also included in this amendment, we have what we call agreed limits for the construction cost. And for the county I think it's like 7.5 million and the developers together is about another $7 million. Those numbers will float up or down depending on what we actually receive. If it goes down, then our number goes down. If it goes up, then we need to decide do we --
>> [inaudible] to try to bring the number down the our agreed limits or do we depending on the magnitude decide to put up more money and move on forward with the construction of it.
>> okay. The additional amounts that you mention today, 60,000 was one I recall that is already in the budget.
>> we have that fund. We have these funds accounted for either today specifically for that project or we have a source of funds that we could use to off set or to fill in any gaps that we have. There are 2001 bond moneys remaining in precinct 2, and this started out at a precinct 1 project, but there are 2001 bond moneys from administrative cost savings where money we pay our staff to administer the bond program. There's a large of amount of money that we never used. There's money left over from another project in precinct 2 that we never used and that would be used to fill in any gab. Keep in mind there's a 15% contingency on this number. So to me that's kind of high for something that's this close to going out for bids. I don't expect we'll have a significant need for additional funds.
>> do you see any -- we've been waiting a long time on a very complicated public-private partnership. It's exceedingly complicated public-private partnership. Do you see any other probable road blocks to have it completed by -- what was it? The fall of --
>> on the best case I think we can get it done in 15 months. So if we start in January, the spring of '09. It could go a few more months beyond that depending on weather or things we didn't foresee. I could say we did do a constructability review. On the size of this one, I felt it was worth the additional expense of that. Another thing working in our favor, this is all new alignment. In other words, it's being built where there's no road today so you don't have to deal with traffic. You can just go out there and build it and pretty much get it done. I think that will help us a lot as well.
>> I値l second your motion.
>> thank you.
>> mr. Davis moves approval, Commissioner Gomez seconds. Any more discussions? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> steve, let me know when the city of Austin acts on that portion that they have, that interlocal.
>> I saw their agenda for the 29th and it's on there.
>> thank you.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, November 14, 2007, 18:30 AM