Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, August 31, 2010,
Item 10
Number 10 is consider and take appropriate action arting county property at 700 lavaca. A, confuse of external project management, b, scope of services, c, directions on how to proceed, and d, appropriate construction delivery methods. What we have in mind is a brief discussion. We will take action on this item next week or two weeks from today, whenever we're posted. Okay?
>> good afternoon, cyd grimes, travis county purchasing agent. As we are all aware, we have been discussing with how we are going to proceed getting us moved into the 700 lavaca building and, of course, roger and my office along with p.b.o. And the auditors have served on a core team for many months for a lot of different reasons. Now we're getting down to where roger and i are probably the two co-team chairs and it's time for us to get the work done. And we came forward several months ago with a scope of work to hire someone to austin the first and second floors, the commissioners court courtroom and the media and some of the elected officials. At that time there was discussion of perhaps doing this some other way. So i believe on your agenda a there was a -- there's a discussion about how we should proceed with external project management for the project in whole or in part. And we also under b have a scope of services for you to approve and also get direction on how to proceed with the requests for qualifications. And then other appropriate construction measures. As it is now, we came to you and discussed that we have certain contracts in place that we can use for -- we have pulled architects and engineers. In fact, we hired one of our engineers out of the pool of partners to do the m.e.p. Work on the infrastructure. They have done the design for electrical replacement, the fire alarm system and fire protection. We are now at the point of making a decision on how we proceed to procure those services. Whether we use our job or the contracts that have already been placed, whether we combine the three damages into one and so we have decisions to make on how to proceed. The big decision is how we do this, whether we hire outside assistants but who will be the overall project manager. At this time that is facilities management so we're here to get direction to proceed as we sort of have planned on proceeding.
>> if i can go ahead and recall some things, we have used architects from the outside on big projects such as the jail that wouldn't lock. Then we had the fiasco of the c.j.c. And in each of those projects we did not have a county representative at the table. We needed a lot of help in understanding the skill set that would help us understand, you know, what the outside folks were doing and so that we would know how to respond and get that project done on time and on budget. We didn't do that very well for quite a while. But i think after the c.j.c., we told ourselves and told each other that we wanted to have an approach where we had a representative at the table to make sure that there was, you know, a checkoff. The outside and the inside folks doing a cross-check to make sure that nothing was left unturned. And the other thing was that we learned from that process, we learned from making those mistakes. Now, the -- i think i've been here and we've done it both ways. The mistakes that people make are done by external as well as internal folks. It just seems to come with humanity. And -- but we said that we wanted to learn from those processes that got us into, you know, a situation that we're not proud to get into. We didn't want to do that again. And so i think when we moved on to thousand that we're moving on to other projects, we are making sure that every single person who will be affected by this project can sign off, and we want to make sure that they have participated in the decision-making so that no one comes up at the last minute and says i didn't get it consulted. And so all of that, though, with the c.j.c. As well, we wound up having to hire, i think, three external firms to help us reach the point of recovering from the things that were not done right, and we finally, finally after many months of hard work, of trying to gather all that information together so that we could go to court. I hate to go to court. I really do. I mean i've seen architectural firms go down the drain because they are having to -- we're having to take them to court. But i think -- and i really don't want to see that stuff happen again. But i think when we -- part of the other thing that we said we wanted to learn from the c.j.c. Lessons was that we needed to have someone to represent the county's interests. And i think from there we moved to having facilities management, having a mechanical engineer on staff, having an architect or architects on staff so that those skill sets would be there to negotiate with the other sides. And there are many, many areas that need negotiation. And so i have all of those experiences in memory. I remember those as if they were yesterday and they are not very nice. And i don't want to repeat and i think i've said it before, i don't want to repeat that. So i think we need to come up with the best of what we can do in order to deliver a good project to the constituents in this county and still keep in mind we want things built on time and in budget, on budget. And many times if you can do it under budget, that's better. And i think that the facilities management department has done a very good job in bringing several projects in under budget. Now, that saves money for constituents. And then it also makes money available for the next project. So we don't have to go back to the general fund to pull money out for an additional project. So i think we have some very good positive things going here and we do have some projects that we will have that will go out for bids. So we'll have external and we'll have internal folks working on those projects. And so it sounds like i'm going toward on a, to just the external project management in part the way it's already in our policy, in our stance and our practice. The way we have done it before. And all of this just comes from lessons learned. I remember those lessons and so i want to still save money for constituents.
>> commissioner gomez, to clarify, you are saying that you would like for fm to be the project manager overall on the project.
>> i think that protects the county's interests and the constituents' interests. And i think it protects everybody's interests. As well. I don't know of any time that you go into negotiations where the interest of both sides is not represented.
>> even if we use external project manager, we're still going to have an owner representative who is facilities manager.
>> absolutely. Absolutely.
>> they would be involved.
>> yeah, because it's very much -- you know, you are going to resolve issues, and how can you resolve issues if only one side is at the table. You know, and i think that is what's happened to news the past and i don't want to see that repeated.
>> none of us do.
>> first i would just like to frame my discussion because i've been the one that's been proposing that we use an external project manager for this project. And also consider some different construction delivery methods. I want to make it very clear from the get go that my comments both in the backup that i have provided and the questions i have asked, i am not in any way indicating that i lack confidence in our facilities management department. I think that their integrity is high and that they have a track record that they've demonstrated, and i know as a new member on the court, i know that the court sets the policies and procedures in and our departments do their best to follow them. And one of the things that i want to set out here, though, is the frame of reference i have and where i'm coming from on this. As many of you know, i've been involved in real estate development. The 700 lavaca style building is the kind of buildings i worked with. And i've seen disasters like we reference from the jail situation. And i've seen great projects. One of the things that i would like to say here is that when we look at 700 lavaca building, it's a very different building from any of the ones i've seen that the county has worked on. I mean, we have a category of jails and corrections and just general administrative buildings, but we've never to my knowledge in recent history had a building that's a class a building with existing tenants in it. This is a very different animal. And i want to be careful as we make choices on -- for how we're going to go about this that we've considered all the moving parts because some of the moving parts on this are different. One of the things i'd like to point out and i think we may have a bigger picture here that we may want to look at at atanother time, it looks to e like, and i've spent time studying, after the jail experience like you indicated, we realized we didn't have all the right pieces in place. So we set about the building facilities department that could better represent the county. I want to say that i think that they've done a very good job of trying to do that through the years, but that was 15 years ago and we started doing things a certain way then and still to a certain extent from a construction management standpoint are doing them the same way now. The private sector industry, not just the private sector, other public institutions as well are using different methods of construction delivery in the last 10, 15 years because they have refined the process so that you don't have the cost overruns, the time delays, the litigation. And i want to be real careful that as we make the decisions on how we go about 700 lavaca renovation, that we take into account the different type of building and the changes in the industry that might benefit us. I want to be careful that we didn't after the jail on this extreme swing all the way over here in a methodology that may not work for 700 lavaca here. We have learned lessons much we need a good owner's rep. We need someone from inside the county that can evaluate what's going on outside the county from a standpoint of contractors. But we need that balance. We need to be sure that balance is in place. There is -- there is a number of things about 700 lavaca and the reason i feel that we should use an external project manager to manage the entire project that are unique, and one of them is the fact we've got existing tenants. With expectations that may be different and will be different from the -- the county employees that our facilities management is used to working with and around. We've got two things going on at the same time in this building. We've got a renovation on floors 1 and 2 that we're looking having an outside engineering and architecture firm design and develop. We've got 3 through 15 that we're planning to use our internal people for. And i should say construction like this and renovation like this is a management of problems. We should not go into it thinking that we're not going to have problems. It's just innate in the construction industry. What we need to do as we structure our process for this building is look at the pieces that will help us minimize those problems. And i feel that for this type of building and the fact that we have not done a building like this with f.m. In the management capacity around these kind of tenants, that we would be better off looking externally -- and i'm no, ma'am says they can't do it, i'm saying they focus skill efforts on other areas. But we've got people out there in the industry who do this on a daily basis working with the tenants and we need to retain those tenants and keep them happy. And i think we will be able to move the project faster and better control.
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>> if, for example, we have one of our facilities management people as the lead project manager -- and by the way, i cannot stress enough how important enough it is to have one important decision maker.
>> we had fluor daniel on the criminal justice center. That was a very big deal for us and it wasn't that we -- i think we did go a long way to addressing many of the issues with the criminal justice building in developing in-house resources and talents, but no matter how many health resources -- in-house resources an talents we have, if we don't have a single point of contact we're in danger of repeating the criminal justice building.
>> but it is extremely important because in the cjc issue or internal staff was the one that had to come up with all of the sheets of numbers and all of the details of the contracts. And prepare for a lawsuit. And that was a complicated lawsuit and you know, i would rather not go into litigation. So let's do all of these things up front. And prepare for them. We know what's going to happen already. We went through the cjy, maybe you didn't; i did. So i mean, i remember those lessons. That came in between the jail and the 700 lavaca. But i think it's complicated.
>> it was very complicated.
>> i think the ability to have our in-house fmd staff there right there with the external budget manager is the checks and balances we need. I personally with my fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayers, i want someone i can fire if they're not doing their job. I want someone that's liable for the management of this. It makes it easier for we hire someone who we think is really qualified to do it, but if they're not doing it, we can change. If we put our internal person over the whole project, we don't quite have that flexibility. And this is too important for us not to be able to track the right way with it.
>> you know, i was here during that timeline that commissioner gomez eloquently has brought forth, and it was a nightmare. It was an ever living nightmare. It was hell. And the error and omissions that were in this situation, the change orders that i ended up looking and investigating over five million dollars in estimated change orders, you haven't -- i guess over 16 primes doolg with this project, all these generals. I called them generals back then. I didn't call them primes. That's what you had. You had -- of course you mentioned fluor daniels, but then you had a and e, architect and engineering, that was external, not internal. And facilities management didn't have the oversight. This thing started way back -- awhile back, and voters had approved bonds, a little more than $67.7 million and it's my understanding basically looking at the gault building. And maybe trying to do some of that and end up looking at maybe a four-story t.j. C building. Of course, we end up with a nine story building. But even in that arena you had all these independent moving parts, in other words, structural organizational parts, that was an absolute nightmare. I don't want to revisit that, commissioner. I had came on just, i guess, a little after a lot of this had gotten started and thank goodness i was out here to help put out firefighter. -- to help put out the fire with that particular court at that time. And we even had to bring folks in as an independent situation to satisfy a lot of en's that we had to pay a lot of money to to help us put out the fire. We had subs that were not being paid. You had over five million dollars in change orders. We spent about $95 million for that building. And you look -- not for that building, but because it was a situation where we dealt with the del valle complex and along with this building here. And of course, i feel that we need internal control. (indiscernible) came in late and they weren't a part of the process. We kind of let the folks do the contracting and run off and do what they want to do. I'm not going to let that happen again, not on my watch. There's just no way in the world. I'm not going to go internal now. As far as the design, first and second floor, i have no problem with that, but it need to be policed with the project manager. It need to be policed with the project manager from the first floor all the way to the 15th floor, and i would like to have some say on who the project manager it and especially if they're accountable to me, travis county. Where no one else can make a decision like the situation that happened years ago. And commissioner, i want to aplowed plawd you. I'm not chewing you out. I don't want you to think that. I want to applaud you for looking deep into the situation and come up with maybe something that you think is a better solution, but from my standpoint of view,, the solution is for someone here that has a good track record as far as things they have done, buildings that they've been involved with since 2000 to 2010 and errors and emissions -- the change orders. Like i said, it was a nightmare. We spent a lot of time in executive session dealing with a lot of stuff.
>> and you shouldn't have had to.
>> i know. I'm going to make sure we don't this time.
>> i want to make sure we don't do it this time either.
>> and i know we differ. We differ on different things, but believe me, i would like to have some control over what goes on and i would like to have internal control from beginning to end. I do not object to design or add a and e for the first and slekd floor, but i want it policed by internal mechanism, which means fmd will police that. And again, because they will make sure that a to z, all the i's are cot d.o.t.ed, t's are crossed, this is what didn't happen before in the past. And again, there was litigation, a lot of other things happen. I don't want to call no names out per se as far as who was all involved with that stuff, but we had to deal with it. Three members of this court that had to deal with it in fact. I don't want to revisit it. I want to make sure we have some control mechanisms in place whereby i don't have to visit that thing again. It was a nightmare, believe me. Thank you.
>> commissioner?
>> i know the county attorney's office doesn't want to revisit that time period either. I was at the county attorney's office during that time period. I think that we're unified in we're not wanting to have an unduly contentious or worst yet litigious circumstance coming out of 700 lavaca. I want to throw out a metaphor here. What my concern is is that we have developed considerable internal talents that are serving us well in certain categories of architectural and engineering requirements inside the county. But i am mindful of not asking a jazz dancer to critique a ballet dancer. I think that 700 lavaca we don't have internal resources and are not well versed in -- not because this is any fault of fmd, this is just because it's an unusual circumstance. We are not well verse understand doing a class a office building that is-- that contains a number of tenants that are not government -- not beholden to us in any way for whom we really need to retain. So i am concerned. I don't know whether a third-party manager would address these concerns, but i am concerned that we are not well versed in tenant management. We are not well versed in the architecture and maintenance of class a hi rises. And we are not well versed in conflict resolution between ballet dancer type teblghts of these sorts -- architects of these sorts of spaces and contractors for the building of these sorts of spaces. I voiced early on my concern that we really didn't have the in-house ability to do the kind of design work on what amounted to a theatrical space. I'm also concerned that we don't have the oversight capabilities to credbly second-guess the architecture, engineering and construction of what amounts to a theatrical space. And i do very much want the first and second floor design to be part of an integrated hole with the third through 15th -- floors 3 through 15. I think that we -- i'm glad we're going to take more time on this because i'm not sure that the silver bullet is the third-party contract manager, but i wanted to ask perhaps mr. Gatti to illuminate us. I don't want to leave it on the criminal justice building. Building 12 went very well and we had a third-party contractor -- a third-party to manage the contract both at design phase and then continued that third-party contract to manage -- to -- for over sight on the construction phase along with you, the project manager from a construction standpoint. Is that similar or -- how is that similar, how is that different from how we're proposing to move forward with this project?
>> well, i'm glad you mentioned that project, commissioner.
>> because that was very successful. It was a success, y'all.
>> thank you for that. We would agree. That was the case where we hired hok as a design-build consultant. They weren't actually engaged in the project management of the overall project, facilities management department managed the entire project from the beginning all the way through from the procurement of the design-build consultant and the development of the bridging documents, planning, programming and the procurement of the design-builder themselves and all the way through the construction. We retained hlk with the court's blessings to stay on as a design-build consultant all the way through the project. And yes, it was a different project. I mean, we had done jail projects before obviously, but we had never done one of this scope this size. It was the largest single project that travis county, i believe, and for sure facilities management it done up to that point. And there were -- court was understandably had a lot of questions and wanted to make sure we were going in the right direction with that project. It was our first design-build project. It was substantial. Usually when you start a new project like a new effort like a design-build, it's good to start small, but we started big. And it did, it did work out very successful. There's a lot of reasons for that. It was good we had hlk on board, but we effort of breaking my own arm, i would like the facilities management, i think we helped make that successful. Not only facilities, i had -- we had great support from the county attorney, from the purchasing office, various other and of course the commissioners court and various other county departments. So it was a team effort. And don't let me forget the sheriffs. They were a great partner in helping us with that project too. All these projects, a team effort is critical. Facility management has been a team player with the county for many years. We have racked up 10 years of -- since the cjc project. We've learned a lot from that bond program and we're -- i think we've had a lot of successes in the last years. We've avoided litigation. We haven't had to go back to the court to ask for more money on our projects. And i believe we've proven ourselves and we would love the opportunity to continue to improve on our self.
>> i would like to add to ken's comments and congratulate him on his successful project. His experience mirrors my own in being the project manager for the gardner-betts expansion and renovation project, which is a major -- over20-million-dollar bond project in about 10 years ago also. And what was key for our success in that project was that the project manager understood the county and how the county does business and how to engage the county partner departments as well as the user departments to get decisions made on a timely business and keep the project on track. And that project also, as ken mentioned, success comes from good team building and partnerships. We had an excellent ae firm who brought their project management skills to the table in pip with us. You can say design, bid, billed is an old physicianed method, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work and cannot be a very successful approach to projects.
>> let me ask a question here. Because i'm new and i don't have the experience of these buildings. Congratulations on those successes. Those were both jail related buildings, right?
>> the gardner-betts project included office space and institutional residential space and detention space, institutional kitchen, landscaping, parking. It was a multiphase, multibuilding complex project which in courtrooms which also included accommodating talking about issues of dealing with tenants. We had a 24/7 tenants with detention and law enforcement operations that we had to keep going even in the same space that we were renovating and the only way to do that is being step by step, day-by-day, hour by hour, locked with your client, moving forward together and making sure everybody has their eye on the ball, every single day.
>> may i interject something that was unusual about gardner-betts that also contributed to its success not only were you a phenomenal project manager on it, but also it had judge murr constantly on it and she was an omni present individual expression of the owner's choice. And that goes very much to your concern, i think, commissioner huber, that in that project there was no doubt who had to be pleased. If everybody said yes, but judge murr said no, then the answer was no, i believe, on that project.
>> judge murr certainly was a key to that project. No question.
>> [ laughter ]
>> where i was headed with my question was -- neither of those projects had existing tenants in over half the building in the nature of law firms. And --
>> there actually is a legal department at gardner-betts.
>> and the tenant retention element was a little bit different nature i think there.
>> different nature, but i would say equally challenging in its own way.
>> any other comments?
>> yeah. Roger el khoury, director of facilities management department. Judge, commissioners, after you brought in the cjc issues on the table and, sure we don't want to have another experience with that thing. And i remember that the last lawsuit we have had within architect, graiber, simmon and cowen, was in that cjc. After that -- after that 10 years we executed court approved project, 257 projects. They are small, big, large, complex with the project. And the project can be small and big, but we executed those successfully. And that's a track record. I cannot speak more than that. It was lots of diversity in the tenant from the judges who did the courtroom renovation, from a department right there, jn government departments, we did lots of work. And we did what we did the best, manage the projects and we bring project on time. We brought it under budget and we used the saved money from that project to do other projects and we have done that before. All i'm trying to say, i have my staff and facilities management, they're well experienced in project management and architectural design, and the rest of it. And in engineering also. Just to let you know, engineering in precinct office building is ongoing right now. We did it in-house engineerings and we did the architecture in-house, coordination in-house. And so far it's very successful. All i'm trying to say is if it ain't broken, why fix it? We have 10 years record of a good project management, of a good engineering and architectural, serving the county and the staff, which is our own interest. There's no other interest to us except the county interest. We have no other interest. We love to be in the public servant, we love to work for you, and we sure we're not the decision maker. We implement what you decide and we have a duty to tell you the facts on the ground, what is as is. And we will work surely with other departments as always, like ken said, other department would get the county office --
>>
>> [inaudible - no mic].
>> and we work with tnr right in there and, with the sheriff. And even though it's not related to the buildings, but i was the project manager for all the bond issues for the parks. And as the project management also. The problem with project management is it's -- it's very specific to project or not. It's a project management. We know all about it from a to z. I ask that let facilities management do the work from one to 15 as commissioner davis was saying, as the project management. Between first and second and the third and fifth, it belong to the project manager. And i can't tell you more about the good experience and i can put all my hate whait behind it right there for jim barr to be the project manager was a great experience of 35 years of experience in architecture. He is not in the back seat, ees in the front eat. He's not only going to be alone, as you know, ken gatti was not alone and a very successful project in the jail. He was also facility management staff behind him, same way. All i ask is to give us that chance to get the 700 lavaca buildings because the first time we started we're saying 700 lavaca, our eyes were on it. We were challenging ourselves right now. We need to move forward. This is our project. And i would love from y'all to give us a chance to do it right for you as always been doing. Commissioner, if you want to fire somebody, this is not the -- to us, we are very competent to do the work, and we are very eager to do the work on that. And if something goes wrong, talk to us again. Please.
>> those 257 projects that you alluded to in a 10-year span, were there any litigations brought within that particular span?
>> none.
>> no litigation?
>> zero. And as the county attorney officer here, am i correct, john? Did we have any litigation in 10 years on a project?
>> i'm not aware of any.
>> there you go.
>> it doesn't mean there's not problems and there are not disputes, but most of those are handled between the project manager and the contractor. If it can't be settled at that level, then it comes to the purchasing agent and we try to settle the dispute, which we did a lot of those. Ken and them handled a lot more than we saw. We saw a few. And then anyone -- any disputes that didn't get passed to us we would come to commissioners court, which i don't believe we had any.
>> although we have had a considerable number of tenant complaints and disputes, but the tenants are county employees, so they're not going to sue the county. And i think that that is a concern that we have with regard to the fact that we have a significant number of outside tenants and hope to retain them for some period of time.
>> and i would love to point out that back along the lines of what commissioner eckhardt said, you wouldn't want a dermatologist doing your heart surgery, you know? The project manager that's proposed did the jail. He was the project manager on the jail is my understanding.
>> what jail, ma'am?
>> the cjc.
>> no.
>> he wasn't.
>> okay.
>> that was the county's project manager on the criminal justice center. At the time i came on board the contracts were let, the project was underway.
>> he came at the 11th hour.
>> the point i was going to thaik make is that's a jail, that's a derltologist not a heart. Heart surgeon. We should look at a project manager for this building from a standpoint of the very special qualifications they have in managing this particular type of project. I'm not doubting our project manager's skill sets, i'm questioning do we have the right skill sets for this project manager for this particular building because it is different. And i also want to say that you may have come in on cost and on time and whatever, but i don't know where the east service center fits in on that with 106 over budget and the time delays on that.
>> i know there have been several decisions made on this court on many a project since i've been here and some that i didn't support that is in my opinion are disastrous, but at the end of the day i think that i have a pretty good judgment of what i think -- i'm not saying nobody else doesn't, but i'm trying to look and wrestle with things that i think that i would like to have more control over. And to make sure we get a good end product. And i believe that our staff is very cable of doing this. Now, again, i don't want to reiterate things, but i really don't want to revisit that issue again. Now, i don't know what this court is going to do. They may vote for what commissioner eckhardt -- not commissioner eckhardt, but what commissioner huber is suggesting. If that's what the court does, we live with it, but at the end of the day i've i've been on the shortened of votes also, on the similar situations probably. So what i'm trying to say to you is that i'm thinking i'm making a good judgment call and i just think we have -- otherwise why would we need the staff if fmd, if they can't do the job? What are they here for? Why are we paying you if you can't do the job? I believe that they have the expertise to do just what we need done for this particular project. And especially if we are allowing the a and e situation to be done on one and two, but we have to have a project manager to oversee that to make sure it's done. I do not want to revisit this again as far as not having control over situation where we've got a private person, a private entity doing some stuff and they just run rampant because there's a lack of control mechanism in place. And of course, i want accountability and the accountability on the books stop right here where i'm looking at now. The audience i'm looking at now is the accountability phase of this thing and i want to be on the accountability side. That's why i'm going to go with just what i've suggested before. Thank you.
>> could i point out one thing that we haven't touched on at all? The benefits of the construction manager at risk, which has become what is considered the industry standard by both public and private sectors, not that we don't do -- continue to do some design, bid, build projects out there. They're sort of unique to different types of projects. Is something that i would encourage us to continue in this process as well because that type of construction management allows a collaboration in teamwork on the very front end that can reduce your con flick, reduce your costs and give you better control throughout the entire project. It's not something that we've done here at the county. It is an opportunity to r. For us to take advantage of what is really out there in the industry standard. And i just wanted to mention that as we take the next few weeks to look at things because i think that that's something that i have uncovered in my research, but i've done a lot of it in the last few weeks that i think the county would benefit to moving to the next level.
>> is our goal to make a decision next week or the week after? One week or two?
>> hopefully next week.
>> that's for the court. That's a question for the court.
>> i was hoping we would make it today.
>> in order for me to make the decision -- i am very concerned about the trajectory of this project and getting this done in time because leaving that building a sufficient amount -- a significant amount of the square footage empty any longer than we absolutely have to really concerns me. So what's the drop dead date for making this decision?
>> i think yesterday.
>> [ laughter ]
>> two weeks, commissioners court?
>> one week.
>> one week.
>> we'll have it on next week and make the decision.
>> thank you.
>> thank y'all.
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Last Modified:
Tuesday, August 31, 2010, 2010 2:30 PM
