Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, November 22, 2011 (Agenda)
Item 6
Now let's call back to order the voting session of the Travis County Commissioners court.
item 6.
revised: consider and take appropriate action on the broaddus & associates central campus facilities master plan, phase two, and final presentation and direct broaddus & associates to prepare final documents.
good afternoon.
>> linda powell from transportation and budget office and is with me my partner let lee strictland mr. .
>> good afternoon.
>> and we are joined by steven from broaddus & associates, raw fish and cation reen and andrew broderick from broaddus & associates and we are going turn it over them to present the final step of the master plan process.
>> good afternoon, Commissioners.
>> good afternoon.
>> judge.
>> it's been a long, fun, exciting journey.
>> [laughter]
>> we are excited to be here with you today.
before we get started, I wanted to recognize several members of our team that actually joined us today and kind of acknowledgment of kind of a special culmination of events.
my partner in crime all the way through this has been katherine skeral who has been the lead project manager and andrew broderick who you remember from the past scenes and our cocollaborator on this, rob fish and his colleagues that are with us in spirit here today from richie green and associates and lori green who would love to be here today but her the husband has triple bypass surgery.
but with all of the stacking of lavaca and the Commissioners court and the space there.
looking back behind us over here, I see representatives from wimboker god Friday, lori wimboker, raymond chan from chan and associates and hw parking is here and who is there in the back?
datacom.
I think we have a good culmination of the teams here so a tireless effort for these folks and are pleased to have so many people to be part of the team and especially an opportunity to work with the county through the development and deliberation of this plan.
so without further ado we will jump into our culminating presentation here.
the presentation is organized into really four sections.
with a place holder for discussion and comment at the end but feel free to interject with anything, but we will be recapping the outcomes of a process for the last three exciting years of our lives.
it is kind of funny, we are talking about people and their kids and how old they are and what grades they are in now.
it is amazing how time flies but we will be recapping the goals, the process, the methods, summary of the plan recommendations.
sharing with you the finalized phasing plan, which incorporated -- is by and large the same with a couple of minor tweaks with the last presentation and including comments.
so in terms of processes, the fundamental objective of this was to develop a comprehensive vision for the next 25 years as it relates to your facility strategy of the downtown area of what we come to characterize as the central campus for Travis County so that there is a strategic plan in place to serve as the baseline for managing your growth as it evolves over time.
we tried to use reasonable -- reasonably efficient predictable factors over the course of the plan.
we recognize that none of us have the most exacting of crystal balls but this is a plan to serve as a baseline for making decisions based on how much progress happens or doesn't happen in terms of development of programs. Fundamentally, as you recall, the process was organized into two separate phases.
the first, which was organized around the notion of needs assessment, which was all about kind of operational assessment, facilities assessment, developing staffing projecttions and ultimately the detailed space program.
beyond what you are looking at today, it was very much about understanding what projections were without specifically applying those to the real estate -- with real estate considerations.
as we moved into phase two, that's where we specifically started thinking a little bit more about how those space requirements would work within the bricks and mortar and the dirt that you have in downtown to accommodate those needs, so we started getting into looking at conceptual alternatives and how the multi-year benchmark programs of space projections could be accommodated over time, in terms of a master plan development, based on some assumptions about a parking policy, which would drive some of the impact for space requirements and then ultimately come out in an implementation development plan that's tied to phasing strategies to help serve as that baseline for discussions as it moves forward.
the conversation was really multi-dimensional.
working very closely with the steering committee in visioning sessions, touring facilities, doing historic facilities research, interviewing all of the offices and departments, getting input from the public and community engagement sessions, talking the city, working with the state, touring other courthouse facilities and having public forum in sheret, where we had representatives from the outside community that came in.
>> we actually went over this a couple of weeks ago, so we will make it brief
>> [indiscernible] but to hit the highlights in terms of planning assumption that is underpin the master planning process.
>> one of the key issues, of course, is developing staffing projections and we worked hard on that working with department heads going fort looking at demographics and other factors that helped us general are rate that.
the staffing projections are very important as they form the basis for the space needs projections which underpins the master plan.
we did that with court projections and looking at caseloads and other demographic factors that impact the justice system, develop the court judicial projections, which underpin the need for the court facilities.
the adjacency mathematics, we went through a series of looking at just not how much you need but where it should be locate and trying to defragment the system that you currently have now in terms of people being scattered through multiple buildings so we developed this process of trying to identify the most critical adjacencies, trying to consolidate people and which agencies should be next to others.
and there is relocation going on in this process in addition to major new construction, new civil court -- well, we will get into that later.
the space standards were also developed working closely with the facilities management group as well as department heads and looking at best practices nationwide, both for courts and for office development, including looking at some innovative ideas like hoteling and other areas so we could make the space as efficient as possible, use it more efficiently and the space standards combined the projections helps you create your space program -- total space need.
the master plan, we -- you know, some of our charges and the guiding principals, one of them was to try to make the highest use of existing resources.
we looked at the sites you have and the buildings you have and certainly made a priority of trying to keep and maintain the buildings that are either historic such as the hms courthouse or the relative investments that are substantial like the cjc and also looking at existing sites and we went through a process of going through site selection for the new civil court.
first looking at existing sites and then deeming it the need to go find a new site for that building but reusing some existing sites for some of the other developments for the new central booking, for the cjc expansion.
those can be done on the existing sites, not without demolition and building replacement but they can be done on existing land.
and then I will just jump to -- there is the -- I am not a parking expert, but we did look -- went through details looking at parking demand and we have parking planners here if you have questions on that.
but looking at demand for parking as well as where we can provide it and the master plan provides both of those and in some cases we lose parking like on the san antonio garage site but we create substantially new parking on block 126.
the budget -- I am going to -- why don't you jump in and talk about budget?
>> on the budget estimates, we spent a lot of time and this is probably a good time to pause and acknowledge the leadership that you have had from the county side with our coproject manages, whenand leslei strictland and when we were talking about budget strategies, those were critical in thinking about the budget process in the cycle alignment, looking at direct cost strategies, factoring in allowances and contingents and even pooled escalation for the major milestone time frames as we move out ahead and I think -- I think fundamentally, as we look at everything over the course of this plan, we try to think about this over the context of planning for sustainable growth and you -- I don't mean that -- I mean us all being here in Austin right now makes us think that that must automatically mean green but we are really thinking about sustainable in the truest sense of the word, that what is a real long-term sustainable strategy for the county, how do we leverage resources from the transit-rich environment for energy systems, and really thinking about how we integrate into the overall downtown Austin plan as a participant and leader within that group.
>> this has actually been a very interesting master plan for me because I think this is the first time I have done a master plan where major actions have been taken before the master plan has been complete.
but I think it's a good sign, because I think it means that -- I think it is a confirmation and validation of the master plan.
it's also a complement to the Commissioners court to be able to act decisively and quickly on implementing some of what I think are the most significant portions of the master plan coming up.
obviously the two that on the screen are 700 lavaca building, and the cfch site, to talk about adjacencies versus the nonagencies, what is in there and what is slated to go in there because it is a phase occupancy plan and then the civil and family court purchasing site was also a -- I am going to say, a good move and a timely move to do that, so that you can get moving on the process for developing new family courthouse.
so those are the two major things that have already been implemented as part of the master plan.
this is your master plan -- this is your campus today.
I think you know most of your buildings.
I am not going to go through it, except to say that we start looking at the -- at your existing resources and your existing buildings and we build from there, and if we go look at the 2035 view, there are substantial changes and I think what's most glaring and they will be color coded later, but there are a few buildings that go away and significant buildings that get built.
new civil and family court is the most significant building, in addition to major expansion of the cjc, new central booking facility, a new building on the block 126 site.
those are the major new ones and we will get more clarification as to what the impacts are
>> I have a question.
by the way -- and I ago with the whole thing -- I agree with the whole thing.
y'all have done a really good job in general.
this picture here and multiple pictures here show the site of the civil and family courthouse with the intenser color for civil and family courthouse building and the other for potential development.
I brought this up before and still have issue with it because I don't think we should define that full block as definitively as it is done here in all of these pictures, because we have not decide if we will have any kind of p3 or just build a courthouse.
so -- and I had asked for -- if we were going to even consider using this kind of representation, since there would be language, defining the fact that we haven't made this, and I didn't see that in here, either, so.
I would prefer to see a single block reserved for the civil and family courthouse, because things have ways of becoming defined in the future, even though they weren't explored in detail when this was put out.
>> I think the simplicity of it is that there is need for the 500,000 square foot courthouse which we stacked and blocked on into a half a block portion of the site and there is need for associated parking which would naturally fit on the other half of the block, so there is a full block configuration for the county's need as defined in the program for both space and program that would include that footprint for the courthouse, and that same footprint for the parking garage site.
I think the depiction here is just sayg that parking garage portion of that site could be something more if the county were so inclined to have it be something more than a parking garage.
>> but one of the reasons that we bought a full entire block was because of the discussion early on which is actually documented, that we needed a full block horizontally, to be able to effectively configure the courtrooms on the floors with the other things that were needed, for example, in the brooklyn courthouse, the multiple elevator shafts that are required in a facility like this.
so I just have a problem in the fact that we don't demonstrate that and we bought that full block for that purpose.
>> okay.
and I think the other thing I will add -- I believe we said this last time, and if we didn't, I will just kind of clarify.
last time I think this said private development on the side.
we changed the language on this to say potential development, so we are not really delineating the full extent -- frankly, actually on any of these -- on any of these, these are basically matching diagrams of what the potential development of those sites are.
>> it is actually the potential soaping build out.
it could be court facilities.
>> I have no problem with the potential line items. I have a rob with the representation graphically.
>> okay.
>> okay.
>> we will have that language in the next step which is the final report documentation with all of the narrative and language that will accompany -- that will be submitted for review.
>> I am telling you, I can't vote for this unless you show the full square block.
>> would it address your concerns if, rather than showing the 3d representational which is just blocks anyway, to show the 2d bird's eye view which just shows the blocks that are occupied without any reference to the stacking?
which is just an extra page?
it is just the next page, where you see the bird's eye view, the map essentially.
>> there is actually another option which would be to combine the court and the potential development into one matching diagram that simply shows the maximum build owl out.
>> that's what I prefer to see.
>> we don't have to define right now exactly what part of it.
>> just maximum of that envelope for that block and not define it one way or the other, sure, I think it would be simpler.
>> I think it would be simpler and much better at eliminating future problems.
>> I think I agree.
>> so we will combine the graphic.
still keep the footnote at the bottom, because it may -- by combining the graphic may show slightly more than we might --
>> I think a potential for build out should be noted in in there, in a text in a line item as it would be related to what is allowable on that site.
not for what kind of uses it might be used for, but beyond what our defined needs are.
>> what we might want do is do two color coding, with part of it representing the need and the rest representing the total allowable, without defining exactly what that is.
>> it would be future growth.
>> yes.
>> it could be.
>> that's fine.
>> we have an idea for how to address that.
thanks.
steve, I think you are up.
>> so fundamentally, we ended up making some alignments with the comments that were made a moment ago about aligning the budget and program cycles together, so we were looking actually at bonding cycle and capacity of the county and trying to align the milestones that we talked about early on, what we right side to 2010 and then went to 2015, 25 and 2035.
we actually started looking at the combination of the milestones in the context of financial strategies and within priority implementation for occupancy and really this is the piece that starts to get into the domino effect for us.
we identified basically three major milestone windows between now and 2018, between 2019 and 27, and between 2028 and 2037, which would accomplish final renovation and fit-out of buildings that have been purchased and are continuing to be fit out or will be built and have phased expansion over time within the shell of those buildings.
around I think what we can do is basically share with you this graphic depiction with your note, Commissioner Huber, about the adjustment to the graphic related to the civil family courthouse need versus the rest of the potential development on the site.
but this shows kind of a rendered depiction that actually factors in the notion of the idea of a central spine, of guadalupe, recognizing -- the conversation we had early on, even in the visioning sessions, about what -- what is the meaning of campus and what is the meaning of campus in the context of Travis County, and we recognize that it is probably not woven together with a necessarily architectural style, but the points of access, circulation between the buildings become very critical, and I think tying it together into the urban framework is a really good strategy for the county as you move forward with your major ideological decisions of keeping the scene of government in downtown Austin, and the heart of Travis County, as well as your major judiciary functions.
what you see on the next graphic here is building along guadalupe lavaca transit rich corridor, which we think is terrific.
I think actually the access overall in terms of transit links is going to be great as it ties to the future locations or discussed potential fortran sit -- for transit rail.
you can see the radius from hms courthouse, 5 hunk blocks down to the 700 building and a few minute walk to the hms courthouse and future and civil and family courthouse site.
>> let me look at the -- can we look at the different milestones milestones I like to call them citizen's advisory committees.
milestone is one thing.
but citizen's advisory -- can wk at sequence, sequence is how I like to look as these milestones you have placed in front of us.
showdown the line when we look through the city limits of Austin, showdown the line, it appears to me that there has to be a strong relationship with the city of Austin as we proceed, because because of the graves street situation is and a lot of different things, because you see anywhere where we have established a relationship, whether it be by -- through the city manager and maybe they can help establish a relationship with what we are doing.
because we have a lot on the plate and we have a lot of things we are doing now currently and with the family courthouse and lavaca and the other things that we are already working toward the grandeur, in my opinion, we are going to have to establish a relationship.
so can you basically tell me how that will be done as we proceed?
that is just one aspect I saw in this overview, is the -- is to make sure that the -- the jurisdictional authority, which is the city of Austin, is involved early on instead of later.
so can somebody address that for me, please?
>> if you can, hi will start as how we did it through the process.
we did have very interactive conversations during, an actually even prior to the final -- the final presentation of the city of Austin downtown plan.
so we had some pretty iterated discussions just with the context of their downtown plan where they were actually presenting things that your project manager was catching as it needed the to be presented with the downtown plan as with regards to properties and configurations associated with the Travis County properties.
even going so far as looking at maximum build-out capacity on the site, on the hms site, those are done under presumption that is the final codification and the regulatory elements will go into place as relates to the downtown plan as to maximum zoning potential and I think the real strategy is how you move forward.
>> this is what I am saying, because I don't want to have stumbling blocks -- and let's face it.
things change, as far as the person we talk to today, versus the person we talk to next week, so I am trying to get a bone fide benchmark, bone fide digging in strategy to make sure that will continually be in the relationship, because we what we are talking about, we are talking about years of projections as far as what this master plan will be about and, of course, I think that is, in my mind is very critical.
so I just want to make sure that those relationships -- well, that things is done with the blessing of the city of Austin and as much -- with as least resistance as much as possible is established early on and if things change, we can still lock into those persons that will come after some of these, as far as getting some of these things done.
so that was my point.
okey doke.
>> Commissioners, we laid some foundations for working relationships with the city at staff level during the time that the study was going on.
belinda and I had a variety of staff level meetings with various city departments, in the parks and correctiation department, staff, the parking enterprise manager, people from other aspects of the transit planning areas, as well as the neighborhood planning groups and other community stakeholders, not just within the city government.
>> right.
exactly.
>> so there was a broad involvement, but you are right to point to the need for establishing a proactive executive level liaison to help shepherd the process and ensure a good relationship between the city and county so this plan can be implemented to the benefit of all and we will look to your leadership for the best strategy to pursue that.
>> thank you for that.
>> and one of the strategies aisd has used frequently for their bond programs is they actually have a land development review agreement between the city and aisd with a plan like this, you can gear something around the volume of work that you expect to do over many years in downtown and I know you could make set something like that up.
I know the state is also looking to see how to best smooth the process of development into downtown, and so I think that is definitely an item to pick up and try to figure out exactly how you want staff to move through that process and establish some liaison links.
>> this is definitely true.
working with the city, wherever you are developing, whether it is downtown or not, the city is an octopus, many arms, sometimes multiple heads and they don't always think the same or act harmoniously together and so having someone who can help ensure coordination on their side of the table as well as be partner to us would be of great benefit.
>> I move approval for funding but as far as outreach is concerned -- I will let you go and finish where you are, because I am kind of concerned about the outreach in some of these different avenues to make sure that also happens, especially if we have to fund these through different funding mechanisms, which we do, on some of them we already have, but we will talk about that.
go ahead.
I am sorry.
go ahead the.
.
>> so on the next diagram, the right-hand side, you see the overall plan for -- in plan view that connects all the way down to the future hms -- excuse me, the civil family courthouse site located right down here at the bottom half on the right, and the rest of the plan connecting all the way back to the state office building -- excuse me, the state capitol, so zooming in the red area, you can start to see the configuration and thinking how we work with the city and moving over to the next page, we think about how this links together in terms of open spaces and public spaces within the context of a lot of the conversations that came out of the downtown plan and trying toal align some of the goals, objectives within the downtown plan in integrated planning process.
I think speaking to Commissioners Davis' concern a little bit, in one of our earlier conversations we talked about the patchwork quilt, the urban fabric of downtown and the multiple planning processes in play.
we met with the folks from the Texas facilities commission as well as city of Austin and multiple different entities around the way trying to implement these plans together.
I think the difficult aspect for Travis County is the innovation of public spaces and how you work collaboratively with the city and I think that point is really well made in terms of connecting together with the great streets program, because the urban fabric and the walkability of this campus, especially as you look at the north-south spine here is going to be credittal calas you move from woodruff square park to republic square park to the banker courthouse complexes.
the other notion of connecting those public open spaces links was the idea of developing block 126 into a real urban plaza, leveraging the fact that we do have a capitol view corridor across that site and actually opening up and framing it in a way that doesn't really exist today with the grandfathered buildings that are currently in place.
it is kind of funny, we talk about the woodruff square view corridor, which really doesn't actually exist right now because there is a building that's already standing there, so we have proposed opening up the site and leveraging the site below grade as we have heard from the community and for parking in low grade construction, much like the state capitol grounds include in terms of below grade in development and we identified location for good centralized parking, access in a public plaza that creates and frames new views back to the state capitol grounds from the historic woodruff square park.
>> I will walk you through the phase and plan a little bit.
but this slide -- I would not have named it growing pains --
>> [laughter] but it basically is some of the little challenges you have to implement this because we are not working with a clean slate.
we have existing sites and facilities we have to work around and we have phasing.
we did develop the master plan with the goal of trying to minimize the amount of times people move and to try to maximize them getting in the right place at the end of the day.
so there is sort of interim stage where some people get shuffled a little more than others.
we tried to keep it to minimum and of course in the case of the criminal courts which is sort of the biggest -- I don't know, I shouldn't say that, but one of the key affected components, is that in order to expand the criminal court, we need to, at some point, remove the existing Travis County jail and the gal building and so displacement there and then the criminal court and we can't displace those until we have a place for them to go and so the criminal court shuffles around a little bit until it gets to its new home in the next milestone but let's move to milestone 1.
what we are showing in red are the new facilities that get developed in milestone 1.
and in orange are the facilities that get otherwise renovated or kind of impacted and the ones that are, I guess in the yellowish beige are the one on this stage remain unaffected by the plant.
so the phasing plan is very detailed, that's why it is called tailed phasing plan and I will hit the highlights and not blow by blow but the first one is the one you already did which was purchase and remember vote the 700 lavaca building.
as of now you current thely have located in that building, auditor, purchasing, human resources, planning and budget, it -- I think that's its, if I am not mistaken, that's who currently is in there now.
>> one moved last week.
>> it changes and then we have moves for the rest of the agencies that are moving and that is including Commissioners court, t and r, human resources, and a number of others.
the next one is the granger building, which will be to expand the district attorney.
that's the renovation that helps there.
that is actually a temporary state, and then we built the new -- milestone 1 -- the new family and court building which will house primarily civil courts along with some of the functions that go with it that serve the civil courtings including county clerk, the district clerk portions that work with civil.
probate.
and the cps courtrooms from the family court, which I am not sure it is shown on this slide.
yeah, it is, the 4d, cps courtrooms, as well as the law library coming from granger and -- I am sorry, the law library and the self-help from hms. And then after you have constructed that building, the next phase is the hms courthouse back fill.
that building will be the great historic building.
it doesn't function very well for modern courts that we know and we established that early.
but it can be very useful building for other agencies.
the criminal courts administration, the tax assessor, the collectors portion, part of the district clerk can all move into the hms. And part of milestone 1 is to expand the cjc go gault, which is a measure we try to eliminate four or five courtrooms for the expansion into the gault before another new major cjc can be later built in a later milestone.
the russ building renovated for employee health and wellness and then at that point we are free to demolish usb and hope buildings to make room for other -- and the holt buildings for construction.
>> so actually moving the da in the gault so they can expand to the cjc.
it is in one building now so they are moving.
>> yes.
it is internal move which is why it is represented in that orange color.
there is a lot of stuff that happen internally and the major new blocks, which are the ones easy to see, but the ones that happen internally are critical to success of master plan.
>> and just to tag on to rob when you were talking about the expansion within granger during this renovation period, the milestone, one would also include accommodating the county attorney internally within this building and following the court's directions today, the self-help center and law library is being consolidated in the granger building on the first floor and there is potential, subject to court's consideration for the level I expansion of that function in that space, so it is not specifically addressed at this time in the master plan.
>> in block 126, that's the one we do have -- we do have the usb building that you acquired and the one story building over on the corner that has the constable in there which at that point in time we would have cleared up that site.
this provides the opportunity for a major rebuilding and development of county property in a much more significant civic function and public way for the community.
I think it was something that became a pretty strong sounding board for us through all of the -- I mean, we were a sounding board, I think, for the community through the process of community engagement in the phase two portion of this, which was we really want to see the county better leveraging and utilizing block 126 as an amenity, as plaza space and so on, so leveraging the limitation of the capitol view corridors with the redevelopment of that site provides enormous opportunity for not only accommodating programmatic needs and swing space but also significant parking demand.
>> right.
in fact, the development on the block 126, its primary purpose initially is to provide swing space so we can do the other moves we are talking about.
so temporary basis, adult probation and pretrial would both consolidate into block 126.
that would empty out eobb, executive office building.
-- eob, and it could move out of 700 lavaca and I talked about adult probation, so you have vacated eob and also vacated nueces and you can demolish that and it makes room for the central plant that would serve for I guess the district heating and cooling, that would serve as the central campus.
since we vacated eob, you can decide what to do with it at that time.
you could dispose of it.
>> where do the adult probation employees go when it's time for a permanent location?
>> they go back in the cjc complex.
they expansion back on to the original cjc site.
>> and the administrative unit stays in block 126.
>> yes, the rest stays.
>> so court services move into the criminal court building, the expanded cjc and the administrative unit stays in block 126 with other administrative office space.
>> so the adult probation employees and the eob today go to block 126 and then the cjc?
>> that's correct.
>> there will be enough space in the cjc to accommodate?
>> as is sized in this plan, yes.
>> okay.
>> milestone two, again, to look at the diagram.
the red indicates the new construction and the cjc expansion and central booking building, the cjc expansion as we were hinting at includes more than just the criminal courts.
it includes the da and the county attorney and probation, so it is really the whole criminal court family ends up being consolidated into this one complex.
>> I will pause on this while this particular image is on the screen, because I think it is reflective of one aspect that was talked about throughout the process.
it was talked about with the public.
it was talked about through our analysis of your existing facilities from an historic perspective which is that of that from the hms courthouse and you can remember from some of the earlier presentations, some that lori presented to you, the pre1950s or era and taking back part of the wing and restoring hms courthouse which is not only architecturally, but probably more pre-eminently, culturally historic milestone event location and a real jewel for the county, so it is a significant element that happens, too.
>> you brought up a good point and I want to make sure that one of the issues we were looking at for the Travis County courthouse building was the historical significance of it and also being able to preserve the historical significance.
so I want to make sure whatever direction we proceed in with this court, that the landscape, the exterior andal of those other things that is go with that particular site of building is still adhered to, and so -- and I know that we are looking at for the flavor of that, so I want to make -- I want to be mindful of it, because that is a very significant historical building and we want to be slur the integrity of the historical structure is maintained to whatever degree, so I think there are certain people -- or vendors that actually look at these historical buildings and actually are able to deal with them on a historical perspective.
so I want to make sure that is done.
>> absolutely.
and I think you will be pleased with the recommendation incorporated into the overall plan in that regard, Commissioner.
>> okay, okey doke.
thank you.
>> milestone 2, first key move is the demolition of the san antonio garage.
as you know, we went through a lot of discussion about whether we wanted to do that, but that is simply the best available site immediately adjacent to the cjc, and that was the rationale for using that, in this case for central booking.
the central booking, I should say is more than central booking, it is also the 72 -- we are calling it 72 hour housing for sheriff's department.
it is housing for those people awaiting bail or otherwise may be released or are going to go to the del valle site or need to be classified first, so it is the certain period of time where the sheriff can deal with a huge proportion of these people never go to del valle, so we don't want to create unnecessary transportation of shuffling people back and forth so it allows it is sheriff to process a lot of folks and maybe process them out of incarceration so they never have to go on unnecessary trip to del valle, that would be connected with a hard underground -- presumably underground connection to the cjc to allow for prisoner movement which is a great benefit and that is really the real value of that site, moving detainees by direct connection is both far more secure and saves a whole lot of money in vehicular transport, so that site was very valuable and that was the rationale for putting that there.
>> I would say one other thing as a reminder from early conceptual study and we looked at other sites for sen when we were testing other sites similarly for the courthouse and those were issues that were also vetted with the community and so there is a certain sensibility to this that central booking is located in almost exactly -- it is across the street but in very close proximity to where it already is today because it's an issue of concern for many folks.
>> another thing I would say to add on to that is in order to address the concern of central booking facility fronting the historic square, we have given a lot of consideration as to what agencies would be in a general office space more public accessible type environment might be able to front the square.
so when you see the stacking plan and the move plans, it just isn't central booking.
it has office space provisions with it so that the park edge can be active from an office building type perspective as well.
>> yes.
it includes office space, at least for temporary swing space for the da, and for approximately five criminal courts, in order for it to allow us to vacate and demolish the gault building but we are also demolishing the jail -- if you want to make room for the cjc expansion.
we are focusing on the central campus but by demolishing the jail, you have to account for that function and that holding capacity, that presumably the del valle campus until you have built the new central booking building and so there is an impact on the sheriff's department holding, beyond just the downtown campus.
>> are we still talking about 400 inmates?
>> well, in the -- in the 72 hour housing, I think it is 128 if I am not mistaken and then substantial number of people in the booking component that are not necessarily in a holding cell.
a lot of them are in waiting areas.
I don't remember the number offhand.
it is significant.
more than that.
>> associated with how many beds we would be displacing, it is part of master plan analysis that we are hoping to bring forward.
it is in the budget for this fiscal year to actually work with the sheriffs office, criminal justice planning, facilities planning, management and budget to work on packetly what that bed mix would be and how many beds it would be and looking at updating the del valle master plan and also to pick up how do we provide laundry services and that type of things to detainees the central booking if the jail is no longer down here, so we will have a better answer for that after we complete another analysis.
>> because you may have more than 100 beds but you also have, on any given day, 250-300 additional inmates?
>> right.
>> going through image demonstration, I guess.
>> that's right.
>> so on transitional basis, where does magistrate go?
that is the portion under the building that sits under the cjc so it should be able to remain intact with court transfer which is under cjc, not under jail footprint but we are hoping to pick up, as part of the analysis with the sheriff's office, some of the criminal court proceedings and issues that affect transportation, the inmate movement and how we are processing people through and if there is a better location for the magistrates we will identify it then but it is supposed to be in the cjc and where it is.
>> and the pretrial services and the judge is aware of that.
>> that we are putting together an analysis, that's correct.
>> an important aspect on the one line item that rob talked on.
this plant can't be looked at with a vacuum, just like not looking at the downtown plan and what the state and others are doing.
the jail and, you know, the sheriff's functions are very significant and they have kind of a domino effect.
a lot of the things we are talking about, especially when we get to this series of milestones have a lot of major domino effect on the requirements at del valle which are essentially mandated by the Texas jail commission so those are impacts beyond the scope of the downtown area but have reciprocal connection point to this particular area specifically.
>> so the next major piece, next major construction would be the new cjc expansion which would then accommodate the full criminal courts that have been -- the expanded criminal courts have been shuffling around a little bit.
this becomes permanent home to meet the 2035 need for the criminal courts.
it becomes the permanent home for the da who also got shuffled around a little bit.
the da has been part of our justice committee all along so they are fully aware of this.
they are not in love of the fact they are moving several times are aware it is in the best interest at the end of the day and right amount of space.
the county attorney, I talked about getting the whole criminal justice on site as well as adult probation as belinda mentioned, adult probation except the rest of the administration but adult probation would be on site here.
and then -- so now we are in a position to renovate and restore the hms courthouse and the brizendine courthouse.
the constable would be temporarily relocated to block 126 and jp5 and probate ultimately hms would house the probate court and the county clerk once the hms is renovated, and the jp and constable and they come back and they end up in the hms courthouse.
so we think they are in close proximity to the courts but they are in a building that is better suited for them than it would be for either civil or criminal court.
and then the last piece of milestone 2, the granger building gets back filled for mental health public defender that we now have a home for them.
>> we could also add to that, when we had our joint steering committee and justice focus group committee meeting a few weeks ago to preview this final presentation with them, the criminal courts administrator raised the issue of potential trends toward public defender functions as they have seen this trending in other counties, and we don't know what is really going to happen, but where might that -- something like that find a place within the master plan.
we pointed out that granger building back fill plan at this point leaves most of the granger building unoccupied, so at the end of the master plan, you do have some flexible capacity, for whatever programs may appear or grow and change in different ways than what we can see today.
so maintaining flexibility is a key element of the plan.
>> that brings up a really good point which we talked about -- you heard me say a lot of times through this process as we talked through the major milestones we actually do, as master planners know that the county doesn't cease to exist in 2035 so the block for the civil county courthouse site and thinking about the potential beyond the need that is program out to 2035 likewise in the resources, leveraging the office spaces for future capacity growth beyond -- beyond the immediate need of the 25-year window.
>> well, that's been a milestone.
so that's milestone 3, you see the buildings in orange.
those reflect.
now you built all of your buildings.
and you have renovated for the permanent function to find in the master plan.
these are kind of final fit-outs and expansions to see if ch, civil family courthouse can be expanded from 2035 need -- perhaps built out to 2035 need, we don't know exactly how that will be built out, but assume it will be further built out for the next ten-year horizon, as well as now the block 126, as leslie mentioned with granger, the same with block 126 and central booking building to have space used for swing space that can then be used -- additional use for county agency functions, for both whatever you need at that point and both moving you beyond 2035 as it arrives.
>> and accounting for the internal agencies that are there and remaining there.
and also I would like to point out, because there have been several, just kind of reporting changes, if those things come up, for example, drug court not being under criminal court administration, being under adult probation and pretrial services reporting through adult probation, by linking these service where is the constituents really access them which is in the criminal courts building, they are all in there so they are accounted for.
stacking president terms may change, growth protection may change but the ultimate location is still based on the adjacency matrix that are really identified by how people access them and who they work with so I think the plan still holds together as time as you have some changes like that, but I think that we have tried to, without being overcome by administrative changes to things, we have tried to make sure that the document is valid as we move forward and as you move towards approval so it's something that staff can use as a baseline to continue to monitor and change and test opportunities and ideas again.
>> yes.
I would just like to add to that.
master planning is not a document.
it is a process and that has been already demonstrated by the fact we implement and keep portions of it already.
so that's good.
s the also a document not meant to be written in stone in November 2011.
it is a document that has enough flexibility in it and leaves enough room for initiative and change of circumstance and conditions, 5, 10, 15, 20 years from now, so we think we have blocked out the major moves and the major needs.
>> is so the next slide here.
shows the campus view 2035 with the full build-out.
to that milestone window, it is envisioned as a tight end to the downtown Austin plan and a pedestrian friendly environment that is tied together with the axial spine of campus connectivity, developing and integrating downtown guidelines for urban design and the future building that go along, including active ground level uses among first floor, public space buildings.
thinking about place making and signage, I think will be a very important aspect for the county to consider, among other implementation strategies, and how -- how the pedestrian can get from building to building with a clear circulation parameter and a even, also, maybe even thinking about the landscape fabric, you know, looking very wholistcally for the landscape plan of all of the central campus I think is imperative in terms of thinking how the fabric of that downtown area can actually integrate together.
so in conclusion, I think, to what rob was just saying, the county is making significant progress by virtue of the activities that we have already seen today.
I think that is very encouraging not only for us as consulting team members and I have seen other faces here through the process of steering committee members and subcommittee members and the different stakeholder groups involved in this process in terms of some of those who are actually occupying some of those spaces as the court will very soon, in 700 lavaca, but I think it is also very important for our county wide constituency as a whole.
in terms of implementing the plan, I think one of the key take aways on this is that your plan is a baseline.
it is very much a process, as rob just mentioned, but it's a roadmap that is set up to anticipate the change that is inherent for us out there in the future.
the recommendations are based on fair and reasonable projections based on the information and assumptions that we have here today.
and Commissioner Eckhardt was, I think in our last subcommittee meeting pointed out very astutely and importantly that we need make sure our assumptions are documented in this so that when future courts actually have important decisions about implementation strategies of bricks and mortar and capital investment and investmey are in place in how they think about parking policies and connectivity, to guide the future growth but recognize that the plan is also very flexible in terms of adapting to the changes to the circumstances.
as you may recall, we thought about -- when we thought about how the spacing strategies and how the early conceptual plans came together, those were thought about in terms of what the major anchor uses were going to be.
those spaces -- not office space that maybe could be in this building or that building with more flexibility that you have seen through the phasing plan but how do you accommodate a central booking facility that can only be a central booking facility specifically built space, or courthouse space that, the plan has been built around those anchors.
I think the benefit of further inaction as we -- as you live through and move through this plan, is thinking about how it provides for future adequate space, how it provides for public access to the county, community, court services, how it will actually enhance security.
a lot of things -- we talked about security and datacom was involved in a lot of the security consulting efforts on this.
opportunities for improve efficiency and effectiveness were critical.
this is coming out of the early planning principals from the very beginning of this process you can recall, is how can better efficiency found in terms of having facilities that will facilitate that kind of environment and ultimately the county is a good neighbor within the urban traffic and seat of Travis County.
and I guess theles comments were -- Commissioner Davis you made the comments about sequencing versus milestones but the fact is that sequence because matter and even with an example of, you know, the impact of del valle and the jail facilities there, the projects need to be built on a certain level of sequence in order to accommodate what you just saw, a really interesting domino effect in terms of -- in terms of how some of these demands, as well as parking demands happen over time.
I have to personally come back to a little reflection that goes back about five years now maybe, when we worked with you on an initial study, which was when we were posed with block 126 in the san antonio garage site and asked where we could house 250,000-foot square courthouse and what would be the best site and the outcome of the recommendations were, we can't really understand that because there is something called a capitol view corridor which will constrict your site.
we don't know what the program is and the impact of program is.
we are not sure how the parking assumptions would be accommodated in that and frankly, as we started moving into different sites, we realized we couldn't look at that in the vacuum.
it has to be in the master plan perspective, because if we said put the courthouse on the side of the san antonio parking garage, the question would be where do we expand the criminal courts and the associated functions with central booking there, so I want to kind of pause for a moment to applaud you as a court and many of the representatives from the county that participated in this process along the way for taking the time to, you know, pause for a second, reflect on the extraordinary successful growth that we have seen here in Travis County.
>> >
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>> ...
but there is a mechanism in place where we have to provide the necessary money for some of these things.
I'm not saying all, but some of these things.
at some point what type of vehicle are we use to go let the community aware of exactly what we're doing here today and outreach, you heard me mention outreach and I'm a big believer in outreach in the community.
I really don't know all the ins and outs, but it appears to me the bona fide outreach mechanism has to be adhered to to ensure that the community is aware of how we're spending their money.
>> well, I think that we would look to the Commissioners court to provide direction as to when you would like materials.
I think with the adoption of a plan it does give staff a baseline of information and statistical information, factual information and graphics to provide for you on any specific project or in a particular format or way.
the presumption is at some point particularly those that would have bond committees, so we'll be prepared to respond however you would like to develop public outreach for us.
>> okay, I just wanted to make sure that may be made available.
and I know these are projected deals for so many years out ahead and there's some things that are right before us right now today as we sit here right now.
in other words, the more immediate, not virtually those that are long range, but the more immediate I think still needs some consideration.
so I just want to make sure that that is implemented and placed somewhere in all of this.
that was my concern.
thank you.
>> yes, sir.
>> court members, any other questions, comments?
>> thanks for your tremendous work.
>> an earlier study contained budget assumptions.
this one does not.
why is that?
>> we have budget information available if you would like for us to agendize that.
I think one of the things that we wanted to make certain is that we have the right approach in place, but we do have that.
I believe every member of the court has received a budget package and we've had some discussions so if you would like for us to agendize that, we will.
>> after this court has moved on and there are five new people sitting here and somebody wonders where is that space needs master plan that the court commissioned and paid for years ago, we don't want to hand them a box of documents.
>> no.
>> we want to hand them one.
and my understanding was this is the final report.
>> this is --
>> that's a good point.
andrea, if you will hold up exhibit no.1.
actually this is not an an exhibit.
this is as we were walking through the phase 1 and 2 portions just a moment ago, you might pull out a couple of those, that binder represents the culmination of all of the phase 1 outcomes reports.
kind of phase 1 volume is the volume 1.
>> that's exactly my point.
there may be a new court member interested in reading all of that.
>> all that documentation is there and the next step for us is the preparation of the second volume of that which is the phase 2 documentation written report which will include all the requisite detail, the comments Commissioner Huber was talking about, the potential for the development of the site, the phasing, the cost information, all that information will be incorporated into the final book report document.
>> and just so we also receive it electronically.
so if you would like us to package a single executive summary with some of the information, we can certainly do.
that we do think that, of course, since it's going to be a living document they may historically look back on what this documentation, but we hope to continue to amend and consolidate the document as we move forward.
this is a final presentation.
it is not actually the final report.
the final report shall be packaged and available in January.
if you are approving -- with your approval to accept the -- the kind of the phasing plan that's presented here as actually the only thing you haven't specifically voted on as an element of the master plan as an individual item, and so before we close out or can confirm that we have the appropriate budget estimates and phased appropriately, we would need to have that action.
>> okay.
this says Travis County central campus study.
>> yes, sir.
>> and it has phasing information and recommendations.
>> yes, sir.
>> my recommendation is that we put a one or two budget summary after each phase because it's easy to do.
so when we hand somebody this document, which is 32, 33 pages, ten more won't hurt.
I'm thinking that most of the Commissioners court members in the future will be more like our current county judge and not want to receive five or six of them but want to see this.
and if this generates questions, then that person will have capable people to turn to like the two of you to get further information.
>> and we can package the summaries, could we not?
right.
>> my next question is specifically what is requested of us today?
>> with approval -- if not of this final presentation at least of the phasing that's included in it, that we can package the final report and come back to court if you would like or we were expecting to at least receive the report, staff can post that item for you so you can see the executive summary.
>> judge, I would prefer to receive the report because as you mentioned it's a dynamic report and it can change here and there.
and knowing too that we can't bind future courts to a plan that we have approved today or the spending for it or committing -- commitment of funds, that that in itself says it's not dynamic.
and who knows at the time what's going on at the time.
maybe -- maybe there's no more county government, you know.
I mean that would be the extreme.
and so then we're left with them being able to do something else.
who knows what's going to come in the future.
you know, we just don't know.
>> we're all advocates of metro government.
>> no, I don't think so.
I'm not.
>> especially during campaign season.
>> [laughter]
>> in order to prepare a final report, we would at least need action on the phasing plan as it's been distributed today.
>> I feel comfortable just receiving it, the reports that we have people prepare.
>> I don't think we have any problem with the phasing plan, but I think the budget documents are important.
and if my recommendation is not a good one, then I suggest you just take the pages from the other report and attach them to this one as an exhibit or something.
I just think they ought to be part of one document.
>> they could be.
>> and the other documents should be available for others who want more detail.
>> I think I have that package.
>> is that the package you made the presentation on?
>> yes, it is.
>> because there's graphics in here that are not in here today.
>> that would be a part of our final packaging.
so yes, because that's what's based -- the budget estimates are based o so the intent would be with an action today we can make sure everything is updated to show the most recent of everything, which they've been doing over time as we've taken actions and package a file report for u as you said, an executive summary can be packaged where it replicates the budget after the milestone phases.
>> our consultants want to shake our hands and move on.
is that what I'm hearing?
>> yes, sir.
actually, we would just like to, you know, express our thanks for everyone who has put up with this for three years.
so again, we're happy to bring the final reports back whenever they are ready.
and I think we're targeting January.
>> yeah, actually we're going to have the draft report here probably prepared in the next couple weeks to go to county staff for review and comment and so we'll be getting back with the final bound document --
>> would that report contain pretty much the information we've received?
>> yes, sir, it will just be packaged differently.
>> so I'm wondering whether another presentation is necessary.
what if we just receive that and determine whether we need an agenda item posted and further court discussion.
if not, we'll just formally receive that and --
>> we can do that.
I think the only thing we want to make sure is that we're not asking broaddus so prepare final reports on something you haven't given direction on and the last element is the phasing plan that's in here today.
everything else as we've gone through the milestones you've said make these changes and incorporate that into the next step.
and that's what you are seeing today.
and that's what they are working on is making sure all of those changes or discussions have been incorporated into the final graphic and the final text.
>> well, in that case I move approval of the Travis County central campus study we've received today, plus the comments that we have made, and they will be consolidated into a final report which will be delivered to us the first part of next year, January or February.
>> January.
>> January.
and at that point we'll determine whether another court discussion is necessary.
>> second.
>> how is that?
>> we're set to approve.
>> formally receiving it more than anything else.
>> as long as we begin direction, you are okay with us giving direction for them to proceed with final documentation.
>> and the budget information, easiest way to make it available is fine with me.
whether it's after each phase or at the end as an appendix.
>> is it discussion time on this?
somebody second the motion?
>> yes.
>> and it's a good point because that outreach aspect of all of this was to make sure that whatever we do in the budgetary arena of what we're dealing is folks will know exactly what they have to pay for.
that was basically what I want to lay out is for the outreach.
it was basically intertwined with what the judge is suggesting as far as a budgetary layout on these particular projects.
those right before us now and those that are right around the corner.
so that was my point.
but anyway, thank you.
that's a good motion, judge.
>> any more discussion?
on the motion?
thank you all very much.
we know that's not easy assignment.
all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
we know we're not easy to work with.
>> it's been a pleasure and we thank you very much and are excited about delivering a final report recommendations.
I also acknowledge jim broaddus and chris wright who made enormous contribution to this.
>> thank you.
now let's call back to order the voting session of the Travis County Commissioners court.
item 6.
revised: consider and take appropriate action on the broaddus & associates central campus facilities master plan, phase two, and final presentation and direct broaddus & associates to prepare final documents.
good afternoon.
>> linda powell from transportation and budget office and is with me my partner let lee strictland mr. .
>> good afternoon.
>> and we are joined by steven from broaddus & associates, raw fish and cation reen and andrew broderick from broaddus & associates and we are going turn it over them to present the final step of the master plan process.
>> good afternoon, Commissioners.
>> good afternoon.
>> judge.
>> it's been a long, fun, exciting journey.
>> [laughter]
>> we are excited to be here with you today.
before we get started, I wanted to recognize several members of our team that actually joined us today and kind of acknowledgment of kind of a special culmination of events.
my partner in crime all the way through this has been katherine skeral who has been the lead project manager and andrew broderick who you remember from the past scenes and our cocollaborator on this, rob fish and his colleagues that are with us in spirit here today from richie green and associates and lori green who would love to be here today but her the husband has triple bypass surgery.
but with all of the stacking of lavaca and the Commissioners court and the space there.
looking back behind us over here, I see representatives from wimboker god Friday, lori wimboker, raymond chan from chan and associates and hw parking is here and who is there in the back?
datacom.
I think we have a good culmination of the teams here so a tireless effort for these folks and are pleased to have so many people to be part of the team and especially an opportunity to work with the county through the development and deliberation of this plan.
so without further ado we will jump into our culminating presentation here.
the presentation is organized into really four sections.
with a place holder for discussion and comment at the end but feel free to interject with anything, but we will be recapping the outcomes of a process for the last three exciting years of our lives.
it is kind of funny, we are talking about people and their kids and how old they are and what grades they are in now.
it is amazing how time flies but we will be recapping the goals, the process, the methods, summary of the plan recommendations.
sharing with you the finalized phasing plan, which incorporated -- is by and large the same with a couple of minor tweaks with the last presentation and including comments.
so in terms of processes, the fundamental objective of this was to develop a comprehensive vision for the next 25 years as it relates to your facility strategy of the downtown area of what we come to characterize as the central campus for Travis County so that there is a strategic plan in place to serve as the baseline for managing your growth as it evolves over time.
we tried to use reasonable -- reasonably efficient predictable factors over the course of the plan.
we recognize that none of us have the most exacting of crystal balls but this is a plan to serve as a baseline for making decisions based on how much progress happens or doesn't happen in terms of development of programs. Fundamentally, as you recall, the process was organized into two separate phases.
the first, which was organized around the notion of needs assessment, which was all about kind of operational assessment, facilities assessment, developing staffing projecttions and ultimately the detailed space program.
beyond what you are looking at today, it was very much about understanding what projections were without specifically applying those to the real estate -- with real estate considerations.
as we moved into phase two, that's where we specifically started thinking a little bit more about how those space requirements would work within the bricks and mortar and the dirt that you have in downtown to accommodate those needs, so we started getting into looking at conceptual alternatives and how the multi-year benchmark programs of space projections could be accommodated over time, in terms of a master plan development, based on some assumptions about a parking policy, which would drive some of the impact for space requirements and then ultimately come out in an implementation development plan that's tied to phasing strategies to help serve as that baseline for discussions as it moves forward.
the conversation was really multi-dimensional.
working very closely with the steering committee in visioning sessions, touring facilities, doing historic facilities research, interviewing all of the offices and departments, getting input from the public and community engagement sessions, talking the city, working with the state, touring other courthouse facilities and having public forum in sheret, where we had representatives from the outside community that came in.
>> we actually went over this a couple of weeks ago, so we will make it brief
>> [indiscernible] but to hit the highlights in terms of planning assumption that is underpin the master planning process.
>> one of the key issues, of course, is developing staffing projections and we worked hard on that working with department heads going fort looking at demographics and other factors that helped us general are rate that.
the staffing projections are very important as they form the basis for the space needs projections which underpins the master plan.
we did that with court projections and looking at caseloads and other demographic factors that impact the justice system, develop the court judicial projections, which underpin the need for the court facilities.
the adjacency mathematics, we went through a series of looking at just not how much you need but where it should be locate and trying to defragment the system that you currently have now in terms of people being scattered through multiple buildings so we developed this process of trying to identify the most critical adjacencies, trying to consolidate people and which agencies should be next to others.
and there is relocation going on in this process in addition to major new construction, new civil court -- well, we will get into that later.
the space standards were also developed working closely with the facilities management group as well as department heads and looking at best practices nationwide, both for courts and for office development, including looking at some innovative ideas like hoteling and other areas so we could make the space as efficient as possible, use it more efficiently and the space standards combined the projections helps you create your space program -- total space need.
the master plan, we -- you know, some of our charges and the guiding principals, one of them was to try to make the highest use of existing resources.
we looked at the sites you have and the buildings you have and certainly made a priority of trying to keep and maintain the buildings that are either historic such as the hms courthouse or the relative investments that are substantial like the cjc and also looking at existing sites and we went through a process of going through site selection for the new civil court.
first looking at existing sites and then deeming it the need to go find a new site for that building but reusing some existing sites for some of the other developments for the new central booking, for the cjc expansion.
those can be done on the existing sites, not without demolition and building replacement but they can be done on existing land.
and then I will just jump to -- there is the -- I am not a parking expert, but we did look -- went through details looking at parking demand and we have parking planners here if you have questions on that.
but looking at demand for parking as well as where we can provide it and the master plan provides both of those and in some cases we lose parking like on the san antonio garage site but we create substantially new parking on block 126.
the budget -- I am going to -- why don't you jump in and talk about budget?
>> on the budget estimates, we spent a lot of time and this is probably a good time to pause and acknowledge the leadership that you have had from the county side with our coproject manages, whenand leslei strictland and when we were talking about budget strategies, those were critical in thinking about the budget process in the cycle alignment, looking at direct cost strategies, factoring in allowances and contingents and even pooled escalation for the major milestone time frames as we move out ahead and I think -- I think fundamentally, as we look at everything over the course of this plan, we try to think about this over the context of planning for sustainable growth and you -- I don't mean that -- I mean us all being here in Austin right now makes us think that that must automatically mean green but we are really thinking about sustainable in the truest sense of the word, that what is a real long-term sustainable strategy for the county, how do we leverage resources from the transit-rich environment for energy systems, and really thinking about how we integrate into the overall downtown Austin plan as a participant and leader within that group.
>> this has actually been a very interesting master plan for me because I think this is the first time I have done a master plan where major actions have been taken before the master plan has been complete.
but I think it's a good sign, because I think it means that -- I think it is a confirmation and validation of the master plan.
it's also a complement to the Commissioners court to be able to act decisively and quickly on implementing some of what I think are the most significant portions of the master plan coming up.
obviously the two that on the screen are 700 lavaca building, and the cfch site, to talk about adjacencies versus the nonagencies, what is in there and what is slated to go in there because it is a phase occupancy plan and then the civil and family court purchasing site was also a -- I am going to say, a good move and a timely move to do that, so that you can get moving on the process for developing new family courthouse.
so those are the two major things that have already been implemented as part of the master plan.
this is your master plan -- this is your campus today.
I think you know most of your buildings.
I am not going to go through it, except to say that we start looking at the -- at your existing resources and your existing buildings and we build from there, and if we go look at the 2035 view, there are substantial changes and I think what's most glaring and they will be color coded later, but there are a few buildings that go away and significant buildings that get built.
new civil and family court is the most significant building, in addition to major expansion of the cjc, new central booking facility, a new building on the block 126 site.
those are the major new ones and we will get more clarification as to what the impacts are
>> I have a question.
by the way -- and I ago with the whole thing -- I agree with the whole thing.
y'all have done a really good job in general.
this picture here and multiple pictures here show the site of the civil and family courthouse with the intenser color for civil and family courthouse building and the other for potential development.
I brought this up before and still have issue with it because I don't think we should define that full block as definitively as it is done here in all of these pictures, because we have not decide if we will have any kind of p3 or just build a courthouse.
so -- and I had asked for -- if we were going to even consider using this kind of representation, since there would be language, defining the fact that we haven't made this, and I didn't see that in here, either, so.
I would prefer to see a single block reserved for the civil and family courthouse, because things have ways of becoming defined in the future, even though they weren't explored in detail when this was put out.
>> I think the simplicity of it is that there is need for the 500,000 square foot courthouse which we stacked and blocked on into a half a block portion of the site and there is need for associated parking which would naturally fit on the other half of the block, so there is a full block configuration for the county's need as defined in the program for both space and program that would include that footprint for the courthouse, and that same footprint for the parking garage site.
I think the depiction here is just sayg that parking garage portion of that site could be something more if the county were so inclined to have it be something more than a parking garage.
>> but one of the reasons that we bought a full entire block was because of the discussion early on which is actually documented, that we needed a full block horizontally, to be able to effectively configure the courtrooms on the floors with the other things that were needed, for example, in the brooklyn courthouse, the multiple elevator shafts that are required in a facility like this.
so I just have a problem in the fact that we don't demonstrate that and we bought that full block for that purpose.
>> okay.
and I think the other thing I will add -- I believe we said this last time, and if we didn't, I will just kind of clarify.
last time I think this said private development on the side.
we changed the language on this to say potential development, so we are not really delineating the full extent -- frankly, actually on any of these -- on any of these, these are basically matching diagrams of what the potential development of those sites are.
>> it is actually the potential soaping build out.
it could be court facilities.
>> I have no problem with the potential line items. I have a rob with the representation graphically.
>> okay.
>> okay.
>> we will have that language in the next step which is the final report documentation with all of the narrative and language that will accompany -- that will be submitted for review.
>> I am telling you, I can't vote for this unless you show the full square block.
>> would it address your concerns if, rather than showing the 3d representational which is just blocks anyway, to show the 2d bird's eye view which just shows the blocks that are occupied without any reference to the stacking?
which is just an extra page?
it is just the next page, where you see the bird's eye view, the map essentially.
>> there is actually another option which would be to combine the court and the potential development into one matching diagram that simply shows the maximum build owl out.
>> that's what I prefer to see.
>> we don't have to define right now exactly what part of it.
>> just maximum of that envelope for that block and not define it one way or the other, sure, I think it would be simpler.
>> I think it would be simpler and much better at eliminating future problems.
>> I think I agree.
>> so we will combine the graphic.
still keep the footnote at the bottom, because it may -- by combining the graphic may show slightly more than we might --
>> I think a potential for build out should be noted in in there, in a text in a line item as it would be related to what is allowable on that site.
not for what kind of uses it might be used for, but beyond what our defined needs are.
>> what we might want do is do two color coding, with part of it representing the need and the rest representing the total allowable, without defining exactly what that is.
>> it would be future growth.
>> yes.
>> it could be.
>> that's fine.
>> we have an idea for how to address that.
thanks.
steve, I think you are up.
>> so fundamentally, we ended up making some alignments with the comments that were made a moment ago about aligning the budget and program cycles together, so we were looking actually at bonding cycle and capacity of the county and trying to align the milestones that we talked about early on, what we right side to 2010 and then went to 2015, 25 and 2035.
we actually started looking at the combination of the milestones in the context of financial strategies and within priority implementation for occupancy and really this is the piece that starts to get into the domino effect for us.
we identified basically three major milestone windows between now and 2018, between 2019 and 27, and between 2028 and 2037, which would accomplish final renovation and fit-out of buildings that have been purchased and are continuing to be fit out or will be built and have phased expansion over time within the shell of those buildings.
around I think what we can do is basically share with you this graphic depiction with your note, Commissioner Huber, about the adjustment to the graphic related to the civil family courthouse need versus the rest of the potential development on the site.
but this shows kind of a rendered depiction that actually factors in the notion of the idea of a central spine, of guadalupe, recognizing -- the conversation we had early on, even in the visioning sessions, about what -- what is the meaning of campus and what is the meaning of campus in the context of Travis County, and we recognize that it is probably not woven together with a necessarily architectural style, but the points of access, circulation between the buildings become very critical, and I think tying it together into the urban framework is a really good strategy for the county as you move forward with your major ideological decisions of keeping the scene of government in downtown Austin, and the heart of Travis County, as well as your major judiciary functions.
what you see on the next graphic here is building along guadalupe lavaca transit rich corridor, which we think is terrific.
I think actually the access overall in terms of transit links is going to be great as it ties to the future locations or discussed potential fortran sit -- for transit rail.
you can see the radius from hms courthouse, 5 hunk blocks down to the 700 building and a few minute walk to the hms courthouse and future and civil and family courthouse site.
>> let me look at the -- can we look at the different milestones milestones I like to call them citizen's advisory committees.
milestone is one thing.
but citizen's advisory -- can wk at sequence, sequence is how I like to look as these milestones you have placed in front of us.
showdown the line when we look through the city limits of Austin, showdown the line, it appears to me that there has to be a strong relationship with the city of Austin as we proceed, because because of the graves street situation is and a lot of different things, because you see anywhere where we have established a relationship, whether it be by -- through the city manager and maybe they can help establish a relationship with what we are doing.
because we have a lot on the plate and we have a lot of things we are doing now currently and with the family courthouse and lavaca and the other things that we are already working toward the grandeur, in my opinion, we are going to have to establish a relationship.
so can you basically tell me how that will be done as we proceed?
that is just one aspect I saw in this overview, is the -- is to make sure that the -- the jurisdictional authority, which is the city of Austin, is involved early on instead of later.
so can somebody address that for me, please?
>> if you can, hi will start as how we did it through the process.
we did have very interactive conversations during, an actually even prior to the final -- the final presentation of the city of Austin downtown plan.
so we had some pretty iterated discussions just with the context of their downtown plan where they were actually presenting things that your project manager was catching as it needed the to be presented with the downtown plan as with regards to properties and configurations associated with the Travis County properties.
even going so far as looking at maximum build-out capacity on the site, on the hms site, those are done under presumption that is the final codification and the regulatory elements will go into place as relates to the downtown plan as to maximum zoning potential and I think the real strategy is how you move forward.
>> this is what I am saying, because I don't want to have stumbling blocks -- and let's face it.
things change, as far as the person we talk to today, versus the person we talk to next week, so I am trying to get a bone fide benchmark, bone fide digging in strategy to make sure that will continually be in the relationship, because we what we are talking about, we are talking about years of projections as far as what this master plan will be about and, of course, I think that is, in my mind is very critical.
so I just want to make sure that those relationships -- well, that things is done with the blessing of the city of Austin and as much -- with as least resistance as much as possible is established early on and if things change, we can still lock into those persons that will come after some of these, as far as getting some of these things done.
so that was my point.
okey doke.
>> Commissioners, we laid some foundations for working relationships with the city at staff level during the time that the study was going on.
belinda and I had a variety of staff level meetings with various city departments, in the parks and correctiation department, staff, the parking enterprise manager, people from other aspects of the transit planning areas, as well as the neighborhood planning groups and other community stakeholders, not just within the city government.
>> right.
exactly.
>> so there was a broad involvement, but you are right to point to the need for establishing a proactive executive level liaison to help shepherd the process and ensure a good relationship between the city and county so this plan can be implemented to the benefit of all and we will look to your leadership for the best strategy to pursue that.
>> thank you for that.
>> and one of the strategies aisd has used frequently for their bond programs is they actually have a land development review agreement between the city and aisd with a plan like this, you can gear something around the volume of work that you expect to do over many years in downtown and I know you could make set something like that up.
I know the state is also looking to see how to best smooth the process of development into downtown, and so I think that is definitely an item to pick up and try to figure out exactly how you want staff to move through that process and establish some liaison links.
>> this is definitely true.
working with the city, wherever you are developing, whether it is downtown or not, the city is an octopus, many arms, sometimes multiple heads and they don't always think the same or act harmoniously together and so having someone who can help ensure coordination on their side of the table as well as be partner to us would be of great benefit.
>> I move approval for funding but as far as outreach is concerned -- I will let you go and finish where you are, because I am kind of concerned about the outreach in some of these different avenues to make sure that also happens, especially if we have to fund these through different funding mechanisms, which we do, on some of them we already have, but we will talk about that.
go ahead.
I am sorry.
go ahead the.
.
>> so on the next diagram, the right-hand side, you see the overall plan for -- in plan view that connects all the way down to the future hms -- excuse me, the civil family courthouse site located right down here at the bottom half on the right, and the rest of the plan connecting all the way back to the state office building -- excuse me, the state capitol, so zooming in the red area, you can start to see the configuration and thinking how we work with the city and moving over to the next page, we think about how this links together in terms of open spaces and public spaces within the context of a lot of the conversations that came out of the downtown plan and trying toal align some of the goals, objectives within the downtown plan in integrated planning process.
I think speaking to Commissioners Davis' concern a little bit, in one of our earlier conversations we talked about the patchwork quilt, the urban fabric of downtown and the multiple planning processes in play.
we met with the folks from the Texas facilities commission as well as city of Austin and multiple different entities around the way trying to implement these plans together.
I think the difficult aspect for Travis County is the innovation of public spaces and how you work collaboratively with the city and I think that point is really well made in terms of connecting together with the great streets program, because the urban fabric and the walkability of this campus, especially as you look at the north-south spine here is going to be credittal calas you move from woodruff square park to republic square park to the banker courthouse complexes.
the other notion of connecting those public open spaces links was the idea of developing block 126 into a real urban plaza, leveraging the fact that we do have a capitol view corridor across that site and actually opening up and framing it in a way that doesn't really exist today with the grandfathered buildings that are currently in place.
it is kind of funny, we talk about the woodruff square view corridor, which really doesn't actually exist right now because there is a building that's already standing there, so we have proposed opening up the site and leveraging the site below grade as we have heard from the community and for parking in low grade construction, much like the state capitol grounds include in terms of below grade in development and we identified location for good centralized parking, access in a public plaza that creates and frames new views back to the state capitol grounds from the historic woodruff square park.
>> I will walk you through the phase and plan a little bit.
but this slide -- I would not have named it growing pains --
>> [laughter] but it basically is some of the little challenges you have to implement this because we are not working with a clean slate.
we have existing sites and facilities we have to work around and we have phasing.
we did develop the master plan with the goal of trying to minimize the amount of times people move and to try to maximize them getting in the right place at the end of the day.
so there is sort of interim stage where some people get shuffled a little more than others.
we tried to keep it to minimum and of course in the case of the criminal courts which is sort of the biggest -- I don't know, I shouldn't say that, but one of the key affected components, is that in order to expand the criminal court, we need to, at some point, remove the existing Travis County jail and the gal building and so displacement there and then the criminal court and we can't displace those until we have a place for them to go and so the criminal court shuffles around a little bit until it gets to its new home in the next milestone but let's move to milestone 1.
what we are showing in red are the new facilities that get developed in milestone 1.
and in orange are the facilities that get otherwise renovated or kind of impacted and the ones that are, I guess in the yellowish beige are the one on this stage remain unaffected by the plant.
so the phasing plan is very detailed, that's why it is called tailed phasing plan and I will hit the highlights and not blow by blow but the first one is the one you already did which was purchase and remember vote the 700 lavaca building.
as of now you current thely have located in that building, auditor, purchasing, human resources, planning and budget, it -- I think that's its, if I am not mistaken, that's who currently is in there now.
>> one moved last week.
>> it changes and then we have moves for the rest of the agencies that are moving and that is including Commissioners court, t and r, human resources, and a number of others.
the next one is the granger building, which will be to expand the district attorney.
that's the renovation that helps there.
that is actually a temporary state, and then we built the new -- milestone 1 -- the new family and court building which will house primarily civil courts along with some of the functions that go with it that serve the civil courtings including county clerk, the district clerk portions that work with civil.
probate.
and the cps courtrooms from the family court, which I am not sure it is shown on this slide.
yeah, it is, the 4d, cps courtrooms, as well as the law library coming from granger and -- I am sorry, the law library and the self-help from hms. And then after you have constructed that building, the next phase is the hms courthouse back fill.
that building will be the great historic building.
it doesn't function very well for modern courts that we know and we established that early.
but it can be very useful building for other agencies.
the criminal courts administration, the tax assessor, the collectors portion, part of the district clerk can all move into the hms. And part of milestone 1 is to expand the cjc go gault, which is a measure we try to eliminate four or five courtrooms for the expansion into the gault before another new major cjc can be later built in a later milestone.
the russ building renovated for employee health and wellness and then at that point we are free to demolish usb and hope buildings to make room for other -- and the holt buildings for construction.
>> so actually moving the da in the gault so they can expand to the cjc.
it is in one building now so they are moving.
>> yes.
it is internal move which is why it is represented in that orange color.
there is a lot of stuff that happen internally and the major new blocks, which are the ones easy to see, but the ones that happen internally are critical to success of master plan.
>> and just to tag on to rob when you were talking about the expansion within granger during this renovation period, the milestone, one would also include accommodating the county attorney internally within this building and following the court's directions today, the self-help center and law library is being consolidated in the granger building on the first floor and there is potential, subject to court's consideration for the level I expansion of that function in that space, so it is not specifically addressed at this time in the master plan.
>> in block 126, that's the one we do have -- we do have the usb building that you acquired and the one story building over on the corner that has the constable in there which at that point in time we would have cleared up that site.
this provides the opportunity for a major rebuilding and development of county property in a much more significant civic function and public way for the community.
I think it was something that became a pretty strong sounding board for us through all of the -- I mean, we were a sounding board, I think, for the community through the process of community engagement in the phase two portion of this, which was we really want to see the county better leveraging and utilizing block 126 as an amenity, as plaza space and so on, so leveraging the limitation of the capitol view corridors with the redevelopment of that site provides enormous opportunity for not only accommodating programmatic needs and swing space but also significant parking demand.
>> right.
in fact, the development on the block 126, its primary purpose initially is to provide swing space so we can do the other moves we are talking about.
so temporary basis, adult probation and pretrial would both consolidate into block 126.
that would empty out eobb, executive office building.
-- eob, and it could move out of 700 lavaca and I talked about adult probation, so you have vacated eob and also vacated nueces and you can demolish that and it makes room for the central plant that would serve for I guess the district heating and cooling, that would serve as the central campus.
since we vacated eob, you can decide what to do with it at that time.
you could dispose of it.
>> where do the adult probation employees go when it's time for a permanent location?
>> they go back in the cjc complex.
they expansion back on to the original cjc site.
>> and the administrative unit stays in block 126.
>> yes, the rest stays.
>> so court services move into the criminal court building, the expanded cjc and the administrative unit stays in block 126 with other administrative office space.
>> so the adult probation employees and the eob today go to block 126 and then the cjc?
>> that's correct.
>> there will be enough space in the cjc to accommodate?
>> as is sized in this plan, yes.
>> okay.
>> milestone two, again, to look at the diagram.
the red indicates the new construction and the cjc expansion and central booking building, the cjc expansion as we were hinting at includes more than just the criminal courts.
it includes the da and the county attorney and probation, so it is really the whole criminal court family ends up being consolidated into this one complex.
>> I will pause on this while this particular image is on the screen, because I think it is reflective of one aspect that was talked about throughout the process.
it was talked about with the public.
it was talked about through our analysis of your existing facilities from an historic perspective which is that of that from the hms courthouse and you can remember from some of the earlier presentations, some that lori presented to you, the pre1950s or era and taking back part of the wing and restoring hms courthouse which is not only architecturally, but probably more pre-eminently, culturally historic milestone event location and a real jewel for the county, so it is a significant element that happens, too.
>> you brought up a good point and I want to make sure that one of the issues we were looking at for the Travis County courthouse building was the historical significance of it and also being able to preserve the historical significance.
so I want to make sure whatever direction we proceed in with this court, that the landscape, the exterior andal of those other things that is go with that particular site of building is still adhered to, and so -- and I know that we are looking at for the flavor of that, so I want to make -- I want to be mindful of it, because that is a very significant historical building and we want to be slur the integrity of the historical structure is maintained to whatever degree, so I think there are certain people -- or vendors that actually look at these historical buildings and actually are able to deal with them on a historical perspective.
so I want to make sure that is done.
>> absolutely.
and I think you will be pleased with the recommendation incorporated into the overall plan in that regard, Commissioner.
>> okay, okey doke.
thank you.
>> milestone 2, first key move is the demolition of the san antonio garage.
as you know, we went through a lot of discussion about whether we wanted to do that, but that is simply the best available site immediately adjacent to the cjc, and that was the rationale for using that, in this case for central booking.
the central booking, I should say is more than central booking, it is also the 72 -- we are calling it 72 hour housing for sheriff's department.
it is housing for those people awaiting bail or otherwise may be released or are going to go to the del valle site or need to be classified first, so it is the certain period of time where the sheriff can deal with a huge proportion of these people never go to del valle, so we don't want to create unnecessary transportation of shuffling people back and forth so it allows it is sheriff to process a lot of folks and maybe process them out of incarceration so they never have to go on unnecessary trip to del valle, that would be connected with a hard underground -- presumably underground connection to the cjc to allow for prisoner movement which is a great benefit and that is really the real value of that site, moving detainees by direct connection is both far more secure and saves a whole lot of money in vehicular transport, so that site was very valuable and that was the rationale for putting that there.
>> I would say one other thing as a reminder from early conceptual study and we looked at other sites for sen when we were testing other sites similarly for the courthouse and those were issues that were also vetted with the community and so there is a certain sensibility to this that central booking is located in almost exactly -- it is across the street but in very close proximity to where it already is today because it's an issue of concern for many folks.
>> another thing I would say to add on to that is in order to address the concern of central booking facility fronting the historic square, we have given a lot of consideration as to what agencies would be in a general office space more public accessible type environment might be able to front the square.
so when you see the stacking plan and the move plans, it just isn't central booking.
it has office space provisions with it so that the park edge can be active from an office building type perspective as well.
>> yes.
it includes office space, at least for temporary swing space for the da, and for approximately five criminal courts, in order for it to allow us to vacate and demolish the gault building but we are also demolishing the jail -- if you want to make room for the cjc expansion.
we are focusing on the central campus but by demolishing the jail, you have to account for that function and that holding capacity, that presumably the del valle campus until you have built the new central booking building and so there is an impact on the sheriff's department holding, beyond just the downtown campus.
>> are we still talking about 400 inmates?
>> well, in the -- in the 72 hour housing, I think it is 128 if I am not mistaken and then substantial number of people in the booking component that are not necessarily in a holding cell.
a lot of them are in waiting areas.
I don't remember the number offhand.
it is significant.
more than that.
>> associated with how many beds we would be displacing, it is part of master plan analysis that we are hoping to bring forward.
it is in the budget for this fiscal year to actually work with the sheriffs office, criminal justice planning, facilities planning, management and budget to work on packetly what that bed mix would be and how many beds it would be and looking at updating the del valle master plan and also to pick up how do we provide laundry services and that type of things to detainees the central booking if the jail is no longer down here, so we will have a better answer for that after we complete another analysis.
>> because you may have more than 100 beds but you also have, on any given day, 250-300 additional inmates?
>> right.
>> going through image demonstration, I guess.
>> that's right.
>> so on transitional basis, where does magistrate go?
that is the portion under the building that sits under the cjc so it should be able to remain intact with court transfer which is under cjc, not under jail footprint but we are hoping to pick up, as part of the analysis with the sheriff's office, some of the criminal court proceedings and issues that affect transportation, the inmate movement and how we are processing people through and if there is a better location for the magistrates we will identify it then but it is supposed to be in the cjc and where it is.
>> and the pretrial services and the judge is aware of that.
>> that we are putting together an analysis, that's correct.
>> an important aspect on the one line item that rob talked on.
this plant can't be looked at with a vacuum, just like not looking at the downtown plan and what the state and others are doing.
the jail and, you know, the sheriff's functions are very significant and they have kind of a domino effect.
a lot of the things we are talking about, especially when we get to this series of milestones have a lot of major domino effect on the requirements at del valle which are essentially mandated by the Texas jail commission so those are impacts beyond the scope of the downtown area but have reciprocal connection point to this particular area specifically.
>> so the next major piece, next major construction would be the new cjc expansion which would then accommodate the full criminal courts that have been -- the expanded criminal courts have been shuffling around a little bit.
this becomes permanent home to meet the 2035 need for the criminal courts.
it becomes the permanent home for the da who also got shuffled around a little bit.
the da has been part of our justice committee all along so they are fully aware of this.
they are not in love of the fact they are moving several times are aware it is in the best interest at the end of the day and right amount of space.
the county attorney, I talked about getting the whole criminal justice on site as well as adult probation as belinda mentioned, adult probation except the rest of the administration but adult probation would be on site here.
and then -- so now we are in a position to renovate and restore the hms courthouse and the brizendine courthouse.
the constable would be temporarily relocated to block 126 and jp5 and probate ultimately hms would house the probate court and the county clerk once the hms is renovated, and the jp and constable and they come back and they end up in the hms courthouse.
so we think they are in close proximity to the courts but they are in a building that is better suited for them than it would be for either civil or criminal court.
and then the last piece of milestone 2, the granger building gets back filled for mental health public defender that we now have a home for them.
>> we could also add to that, when we had our joint steering committee and justice focus group committee meeting a few weeks ago to preview this final presentation with them, the criminal courts administrator raised the issue of potential trends toward public defender functions as they have seen this trending in other counties, and we don't know what is really going to happen, but where might that -- something like that find a place within the master plan.
we pointed out that granger building back fill plan at this point leaves most of the granger building unoccupied, so at the end of the master plan, you do have some flexible capacity, for whatever programs may appear or grow and change in different ways than what we can see today.
so maintaining flexibility is a key element of the plan.
>> that brings up a really good point which we talked about -- you heard me say a lot of times through this process as we talked through the major milestones we actually do, as master planners know that the county doesn't cease to exist in 2035 so the block for the civil county courthouse site and thinking about the potential beyond the need that is program out to 2035 likewise in the resources, leveraging the office spaces for future capacity growth beyond -- beyond the immediate need of the 25-year window.
>> well, that's been a milestone.
so that's milestone 3, you see the buildings in orange.
those reflect.
now you built all of your buildings.
and you have renovated for the permanent function to find in the master plan.
these are kind of final fit-outs and expansions to see if ch, civil family courthouse can be expanded from 2035 need -- perhaps built out to 2035 need, we don't know exactly how that will be built out, but assume it will be further built out for the next ten-year horizon, as well as now the block 126, as leslie mentioned with granger, the same with block 126 and central booking building to have space used for swing space that can then be used -- additional use for county agency functions, for both whatever you need at that point and both moving you beyond 2035 as it arrives.
>> and accounting for the internal agencies that are there and remaining there.
and also I would like to point out, because there have been several, just kind of reporting changes, if those things come up, for example, drug court not being under criminal court administration, being under adult probation and pretrial services reporting through adult probation, by linking these service where is the constituents really access them which is in the criminal courts building, they are all in there so they are accounted for.
stacking president terms may change, growth protection may change but the ultimate location is still based on the adjacency matrix that are really identified by how people access them and who they work with so I think the plan still holds together as time as you have some changes like that, but I think that we have tried to, without being overcome by administrative changes to things, we have tried to make sure that the document is valid as we move forward and as you move towards approval so it's something that staff can use as a baseline to continue to monitor and change and test opportunities and ideas again.
>> yes.
I would just like to add to that.
master planning is not a document.
it is a process and that has been already demonstrated by the fact we implement and keep portions of it already.
so that's good.
s the also a document not meant to be written in stone in November 2011.
it is a document that has enough flexibility in it and leaves enough room for initiative and change of circumstance and conditions, 5, 10, 15, 20 years from now, so we think we have blocked out the major moves and the major needs.
>> is so the next slide here.
shows the campus view 2035 with the full build-out.
to that milestone window, it is envisioned as a tight end to the downtown Austin plan and a pedestrian friendly environment that is tied together with the axial spine of campus connectivity, developing and integrating downtown guidelines for urban design and the future building that go along, including active ground level uses among first floor, public space buildings.
thinking about place making and signage, I think will be a very important aspect for the county to consider, among other implementation strategies, and how -- how the pedestrian can get from building to building with a clear circulation parameter and a even, also, maybe even thinking about the landscape fabric, you know, looking very wholistcally for the landscape plan of all of the central campus I think is imperative in terms of thinking how the fabric of that downtown area can actually integrate together.
so in conclusion, I think, to what rob was just saying, the county is making significant progress by virtue of the activities that we have already seen today.
I think that is very encouraging not only for us as consulting team members and I have seen other faces here through the process of steering committee members and subcommittee members and the different stakeholder groups involved in this process in terms of some of those who are actually occupying some of those spaces as the court will very soon, in 700 lavaca, but I think it is also very important for our county wide constituency as a whole.
in terms of implementing the plan, I think one of the key take aways on this is that your plan is a baseline.
it is very much a process, as rob just mentioned, but it's a roadmap that is set up to anticipate the change that is inherent for us out there in the future.
the recommendations are based on fair and reasonable projections based on the information and assumptions that we have here today.
and Commissioner Eckhardt was, I think in our last subcommittee meeting pointed out very astutely and importantly that we need make sure our assumptions are documented in this so that when future courts actually have important decisions about implementation strategies of bricks and mortar and capital investment and investmey are in place in how they think about parking policies and connectivity, to guide the future growth but recognize that the plan is also very flexible in terms of adapting to the changes to the circumstances.
as you may recall, we thought about -- when we thought about how the spacing strategies and how the early conceptual plans came together, those were thought about in terms of what the major anchor uses were going to be.
those spaces -- not office space that maybe could be in this building or that building with more flexibility that you have seen through the phasing plan but how do you accommodate a central booking facility that can only be a central booking facility specifically built space, or courthouse space that, the plan has been built around those anchors.
I think the benefit of further inaction as we -- as you live through and move through this plan, is thinking about how it provides for future adequate space, how it provides for public access to the county, community, court services, how it will actually enhance security.
a lot of things -- we talked about security and datacom was involved in a lot of the security consulting efforts on this.
opportunities for improve efficiency and effectiveness were critical.
this is coming out of the early planning principals from the very beginning of this process you can recall, is how can better efficiency found in terms of having facilities that will facilitate that kind of environment and ultimately the county is a good neighbor within the urban traffic and seat of Travis County.
and I guess theles comments were -- Commissioner Davis you made the comments about sequencing versus milestones but the fact is that sequence because matter and even with an example of, you know, the impact of del valle and the jail facilities there, the projects need to be built on a certain level of sequence in order to accommodate what you just saw, a really interesting domino effect in terms of -- in terms of how some of these demands, as well as parking demands happen over time.
I have to personally come back to a little reflection that goes back about five years now maybe, when we worked with you on an initial study, which was when we were posed with block 126 in the san antonio garage site and asked where we could house 250,000-foot square courthouse and what would be the best site and the outcome of the recommendations were, we can't really understand that because there is something called a capitol view corridor which will constrict your site.
we don't know what the program is and the impact of program is.
we are not sure how the parking assumptions would be accommodated in that and frankly, as we started moving into different sites, we realized we couldn't look at that in the vacuum.
it has to be in the master plan perspective, because if we said put the courthouse on the side of the san antonio parking garage, the question would be where do we expand the criminal courts and the associated functions with central booking there, so I want to kind of pause for a moment to applaud you as a court and many of the representatives from the county that participated in this process along the way for taking the time to, you know, pause for a second, reflect on the extraordinary successful growth that we have seen here in Travis County.
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>> ...
but there is a mechanism in place where we have to provide the necessary money for some of these things.
I'm not saying all, but some of these things.
at some point what type of vehicle are we use to go let the community aware of exactly what we're doing here today and outreach, you heard me mention outreach and I'm a big believer in outreach in the community.
I really don't know all the ins and outs, but it appears to me the bona fide outreach mechanism has to be adhered to to ensure that the community is aware of how we're spending their money.
>> well, I think that we would look to the Commissioners court to provide direction as to when you would like materials.
I think with the adoption of a plan it does give staff a baseline of information and statistical information, factual information and graphics to provide for you on any specific project or in a particular format or way.
the presumption is at some point particularly those that would have bond committees, so we'll be prepared to respond however you would like to develop public outreach for us.
>> okay, I just wanted to make sure that may be made available.
and I know these are projected deals for so many years out ahead and there's some things that are right before us right now today as we sit here right now.
in other words, the more immediate, not virtually those that are long range, but the more immediate I think still needs some consideration.
so I just want to make sure that that is implemented and placed somewhere in all of this.
that was my concern.
thank you.
>> yes, sir.
>> court members, any other questions, comments?
>> thanks for your tremendous work.
>> an earlier study contained budget assumptions.
this one does not.
why is that?
>> we have budget information available if you would like for us to agendize that.
I think one of the things that we wanted to make certain is that we have the right approach in place, but we do have that.
I believe every member of the court has received a budget package and we've had some discussions so if you would like for us to agendize that, we will.
>> after this court has moved on and there are five new people sitting here and somebody wonders where is that space needs master plan that the court commissioned and paid for years ago, we don't want to hand them a box of documents.
>> no.
>> we want to hand them one.
and my understanding was this is the final report.
>> this is --
>> that's a good point.
andrea, if you will hold up exhibit no.1.
actually this is not an an exhibit.
this is as we were walking through the phase 1 and 2 portions just a moment ago, you might pull out a couple of those, that binder represents the culmination of all of the phase 1 outcomes reports.
kind of phase 1 volume is the volume 1.
>> that's exactly my point.
there may be a new court member interested in reading all of that.
>> all that documentation is there and the next step for us is the preparation of the second volume of that which is the phase 2 documentation written report which will include all the requisite detail, the comments Commissioner Huber was talking about, the potential for the development of the site, the phasing, the cost information, all that information will be incorporated into the final book report document.
>> and just so we also receive it electronically.
so if you would like us to package a single executive summary with some of the information, we can certainly do.
that we do think that, of course, since it's going to be a living document they may historically look back on what this documentation, but we hope to continue to amend and consolidate the document as we move forward.
this is a final presentation.
it is not actually the final report.
the final report shall be packaged and available in January.
if you are approving -- with your approval to accept the -- the kind of the phasing plan that's presented here as actually the only thing you haven't specifically voted on as an element of the master plan as an individual item, and so before we close out or can confirm that we have the appropriate budget estimates and phased appropriately, we would need to have that action.
>> okay.
this says Travis County central campus study.
>> yes, sir.
>> and it has phasing information and recommendations.
>> yes, sir.
>> my recommendation is that we put a one or two budget summary after each phase because it's easy to do.
so when we hand somebody this document, which is 32, 33 pages, ten more won't hurt.
I'm thinking that most of the Commissioners court members in the future will be more like our current county judge and not want to receive five or six of them but want to see this.
and if this generates questions, then that person will have capable people to turn to like the two of you to get further information.
>> and we can package the summaries, could we not?
right.
>> my next question is specifically what is requested of us today?
>> with approval -- if not of this final presentation at least of the phasing that's included in it, that we can package the final report and come back to court if you would like or we were expecting to at least receive the report, staff can post that item for you so you can see the executive summary.
>> judge, I would prefer to receive the report because as you mentioned it's a dynamic report and it can change here and there.
and knowing too that we can't bind future courts to a plan that we have approved today or the spending for it or committing -- commitment of funds, that that in itself says it's not dynamic.
and who knows at the time what's going on at the time.
maybe -- maybe there's no more county government, you know.
I mean that would be the extreme.
and so then we're left with them being able to do something else.
who knows what's going to come in the future.
you know, we just don't know.
>> we're all advocates of metro government.
>> no, I don't think so.
I'm not.
>> especially during campaign season.
>> [laughter]
>> in order to prepare a final report, we would at least need action on the phasing plan as it's been distributed today.
>> I feel comfortable just receiving it, the reports that we have people prepare.
>> I don't think we have any problem with the phasing plan, but I think the budget documents are important.
and if my recommendation is not a good one, then I suggest you just take the pages from the other report and attach them to this one as an exhibit or something.
I just think they ought to be part of one document.
>> they could be.
>> and the other documents should be available for others who want more detail.
>> I think I have that package.
>> is that the package you made the presentation on?
>> yes, it is.
>> because there's graphics in here that are not in here today.
>> that would be a part of our final packaging.
so yes, because that's what's based -- the budget estimates are based o so the intent would be with an action today we can make sure everything is updated to show the most recent of everything, which they've been doing over time as we've taken actions and package a file report for u as you said, an executive summary can be packaged where it replicates the budget after the milestone phases.
>> our consultants want to shake our hands and move on.
is that what I'm hearing?
>> yes, sir.
actually, we would just like to, you know, express our thanks for everyone who has put up with this for three years.
so again, we're happy to bring the final reports back whenever they are ready.
and I think we're targeting January.
>> yeah, actually we're going to have the draft report here probably prepared in the next couple weeks to go to county staff for review and comment and so we'll be getting back with the final bound document --
>> would that report contain pretty much the information we've received?
>> yes, sir, it will just be packaged differently.
>> so I'm wondering whether another presentation is necessary.
what if we just receive that and determine whether we need an agenda item posted and further court discussion.
if not, we'll just formally receive that and --
>> we can do that.
I think the only thing we want to make sure is that we're not asking broaddus so prepare final reports on something you haven't given direction on and the last element is the phasing plan that's in here today.
everything else as we've gone through the milestones you've said make these changes and incorporate that into the next step.
and that's what you are seeing today.
and that's what they are working on is making sure all of those changes or discussions have been incorporated into the final graphic and the final text.
>> well, in that case I move approval of the Travis County central campus study we've received today, plus the comments that we have made, and they will be consolidated into a final report which will be delivered to us the first part of next year, January or February.
>> January.
>> January.
and at that point we'll determine whether another court discussion is necessary.
>> second.
>> how is that?
>> we're set to approve.
>> formally receiving it more than anything else.
>> as long as we begin direction, you are okay with us giving direction for them to proceed with final documentation.
>> and the budget information, easiest way to make it available is fine with me.
whether it's after each phase or at the end as an appendix.
>> is it discussion time on this?
somebody second the motion?
>> yes.
>> and it's a good point because that outreach aspect of all of this was to make sure that whatever we do in the budgetary arena of what we're dealing is folks will know exactly what they have to pay for.
that was basically what I want to lay out is for the outreach.
it was basically intertwined with what the judge is suggesting as far as a budgetary layout on these particular projects.
those right before us now and those that are right around the corner.
so that was my point.
but anyway, thank you.
that's a good motion, judge.
>> any more discussion?
on the motion?
thank you all very much.
we know that's not easy assignment.
all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
we know we're not easy to work with.
>> it's been a pleasure and we thank you very much and are excited about delivering a final report recommendations.
I also acknowledge jim broaddus and chris wright who made enormous contribution to this.
>> thank you.
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