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Travis County Commissioners Court

Tuesday, October 11, 2011 (Agenda)
Item 9

View captioned video.

Number 9.
discuss and take appropriate action on the work to date by broaddus & associates on the central campus master plan refinement and give direction regarding additional work.

>> judge and Commissioners, I'm belinda powell from the planning and budget office.
we're here today with steven colston from broaddus & associates, rob fish, richie green, andrew broaddick to give you an update on where we are with the phasing plans for our master plan.
with that, I will let stephen --

>> good morning, judge, Commissioners, we're here today to -- to I guess we're -- we were here just about a month ago, we're briefing you on the most up to date status, I think since then we've had one work session with the executive committee.
and last week we also met again with the joint session of the steering committee and the justice committee to -- to review the final draft refined outcomes from the session that we shared with you last time.
we I believe are scheduled to be back here in November for -- for final presentation and vote for approval on the -- on the outcomes of the master plan.
and the -- the -- the lengthy -- and thoughtful process that we've been through with the county and its representatives.
today this is an opportunity for us to share with you one final draft review of the comments, the -- the minor tweaks and edits that have been incorporated over the last month.
based on some further feedback and input from different participants.
and we'll -- without further ado, we'll go ahead and get into that right now.
what we'll walk through here initially, you have the backup with this, it references the page numbers, just a quick review of where we've been to date.
what the planning assumptions are that have been driving the overall process.
and then we'll walk through an overview of the refinement phase that we're in and the final phase.
and -- and the stacking diagrams that have been impacted by these various more refined conversations over the last few weeks and then share with you a slight update to the project phasing overview that we walked through last time when we also addressed the -- the civil and family courthouse site.
we -- we have incorporated all the way through this process now and from the very beginning in our visioning session, the outcomes that came out of that, the set of guiding principles focused on identifying and meeting the future needs.
keeping key functions downtown, creating campus identity, enhancing access and connectivity and utilizing technology to its fullest extent possible.
the outcomes of that really, really solidified at the end of phase 1, which were presented to you last year.
and we're always looking at the projected growth over -- over a series of milestone horizons that were identified to the 20, 35 year window.
I think one of the things that we'll share with you as we walk through the final plan recommendations here shortly is that one of the things that I think is great about the -- about the planning process and outcomes here is we've also built in inherent flexibility for the county to be able to make and manage decisions about how some of the master plan is implemented based on how real demographic data, how real caseload, et cetera, develops and -- and -- and more evidence of the actual outcomes come into play.
but essentially, what we ended up with is a space projection between 1.8, 1.9 million square feet with the parking projection of around 3,000 spaces.
that were also -- that were also based on parking planning assumption that we made last time which is about a future policy decision that would a zoned approach to parking as opposed to one for one.
the key outcomes of that are the buildings that you see on the list before you and we'll walk through those in terms of the phasing recommendations here shortly.
my colleague rob fish is going to walk through some of the other space program planning assumptions and the impacts of those as it relates to the stacking diagrams.

>> thank you.
I'm not going to go through all of these, a lot of this is information that you've heard before, but I do want to hit some highlights.
just reminder of where we are because we've been doing this for a while.
the program, mast most of that was done last year, the program is driven by stacking projections, we have done several milestone years projected out through 2035, we recognize that Travis County doesn't stop growing after 2035 but the -- for general prudent planning we don't really want to project out more than 25 years.
that said when we get to some of the blocking, stacking, some of the sort site planning campus options we do have some ways to deal with growth that goes beyond 2035 as well.
adjacencies, we tried to optimize, how much space they need, where they are located.
we recognized when we started this campus plan, the campus was pretty well defined right around here in the hms courthouse, cjc, the campus more more of a linear campus going down to 700 lavaca to the proposed site for the new civil and family court down by republic square.
so the definition of the campus has changed a little.
to some degree that impacts a little bit about where we think people need to be.
creates a need perhaps for beach head offices, one of the very small program changes we made to the new civil and family court to add a beach head office for the d.a.
down in the new civil and family court building now that we have c.p.s.
courtrooms down there and it's so far removed from where the d.a.
is now.
but other than that we've been I think pretty successful in trying to keep people together.
the other fact odogenesis is where the d.a., county attorney, some of those things happen a lot of planning around the current cjc site, still ongoing and I think we're pretty much there now.
but building out the current cjc in the san antonio garage and I will show you when we get there.
mame functions relocated.
the Travis County jail eventually would go out to del valle.
but that said it's a little -- a little -- it's sometimes causes confusion because in its place we put central booking and we are calling 72 hour housing, which is pretty much as many beds or more than you have now in the current Travis County jail.
so -- so from the corrections management point of view, there's still a lot of beds downtown and that has a value in terms of people that are going to -- the majority of people go in and out of the system, or in and out of custody probably within 48 hours, I don't have the numbers in front of me.
so the 72 hour housing allows people to be classified in many cases bailing out before they ever have to be, go through intake out at del valle.
so it still makes sense to keep a number of those beds downtown, even if the jail expands out at del valle.
the data center has been going back and forth in terms of what to do with that.
I guess the -- you know, that was originally in the campus plan.
now it's not.
and the central booking, this is -- I shouldn't read all of these bullets, but there's the proposed idea of a sobriety center which actually we reduced our numbers a little bit of the central booking housing that would be required if that sobriety center gets built.
if not you are still fine because you still have overflow at del valle.
when we say 72 hours, it's not literal.
as many beds as you have downtown and when you run out, you go to del valle.
space standards, we've been through this, I don't want to go through all of this except to say that the program was based on standards that we discussed in depth over the phase 1 of the process.
the master plan, just a couple of highlights.
optimizing use of existing county resources, this is something that was sort of a directive given to us at the beginning.
we have made our best attempt to do that while at the same time minimizing the need for acquiring new land.
so there's really one major property an six and that is the -- acquisition and that it republic square in addition to the 700 lavaca, now the master plan work was all of the existing sites that you have.
there are buildings that debt demolished and new buildings that get built.
hms courthouse preserved and restored and renovated.
the cjc gets maintained and expanded.
the granger building gets maintained.
all of these -- I won't go through all of them, but the detail is further on in the book, in the presentation, creating greater urban spaces, we're trying to again now that the campus has been redefined still trying to be in sync with the great streets program in downtown Austin and making sure that our master plan enhances that and is consistent with it and, you know, at some point maybe there will be need to be new weight finding -- way finding or signage that may be advisable to let people know about your linear campus as opposed to your more circular compact campus.
let me jump to parking.
we proposed a major new underground parking deck, we are going to in the process have to sacrifice the san antonio parking garage, but I think that it's for a very compelling reason.
it's a major -- it's the only major site right adjacent to the current cjc and the -- there's compelling need to expand the criminal courts in the future as well as find space for the d.a.
and county attorney who work very closely with the criminal courts among some of the other agencies.
but we are working, looking at proposing better parking management.
that there would be zoned parking and no longer assigned spaces, so instead of assigned spaces that sit empty because people are on vacation, effectively you oversell permits slightly because you recognize that any given time certain amount of people are on vacation, out sick or otherwise out in the field and not using those spaces, so it's more efficient parking management.
the budget estimates, we did provide cost estimates.
these are based on we try to make it based on a five-year funding cycle, so it's more of budget as opposed to cost estimates for that reason.
cost estimate is the price of a building.
these are really the approximate costs of any given milestone in the capital investment that we project would be needed.
and it's priced in today's dollars.
I believe so, is that correct?
because the timing that you do the projects can vary, at that time you will have to update those numbers so everybody needs to remember when you get a number fixed in your head about something, don't fix it -- don't fix it in 2011.
we talked about escalating it and decided that any number we put out there was subject to future timing in terms of economics, policy and other questions about when things get built.
and we can't predict everything.
they say planning isn't pricking the future, it's shaping the future.
so we give it to you in today's dollars and you -- you will escalate it based on your need at that point in time.
and then sustainability.
you know, that's something that we always wants to look at, certainly any new buildings, should probably be we're recommending leed, silver construction.
we are assuming more of a transit rich corridor, that actually impacted our parking projections slightly.
we reduced them I think by five percent to recognize greater use of alternative transportation.
let's go to the scenarios.
you approved scenario 2 a, that becomes what we call the recommended option.
and there's been only -- there's been some slight tweaks, we're calling it master plan refinement of option 2 a.
this what you are looking here is pretty much a view of what the campus would be.
built out.
and -- and some of the new buildings that you can see, we don't have the one in color.
okay.
where you see the -- on the right, there's the cjc and then there's the expansion, the expansion is actually much bigger than the current cjc.
that's containing roughly almost about -- as many courtrooms I think, 15 or 16 courtrooms in there.
napped to the county attorney and the district attorney.
so -- in addition to the county attorney and the district attorney, so it's quite large.
central booking, central booking 72 hour housing and some temporary agency swing space I think temporary space for the d.a., that will be used for swing space during the course of shuffling people around.
because when we build the cjc expansion it is sitting on the current site of the Travis County jail and the

>> [indiscernible] building.
so those two buildings both of which especially the jail many would argue, you know, one because that's the -- that's the best site, but two because those buildings aren't necessarily good investments on the long run to keep pouring more and more money into those buildings.
the -- the -- the cfcj building you can see in the distance, that big shaded tower there we're calling that potential development.
what that represents is the possible development on the site, the new civil and family court building is the kind of tan building, behind it is simply what the zoning allows on that site.
it doesn't mean that it's ever going to get built or doesn't mean any private developer or the county would necessarily choose to build to that.
we're simply showing what the zoning envelope allows.

>> so are we assuming that we're going to use the whole lot for the civil courthouse?

>> no.

>> how much of it are we going to use --

>> well for now, you know, we talked about this a lot.
I think that we presented last time in August several different options for how to utilize that lot.
that site.
I mean the order of magnitude I think for planning purposes I think we're talking about half the site for the courts and half for project development.
but that really will get determined based on your p 3 proposals and -- and the creativity of how developers might propose to choose to uses that if you choose to go the p 3 route.
if you choose conventional, you will still have to do the same process of trying to determine what's the highest and best use in terms of that being an asset to the county.
but our blocking, stacking assumes the building that pretty much occupies about half the site.

>> if I could, one of the things that is not programmed if you recall from -- from our last discussions, also, is yet to be determined is the 500 car parking structure that supports this building.
and the potential exists that that would be adjacent to the building in which case you would be using the whole site.
as the building footprint is defined, it's only showing right now on half of the site.
that doesn't mean that's ultimately how you might construct it.
but in looking at how the full need fits, including a parking garage to support the building, if you site it on that site as well, you will need the whole site.

>> is somebody investigating other parking options?

>> yes, sir.

>> fundamentally, the building could accommodate half of a site.
half of the block, the parking could accommodate half a block and it would meet your programmatic requirement for the civil family courthouse in the downtown area.

>> also fit our purchase of one city block, which is my understanding as to the -- for the civil courthouse or the family center.

>> correct.
that accommodates a building on half of the block, parking garage on half of the block, meets your capacity projections to 2035.

>> yes, ma'am.

>> is that note somewhere as a footnote so we don't forget?

>> becan make sure that it's in there -- we can make sure that it's in there.

>> okay.
the next slide, this you can read in your own time what it basically does, a one page snapshot of what all of the buildings will be.
in terms of the master plan and who will be in them.
so you see the 2035 functions.
that tells you where everybody ends up.
a lot of people move around before they end up there, steve will talking about the phasing plan later about how we get to this.
this is really the snapshot at the end of the 2035 implementation of the plan: so some stacking diagrams, you've seen a lot of these before, we've made a few tweaks to them, so I'm pretty much going to focus on what's different, not review everything in these diagrams again.
this is the first slide is the existing diagram.
the shaded area in the right of course is that potential development on the site.
the one on the left is the new civil and family courthouse and just to quickly point out that we've got what we're calling public agency lease space on the lower floors, which we were requested to include that.
I guess that could be municipal court or some other function.
that's not -- that's not finalized yet.
but --

>> it's also articulated separately on the side.
so you can see the impact of what that program would mean in additional space on the building site and the site can accommodate that, the building just gets taller.
that 102,600 gross square feet is without investigating the program was provided to us, that's roughly what -- what it would stack into this building.

>> [one moment please for change in captioners]

>> ...
instead of an expansion space we're building temporary space for the district attorney.
I think pretrial is well off if I'm not mistaken and roughly five courtrooms for the criminal court because the c.j.c.
expansion is not going to happen for a while but the criminal court is growing and they have maxed out.
we have short-term suggestions on how to get four courtrooms within the c.j.c.
but going beyond that in another ten years, we project they are going to need ten not five and we need to find a home for those.

>> one of the reasons we've included this update stabbing diagram from what we shared with you before is through the refinement process we've had working dialogue with the district attorney's office and we'll talk a little bit and in a little more detail when we faulk about the phasing is focus on trying to minimize impact on moves and maximize adjacency requirements to the full extent possible and that was part of the result of this slight modification to the stacking diagram for the central booking facility site.

>> the -- the incomes page we're looking at the c.j.c.
expansion.
this looks like a big giant stacking diagram, it is, but on the left is the existing building and on the right, the bigger one, is the expansion.
and I think the existing build ing is 14 courtrooms today, if I'm not mistaken.
and we would be able to add several to the four courtrooms in that building in the short term through some moving people around and a little bit of reshuffling.
but the -- the addition, of course, is -- it's another 13 courtrooms, but it's substantial.
this is the old diagram which shows the district attorney -- why don't we flip to the new one on the next page.
it's basically the same option except now we've added the county attorney.
we've been looking, as you know, for the optimal home for the county attorney for a while now, and we tried a number of scenarios and it just seemed to make sense to bring them back to the family of the criminal court where most of their activities occur.
and working with the county courts and the district attorney working with the district courts, so this becomes kind of an inclusive for the most part, almost everybody?
the same -- the pre-trial adult probation.
the criminal components of the district clerk and the county clerk -- the county clerk, I think the county clerk -- county clerk would be in h.m.s.
but everybody else would be here basically in one interconnected group of buildings.
and with the central booking right across the street, the san antonio garage, one, it was an available county owned site, it was ideally located to the criminal courts.

>> do these assume that the 10th street will remain open or be closed?

>> no, it does assume 10th street would be open.
the intent would be have inmate movement underneath the street.

>> am I right it will take another 20 minutes or so for us to finish this?

>> yeah.

>> did you all bring lunch money with you?

>> I will move faster.
I'm almost done.

>> unless you are leaving town, we need to come back this afternoon.

>> don't worry about it.
I'm fine.

>> we can come back this afternoon.

>> at 1:30.

>> okay.

>> move we recess till 1:30.
all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.


Now let's call back to order the voting session of the Travis County Commissioners' court.
and shortly before the time of the motion to recess for lunch we were in the middle of a discussion with broaddus and associates on item number nine, discuss and take appropriate action on the work to date on the central campus master plan refinement and give direction regarding additional work.

>> we'll pick back up where we left off.
we were just wrapping up the stacking of the criminal justice center expansion and so we were about to pick up on block 126.

>> this is the last stacking diagram, the last piece of proposed new construction.
the building above grade, as I think you all now, is constrained by view corridors.
the site is significantly constrained, so the building we're providing is an office building that has a configuration that can work for offices.
can't really work for courts or booking or any of those types of functions.
we're showing its in here.
that was something that we've been discussing over the months.
it doesn't have to be its, but for the purpose of the master plan, we're going to carry this.
the thing to recognize is there's material things, major projects.
the building itself is a major project, but the tenant could be another tenant, tnr, depending on what the needs are several years from now when you make a commitment to this building and see how the other agencies grow or don't grow or shake out.
the bigger component here is the below grade part.
as you know, we are proposing a 1200 space parking garage.
this will meet the needs.
parking and acknowledging that it's replacing the san antonio parking garage, roughly 400 spaces there that would be lost, giving you approximately 800 spaces.
it is sort of a little unusual to be building four levels below grade, but this site is very encumbered.
the highest and best use is what goes below grade, not above grade.
it is an opportunity to build out your parking needs in one place, except for the family court down by republic square, which there is still proposed 500 spaces on or around that site that services mostly that building.
and just another comment on the parking is, there is a potential revenue stream for spaces before you need all of the spaces you can lease out parking and have some potential revenue on it.
but we don't recommend -- you can't really build part of it now and more later.
it's not the way the construction goes when you're building below grade structures like this.

>> I think the one thing that I will add to this is this really picks back up on a lot of our public engagement sessions where we've met with the community and had the public charrettes and got that kind of feedback.
and one of the things we kept hearing a lot was look at the example that's gone over at the capital complex.
you say the site is encumber bid view corridors, but can't you go below grade?
can't you contribute more to the you are ran environment?
can't you make it a public amenity really to the community?
so I think what we've done in configuring this from a concept plan level for the master plan, both in stacking and in physical configuration of the planning, is to maximize the above grade buildable capacity for the flexible use, which is office space, which has a lot of flexibility for different kinds of tenants you need to accommodate over growth even beyond 2035, but really takes the full capacity in terms of what the capitol view corridor limits.
but also deals with the notion of centralized parking.
building up on the parking philosophy and concept that we adopted earlier in the master planning process last year in terms of parking methodology and approach.
and it allows you the opportunity to have a centralized parking in one location, listen to the community in terms of maximizing how do you maximize the taxpayers' real estate asset there.
and also ultimately avoid acquisition of existing -- acquisition of additional real estate in downtown area which would otherwise be required to accommodate the parking demand in an above grade structure.

>> remind me of the approximate cost of 1200 parking spaces below ground?

>> we can look at it -- we can dig here real quick if you want us to proceed on.

>> if you could get it to us by email.
I saw it somewhere.

>> yeah.
we've calculated that.

>> so with that we're going to go ahead and run into something that we really covered with you last time, which is the phasing projections.
and all the way through phase 1 we've talked very cleanly about milestone projections of 2015, 2025 and 2035.
as we've gotten into discussion about how that space projection actually supplies to the physical built environment and your real estate holdings downtown, we've had to think about that within the reality context of how the dome knows end up falling and who shuffles around where and what the logistic and realistic projections are in terms of construction renovation, disposition, etcetera.
and that's also been cast within the framework of looking at the financial capacity of the county and what realistic time lines are as a result to bonding capacity, etcetera.
so what we've done in further refine willing the milestones is identify phase one, two, three campus development milestones that look at horizons between now and 2018, between 2019 and 2027.
and then ultimately looking at between 2028 and 2035 of fit outof existing space that there's the existing capacity.
I'm going to walk you through these in a little bit more detail, but on the right there you can kind of see the configuration of what the overall campus looks like in the long-term.
and then this is an image that shows the diagram that rob shared just a moment ago, which includes the larger civil family courthouse site, the central booking facility and the criminal justice center expansion.
so I think there are fundamental principles that we tried to adhere to, similar to the ones that we were talking about in the stacking and blocking of 700 lavaca.
I won't go through all the subdetails of the bullets on here, but I think fundamentally you may recall the adjacency matrix that we worked on during the phase one process and we were talking about programming.
and we said the real reason for this adjacency discussion is on so that it will help us as we start thinking about who goes into which spaces in downtown area.
when we start to practically flying that space to -- applying that space to the building development.
the other component really had to do with optimizing operational efficiency.
and ideally providing as little disruption to the operating offices and departments as possible.
recognizing that the physical constraints and limitations of the built environment sometimes might make that a little less ideal, but that was a priority objective in the phasing strategy.
and as I mentioned earlier, working closely with planning and budget office with consideration of the debt model and foasht was a fundamental issue in terms of thinking about the timeline and the horizons for phasing as it relates to the potential impact on cost and leaving opportunity and room to grow to accommodate other projects that the county may be trying to address.
now, it's not to say that phasing and development and construction doesn't sometimes come without growing pains.
and I think that's what we're really just trying to say as concisely as possible on this particular slide.
the primary conversations that we had each early in our process were identifying some major anchor tenants, the Commissioners' court, courtrooms, a jail.
unique specialized spaces for central booking holding facility, unique specialized facilities that couldn't otherwise be accommodated in an office tiep environment.
-- office type environment and those would really become fundamental drivers in the phasing.
another primary conversation that we've had is how we go about -- we are addressing the civil family courthouse very up front with the property acquisition that took place this last year.
but criminal courts that still are titlely squeezed in terms of their demand capacity, they have 14 total courtrooms today, but have a 2015 projection for an additional five courtrooms. I think what's important to understand is we're incrementally filling up space as we have it.
and there's going to be a little bit of shifting around until we can actually bring the new courthouse online.
four additional courtrooms can be fit out within the cjc.
we've talked about one of those other ones being accommodated either in heman hen marion sweatt, possibly at del valle.
ultimately in 2025 we have the need for an additional five new courtrooms, and by 2035 the total requirement for 29 courts.
so there's an incremental phasing in as the court backlog grows on the criminal courts, and so that creates a little bit of disruption until we can ultimately get the new criminal facility online.
there are some departments -- I would say a few departments to some departments that are going to be moving at least twice.
and that's part of a little bit of the growing pains on this until a facility could come online.
we tried to minimize that to the fullest extent possible and we've tried to where possible also accommodate those adjacencies.
an example of that would be that at one point in time we had a county attorney and adult probation that looked like they might be in granger at the same time.
we've actually been able to phase that in such a way so it is not going to occur right now, but there may be some interim periods of time where we had some adjacencies that are not ideal.
but the 2035 actually meets all the adjacency requirements that we identify in the phase one process.
and I think the last thing that they are really trying to communicate is that there are several interim moves and that are fit out in occupancy items that may number a building that is built that might be somebody moving from one floor to another or expanding down the rest of the hallway or something like that.
that are more finite implementation level items that are above the 10,000-foot or 20,000-foot elevation that we're looking at from a master plan level.
so with that this is a view of what the --

>> can I ask a question about that page?
I'm sitting here thinking, the legislature has to create a criminal district court.
since I've been here it's always done so one at a time.
it meets every two years.
so if they continue that, the next opportunity would be 2013.
I don't think they've ever done two at one time for us, have they?
but if they do the maximum, it would be one in 13, one in 15.

>> I think the district court and a county court we've done once before.

>> but I'm looking at criminal courts down here, 2000.
I guess 2015, we would have four by then.
I just -- do the judges think this will happen?

>> what we're looking at and what we've talked about with judge kocurek and judge denton in particular because they've been working with us, we've worked at forecasting based on their caseload projections.
they believe that they're tracking very close to those projections right now and they do believe they will be coming forward in 2013 with some sort of package with a request for courts for you to support that to the legislature.
I don't know how many.
they're actually trying to make sure that there are different ways that they might be able to step in as gradually as they can, understanding that we don't have all the space that we need for them to be able for effectuate those courts right away, but I think what we're trying to show on this sheet is that there is an understanding that the space is going to lag behind the forecasts, if they are predicting anything, or are predict active, would actually require or need.
so we want to make sure that we have at least a strategy as to how to get something in motion and on the ground for them as they're moving forward or as they get authorizations because we usually have a minimal amount of time, maybe a year, to make sure that we have the courtroom space available for the judge to sit in when it's authorized.
so that's what this picture is trying to capture.
they may not have them all by 2015, but we certainly think that by 2025 they'll be closer to this 24 number than they are today.

>> and aside from legislation, they can petition the court for a magistrate if their dockets become overloaded before having authorization for an additional court.

>> right.
and so what we're trying to look at is the stepping in of actual courtroom space.
and we know we can do four in the cjc itself by expanding down in the floors, it does displace other tenants.
there is one courtroom that we may not need in that time frame, but if we do, there's several options.
we've been talking to the judges about how to accommodate that in an intervening time frame, which is what steven and rob were talking about, investigating whether or not we could do jail call in some way out at the jail or looking at a use of the courtroom in the heman marian sweatt courthouse or until the Travis County jail is torn down, it is not ideal because it has limited public diseas to it.
they're looking for options in the event they need the space.

>> to the 14 today would include courtrooms for district judges and masters?

>> and county court at law judges.

>> okay.
those too.
okay.

>> this is the whole criminal section.

>> and keep in mind, linda said it very well, the one comment I would add is we were trying to make sure we could accommodate it if this happened because that's what the caseload indicated could happen.
if it doesn't happen and if history says it will happen slower, that just means the growing pains are a little less painful, which is a good thing.

>> and I think this also talks back to a couple of different items. We talked about taking in the consideration with the debt model and affordability.
the master plan, if you recall, was based on projections that looked at reasonable four to five-year forecast working at the departmental and office level and using demographic projections beyond that.
we used the 1.0 model from the state demographer that was based on anticipated growth similar so what we spernsessed in the 90's -- experienced in 90's here in Austin.
and we also looked at court backlog and history of court backlog and where we were today in terms of the projections forward.
this is all master planning and this is a projection about what things could potentially be in the future.
it's not to say that magically in 2015 we're going to see it right on exactly the same demographic number in Travis County as what we had anticipated here.
so if you grow a little more quickly or a little more slowly or the court load actually increases or decreases based on that, that's a part of the finessing of the master planning implementation process that moves forward.
so when we talk about this really kind of coming to a master planning process, kind of coming to the end, that may refer to our contractual obligation as it relates to quantifying the master plan projections.
but it in no way means that it's the end of the master planning process for the county because really the devil is in the details of the implementation and how that comes forward and actually is realized over time.

>> in 2011 this is the current configuration of your facilities in downtown area.
it's kind of interesting to always go back and look at what the new construction is and the ultimate development is in the downtown area incrementally over time.
this shows the development of the first campus view of milestone one.
a couple of things to point out is just from a color coding perspective, I'll go back for a second so you can see everything existing is in the tan chore right there as we jump forward the colors you see kind of in the reddish, pinkish color is the new construction.
items that you see in the yellow-orange is renovation and fit outof existing facilities.
tan represents vacation of existing or moving out of existing facilities.
and then finally, there are the yellow buildings that represent some other Travis County buildings that will be address understand other phases.
so talking about the first milestone within -- the first series of moves within milestone one have to do with the buildout of 700 lavaca.
tnr moving from executive office building, relocation ultimately of the Commissioners' court from this building down to granger.
from granger down to 700 lavaca.
county auditor's office and purchasing from rusk.
the relocation of criminal justice planning from airport boulevard side, i.t.
services from the gault building.
then the next component really that's do with buildout of the civil and family courthouse.
and the series of incremental moves that takes place as a result of the buildout of that.
I won't read off all of these, but there's going to be a series of allocations and moves that happen associated with the civil courts, the county clerk, the district court at law effort as well as a law rieb lieb from the granger building, domestic relations from usb, attorney general, the 40 courts child support and dispute resolution from other locations around downtown.
or around Travis County.
and then we actually start getting into the renovation of the granger building, which would be a phased renovation within the building, incrementally renovated over time, which would accommodate reallocation -- relocation of a portion for the district attorney's office.
the renovation of the rusk building where health and wellness clinic would finally reside.
and then we actually start getting into getting some of the sites prepared for the development of the rest of the programmatic requirements that we've talked about.
it's really planning for the major new construction and building of Travis County for the future.
block 126 and that's the un-- that's the very encumbered site that we have long had angst about which would accommodate 1200 parking spaces below grade on the site, but would also accommodate public amenities and plaza space, adult probation moving from the executive office building, pretrial services and adult probation intake from the cjc to block 126.

>> and steven, we did answer judge Biscoe's question about the cost of work for underground parking and for the direct construction cost only would be 21.5 million for the 1200 spaces of underground parking.
in today's dollars.
that does not include other owners' costs such as engineering, things of that nature.

>> one last time -- when was the last time you saw a county judge faint?

>> today?

>> thank you.

>> [ laughter ]

>> this also accommodated the relocation of its, who would have presumably have grown within the 700 lavaca space on a temporary basis and into 126.
and then ultimately, and this is really something that would be perceived as potentially a joint project or a project that could be utilized on the nueces side, the construction after plant that ties back to sustainability initiatives and ultimately trying to centralize some of your utilities, be able to clean up some of the areas around the historic courthouse as well.
this then allows you the opportunity to vacate and sell the executive office building over time.
so I think one of the things that we've been talking a lot about is the inherent flexibility that's in the plan, and I just talked to the management monitoring of the development of growth of Travis County and its support service functions over time is when the right time to dispose of the executive office building when the right time to actually build the building on the block 126, when the right time is to address the full capacity on the granger building on those kind of flexible office building types are things that you can really make some decisions and judgment calls as a court and a county in general in terms of staffing and projection needs about office space as those start to develop.
then we start getting into the campus milestone two, which addresses the hms courthouse renovation, the new central booking facility and the cjc expansion and renovation as well as the renovation of the brings dean house.
so this would be the point in time at which the san antonio garage would need to come down to be able to accommodate the building of the central booking building on that site.
that's why block 26 and the phasing of the future capacity of the development for parking for the for parking for the county is accommodated prior to the san antonio garage removal.
I think one other point to make, I think when we talked about the parking garage requirements, we based that also on the philosophical approach of moving to the zoned parking.
so where the county did not take that approach the parking garage could go deeper and consequently more expensive, but we felt like the strategy from taking a more streamline management approach on the parking would help you make a little less investment in terms of long-term structured parking.
when we developed the new central booking facility, there's a relocation of the Travis County sheriff into cjc.
the district attorney actually comes out of gault and the cjc into central booking on a temporary basis, temporary being an extended duration of time obviously until the criminal justice facility could actually be built.
but also as we mentioned earlier, that would accommodate a blow grade connection between the new central booking facility and the criminal justice facility over the long-term.
we would add five criminal courts on the temporary basis, which ties back into the cjc -- to the criminal courts' expansion that we were talking about just a few minutes ago.
and some of the speed bumps that happen along the way in terms of the anticipated growth.
and then we actually get into the restoration and renovation of the hms courthouse and the brizadine house.
we actually coupled those two together from an historic preservation perspective.
and that allows us for the opportunity for interpretive development, temporary relocation of jp five con table and jp, moving the probate court to hms once the renovation is complete.
and then ultimately being able to finally accommodate the expansion of the cjc by removing of the Travis County jail and the gault building.
I think you made some recent interim investments on the Travis County jail to accommodate being able to to be able to deal with ongoing deferred maintenance issues until such time you would be actually able to reyes that and build a new criminal justice facility expansion, which would allow for the courts to expand.
it would involve a move of some of the criminal court functions and the district attorney from intook to go that expansion.
and the relocation of the county attorney out of the granger building.
so we have county attorney, district attorney, and all of the criminal court's functions back into the criminal justice center facility in the aggregate, including the expansion.
relocation of adult probation on the intake side and pretile services from 126 back into cjc as well.
then we have the opportunity over time and over long-term growth of the development to have graijer be backfilled with mental health, public defender office.
and then ultimately in milestone three, we see development that accomodates internal renovations and finishout of spaces that are not yet fully occupied.
and again, that will be variable based on how much growth and development happens over time, but it allows you more space and development in 700 lavaca, in the graipg gaininger building, in block 126 and even in -- within the court facilities proper as the county grows over time.
so here's a final view of the campus in the year 2035 based on the master plan projections, and a depiction of what the final plan recommendations will be coming back with couple of refinements in a month for your vote and approval, what we would recommend for the 25-year plan.

>> questions?
is there a refinement that you would like to see for the next -- or changes that need to be made to kind of how we've stepped through the master plan process and the tenant, the occupancy mixes?
there are still some things that we're working on testing based on some of the conversations that occurred last week, but most of what we're hearing can be accommodated through alternatives without changing major elements of the plan.
so if there is something that you would like to see differently, we're ready to respond and be able to accommodate if we need to.

>> as a taxpayer, the demolition of public buildings seems like such a waste.
soy wonder between now and when it's time to act do we pursue other options?
sort of like the eov.
if we don't need it, it doesn't mean it ought to go away, it means we ought to try to unload it on somebody else.

>> right.
and I think plant actually recommends selling the executive office building when you don't need it anymore.

>> if we can.

>> right.

>> so when I see demolish here, should I think before the day of demolition we will have done due diligence to try to dispose of it in some other manner?
in some manner that will get some revenue for county if possible?

>> I think that that's a fair statement except for when it comentz to a location for the central booking facility.
in which case if we're not going to use the san antonio garage site, we would need to buy a site that's in very close proximity to the cjc in order to accommodate the same sort of proximity relationships.
so I think that is the -- that's the ultimate decision point is before we embark on that, totally defining the central booking facility and exactly where it goes in a site other than that.
we would probably be looking at another acquisition if we're not tearing that down.

>> one thing we tried to be very careful about in the process an as we started looking at space requirements and constraint it became obvious there wasn't enough real estate in some instances to accommodate the programmatic requirements that the county had over time without significant reconfiguration or rszing of buildings and that led to two major acquisitions along the way.
the 700 lavaca office building and garage as well as the site for the civil and family courthouse building.
on the rest of the properties -- we looked at the highest and best use as a connotation in the real estate market, but we looked estate market, but we looked at&t through the lens of the county at how can we maximize existing county resources?
part of the existing county resources being the very, very valuable land that you hold in the downtown area in terms of maximizing the buildability of that site.
we looked at that also within the context of a pretty comprehensive facility condition assessment that was done of your facilities.
our buildings that had a tendency to be very, very high on the deferred maintenance backlog and that were going to require a significant financial investment on the building over long-term.
so we weighed and evaluated and made recommendations that would ultimately look at the return on investment perspective in terms of investment in new construction, factoring in the cost of demolition in an outdated facility that wouldn't meet your programmatic requirements.

>> when we take actions that sort of conflict with the master plan, for example, I'm thinking now ces is moving out of 1101 nueces based on a request I saw the other day.
they plan to move into that supervised visitation and in order to accommodate supervised visitation we have to renovate that building office.
we haven't determined what the cost will be.
so is our thinking that up until 2018 we will use it for supervised visitation and then move that out and demolish the building?

>> possibly, yes.
and the alternative would be, again, what we were looking at the site for really had to do with mechanical work and restoration work associated with the hms. So if that work slows down, it might be that the longevity of that site is a little beyond 2018.
but we will continue to analyze the way we're using the spaces to make sure that it makes sense.
it may not be exactly like what's in the document today.
but that it fits without kind of changing the overall perspective of some of the anchor tenants, which are really the courts.
so we want to maximize that site as much as we can and if visitation makes sense there, then that's what we would be looking at.

>> my final question is so if we look at an action like 1101 and I guess it's small, so it's easy.
but it's also easy because the brief that I received I got within the last week.
so when the court approves the expenditure of money to renovate and the new program moves in, are they advised that you're looking at like a six to seven year project here?

>> we will make sure that that happens, yes.
I believe that they are.
we've had conversations with roger jeffreys and carol goldberg, but yes.
and ultimately we would be looking at how is the program doing and is it growing, does that building still each meet they're needs?
what do they need to accommodate they're program before they displace them.
so that's an example of how the master plan is a framework for us to use in guiding some of those decisions and how we analyze things.
but in all likelihood there will be several of those kinds of issues that we run across in the next several years.

>> and b under my last question is so when we as a result of these changes renovate axisting buildings like the granger building, and I'm visualizing the proposed -- sort of budget projections.
did we include in that cost to renovate like the granger building?

>> yes.
I think what has not been totally costed into your plan is the very late out year retro fits because we don't know exactly how much we might be renovating, and those are things that we'll monitor and revise estimates as we're implementing them.
it's hard to say in that last milestone three exactly how much space in each of those buildings is being renovated.
but the initial fitouts are in there.

>> except for 700 lavaca.

>> right.

>> which has already been through the county budget process and so was not an issue for our consultants to evaluate.

>> any other questions or comments?
so we will see you again in November.
thank you very much.

>> thanks so much.


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.


 

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