Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, July 26, 2011 (Agenda)
Item 10
Ten is to consider and take appropriate action regarding a cafeteria at 700 lavaca.
>> good morning, Commissioner, judge, ken gaty with Travis County facilities management department here to introduce item 10, which is to discuss four options for proposed cafeteria in the 700 lavaca building.
with me today are hsa and the architect team to discuss the topic.
I'll turn it over to daf stauch to have him talk to you about i.
>> thank you for your time, we're here to be relatively brief, food survey ironically at lunchtime.
I understand the need for speed here.
with me today is earl swisher with the laurence group, tom cornelius and bill mccan.
you may recall food service is planned to be at the ground floor of 700 lavaca, part of the programmatic requirements for our project.
we have studied this in some detail.
the architects have done a good job of identifying for us the various alternatives.
parallel, in parallel with that, dan mansur with Travis County has initiated a food service survey.
while I'm hitting the highlights I guess we can get the architectsdri to --architects ready to show you the plans.
in summary, nearly 700 respondents indicated the county should provide some food service at 700 lavaca.
88 percent of the respondants indicated they would purchase a hot meal.
at least once a week.
89 percent would patronize a specialty coffee shop for beverage, pastry, sandwichor salad.
we believe there's a potential for both to exist in the budding.
with that I'd like to turn over to tom cornelius and he will run through the four options plus the additional option that we added on Monday of last week, which caused me to pull it off the agenda so we could explore that further.
then we'll make a recommendation to you.
>> I'm tom cornelius.
I'm not miked.
I hope everyone can hear me.
>> the mike please.
>> I'm tom cornelius, representing the architectural firm, laurence group.
I want to provide some context.
the design team with hsa has provided a fairly comprehensive review of options.
centered around the location provided to us programmatically which was the basement area around the escalator, including the project managers, the project leasing office.
so we have endeavored to confine these options to that general location.
so we have developed, as dave mentioned, developed five options.
first option, I think you will see at the end, we bracketed the solution fairly well.
there are some moddest options and some very involved options.
the first is the most moddest.
we are calling it prepackaged food, and that is all the food that will be here will come into the facility wrapped.
may be unwrapped for display, but primarily this is all cold or room temperature wrapped food.
for this area, I know you have this in front of you, I will point with my fingers.
the kitchen and preparation or display area is in the dark gray and seating, as in all the schemes, is adjacentant to the escalator and potentially some seats in the tunnel itself.
option number 2, a bit more robust, is using the very same footprint.
however, rather than prepackaged food that would be prewrapped and displayed wrapped, this is an area where we provide essentially a catering servery, with hot food and several options.
it would be displayed, served and cashiered out in the area of the dark gray and seating in the same area.
we have been able to keep this option with a fairly moddest construction price tag because we are not providing anything within this catered area that would require a grease trap.
nor are we preparing hot food, therefore we could have recirculating exhaust fans but we don't have any food preparation so there wouldn't be grease ladened or hot odors to need to exhaust to protect the rest of the buildings from the smells.
option number 3 actually is the most costly of the options that we are offering for consideration.
it is creating a food preparation area in the confines of the programmatic area given to us which is represented in dark gray.
we have supplemented it with backup storage.
the food would be prepared primarily where the property manager is today.
seating is like other schemes, adjacentant to escalator and potentially in the tunnel.
this option, as I mentioned, is the most costly because food being prepared there would require it to have a grease trap and very robust exhaust system as you would have for food preparation.
option number 4 is really in response to the cost issues that we encountered in option 3.
in this particular option, the area given to us programmatically is only used for food serving display and cashing out.
the food would actually be prepared in an area closer to the loading dock.
that is important because the provision of a greece trap, the provision of an exhaust system would be decidedly more easy back in this location.
so this particular plan provides similar functions to option 3, but it is a bit less costly.
and because it's more area, we would be able to get a better variety of menu options.
lastly, option 2 a.
I reviewed option 2 before, and you will remember that it is a catering kitchen.
actually not a kitchen, it's a catering serving area.
what distinguishes option 2 a is that in addition to the food servery and cashout in the location given to us, we have added about 200 square feet of area near the loading dock that would handle ware wash.
what that allows the vendor to do, they would be able to wash their pots and pans in a location remote from the servery.
this would require a trap grease trap .
it is near the escalators.
it is a bit more expensive by opens up the opportunities for the vendor tremendously because they would be able to wash the pans, hang and dry, and not all of the food, not all of the food trays would have to be taken off-site each day.
>> to the recommendation, we have considered each of those options pretty carefully.
a couple of them have defects, not the least of which is being over budget.
number three is over the budget so we wouldn't bring that to you anyway.
number 4 is pretty close to the budget.
2 and 2 a are actually well within budget.
and 2 a., which includes the grease trap, allows you to add significantly in the future.
you're not foreclosing opportunity to expand the food service in you choose to do tha.
>> dave, let me point to that.
that is something I wanted to point out in plan.
this small area in option 2 a was located here is that it actually would, as dave just mentioned, could remain in place.
the grease trap, the washdown area would remain as is here if this area could be developed as a full kitchen in the future.
so it grows elegantly
>> so it would be our recommendation to you all to consider option 2 a if it gives you the programmatic requirements.
it meets the demands of the survey of Travis County employees.
and quite frankly, we have set aside a certain amount of money in the budget, and this comes in at about half of what we had in there.
so it will enable us to use those savings in other parts of the project.
>> let me ask you.
as far as where we are.
if the court decides to accept the recommendation and go with option 2 a, as far as the time line is concerned, when would that take effect?
because we have persons that are going into that building, we have folks over there, Commissioner Gomez in fact is already over there in the building.
so I guess it's a challenge for those that are there now and those that will be moving over to maybe being able to acquire the services of this particular setting that you are bringing forth today.
I guess the question is, if the court decides to go along with your recommendation, when will that actually take effect so folks can kind of maybe know what to expect when.
>> that is a great question.
our overall program, as you may recall, we are doing a cm at risk delivery model.
we are expecting you to see the guaranteed maximum price in November, and once you vote to accept that, construction will begin in November.
this part of the project may in fact complete a bit earlier than the courtroom which is currently scheduled for completion in August of next year.
>> right.
>> I can come back to you later and tell you that we might be anible to pull this in sometime in the summer, but it will be at the earliest summer of 2012 before food service at the lower level would be available.
>> there may be hidden costs we don't know, but it definitely will be a cost savings from what we had projected earlier with the other model, the other options, I would say, this would be something that it would realize a cost savings.
>> yes, sir, that is significant cost savings.
frankly, one of the reasons why I wanted to bring it from last week to this.
so we could fully vet the options.
we believe it's a superior plan and gives you the flexibility of going forward if you want to in the future of putting in a full service.
>> you're saying by the end of summer?
>> 2012.
>> next summer.
>> next summer 2012, we may expect to see that service.
>> that is correct.
it will be--
>> the other thing is, we kind of have little eating areas in the offices over there.
so we bring our lunch as well.
and then the sandwiches down in murphies are healthy sands witches.
they have soups and fruit cups and pretty good salads.
all the kinds of drinks that people will get.
I suppose that if I needed a hot meal, I would come here to eat.
it's not that far.
three blocks, a good little distance for people to get a little bit of exercise.
so that is also there as a possibility.
that is not going to go away.
those choices are not going to go away.
and so I think people here right now are already going over there to get a sandwich from murphies and drinks and baked chips which are also very healthy, plus the three-block exercise that I think is essential for all of us.
so I think we need to still keep the two tied together so that it's not just one place that you can eat, one or the other.
it's both.
just connected by three blocks.
right now, Commissioner, I bring my lunch.
>> how many staffing persons do we have now as far as Travis County in the building?
I don't know what the number is at this point.
do we have an accounting of what the number will be, I guess, projected by 2012 as far as who will be located there by summer of 2012?
I know we have some folks there now.
>> Commissioner, I believe there's in excess of 300 county employees there now.
it will be closer to 700 by the ends of 2012.
maybe not by the summer, but by the end of 2012 it should be closer to 700.
>> 700.
all right.
thank you.
>> option 2 a costs how much?
>> we can get option 2 a done for less than $300,000.
we had budgeted 600,000.
>> Commissioner Huber.
>> I wanted to comment and actually complement the thoroughness of the evaluation.
it to say from my own food and beverage experience in the private sector, a lot of people don't realize, they think oh, there's competition.
I know there's been a couple of comments worried about competing with murphies deli in the center.
actually, there's a dynamic that is very interesting in the restaurant business in that the more variety you have in an enclosed area, the more patron age it generates for both ent dis, particularly if they are complementary of everything.
we're also pulling a lot more people down to 700 lavaca from other places too.
>> yes.
>> so I think it's exciting.
I really like 2 a because it does offer us the opportunity to expand.
it's certainly in the affordable range.
and I think it will be good for murphies deli, quite frankly.
>> second the motion.
it was a motion.
>> yes, sounds like it to me.
>> second.
discussion on the motion?
all in favor.
that passes by unanimous vote.
by the way, we put 23 on consent.
so it's been approved already.
>> yes, sir.
>> thank you.
>> move we recess until 1:45.
>> second.
>> all in favor.
that passes by unanimous vote..
.
.
.
.
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.
