Travis County Commissioners Court
January 24, 2012 (Agenda)
Item 8
Now let's call up item number eight to receive presentation from ernst & young on analysis of responses to request for information regarding a new civil and family courthouse and various delivery approaches and take appropriate action.
and I apologize for being a little later than we anticipated for the public hearing in item number 1, lasted a bit longer than I anticipated.
>> good morning.
I'm roger jeffreys, county executive for justice and public safety.
I also serve as the chair of the civil and family courthouse internal team and the project executive for the feasibility analysis, the contract that you all approved back in December.
I'm here with belinda powell, a planning manager and also the project administrator for this effort.
very pleased on behalf of the internal team for the civil and family courthouse to introduce to you all the members of the ernst & young team who have been selected to help us with this feasibility study on a delivery method for a civil and family courthouse.
to my right is mark gibson.
and to his right is mark angelos, from ernst & young.
and so belinda's left is carey buck and they are part of a large team that's going to help us with this analysis.
the first deliverable under task a of the contract is a presentation to you all on a report that they have prepared summarizing the key themes from the rfi's that were gathered last summer as part of an rfi that went out.
we received 21 responses.
they had been tasked -- they have been tasked and are ready to present to you today results or the information that was provided in those rfi's w that I'm going to let mark take over this presentation and of course if y'all have any questions we look forward to speaking with you.
>> good morning, judge and Commissioners.
it's a great pleasure to be here with you this morning.
excuse me, I have a little cold, so if I start coughing, please excuse me.
I think if we look at page 3, it will give a little context for why we're here and the project as a whole.
we have three primary deliverables or milestones for you.
today is the first of those.
it will be a review of the rfi analysis, but we also have in this deck that we're presenting to you is background on p 3 itself as one of the options on the table.
we we need to emphasize that it is only one of the many options.
you will see in the presentation I'm about to give, we're going to bracket those types of options into three core areas or types that is traditional delivery, design-build, which is a form of traditional delivery, and then the p 3 options.
and we'll give an explanation of what those are because it will help give a context to some of the rfi responses.
we have a presentation to you on the 7th of February, which will be a very important presentation.
and that will be the synthesis of a number of workshops and meetings that we will have held around what we call the criteria for delivery options.
so we're engaging widely with the public and yourselves, all of you know have been interviewed, and a number of others have been interviewed.
and we're trying to gather as many opinions and suggestions Tuesday what the site can accommodate, the delivery methods and the financing methods.
and those will go into an options analysis and that presentation on the 7th will be the synthesis of all of those conversations that we've been having.
and then the major deliverable is on March 20th and that will be our final findings and recommendations report.
and what that means is we will have synthesized all the options together.
we will have done the financial analysis on those options and we will be coming to you with a series of two or three of our suggested options for the site in terms of what can be built there, how it should be built and how it should be financed.
so March 20th will be hopefully an answer to many of your questions and everything between now and then is leading up to that date.
any questions?
okay.
so if we turn to page 4 if we could, there's a little bit of background before we go into the rfi analysis.
let's talk about some of the different terminology that you'll hear us use quite a bit.
the traditional method of delivering a project in most of the public sector in the united states is designed, bid, build.
what that would mean is you would go out for bond or some other form of financing, you would obtain the financing, a designer, an architect or an engineer would design the building.
it would then be bid out in a competitive methodology.
and then it would be built by the provider and then handed over to you for operations.
most buildings are still delivered in that way today.
the next way of delivering a building is designed-build and that is responding to some of the problems that come with design, bid, build.
design, bid, build, a lot of the risk of that project falls with you as the Commissioners of this county.
so design-build is trying to overcome some of that and say I'll proportion?
of the risk to the design-build contractor because one of the biggest risks you have on a project is the difference between the designed drawings and the built building.
it should be possible to build the drawings.
it is infrequently true that that is true.
so unfortunately we have these things called change orders, which are all about why can't we build what's on the drawings?
unfortunately construction projects are not that quite simple.
so as a response to that we have this concept called design-build where we try to place some of the risk of that with the design-build contractor.
we would still finance it in the traditional way and you would still be responsible for operating the building once it's completed.
so we bucket those as traditional.
they are actually somewhat different and there are some somewhat different risks apportionment.
after that we get into non-traditional delivery or ppp, public private partnership or p 3 as it's sometimes called.
as you can tell from my accent I'm originally from the uk and I worked on a number of those projects.
and this concept, while many say it originates before the early '90's, has really come to forein the k and australia and canada since the early '90.
so many of the practitioners come with those accents, unfortunately.
sorry about that.
so we'll look at those alternatives.
the first of those is privatized lease to own.
that looks a lot like a design-build project with some financing attached.
there's many, maneuver why notes on all of these by the way.
variants on all of these.
occasionally sale and lease back and then some form of transfer at the end.
there's lots of different variances there.
but basically somebody else provides financing, but the building is built in the traditional way.
then we get into some of the more interesting areas of p 3.
design build finance.
so that's design-build with the finance provided by the private sector, 100% of the finance or some portion thereof.
it doesn't have to be 100%.
no operating in that one.
then design-build's finance and maintain is the same thing, except the consortium as it usually is, is responsible for maintaining the building.
now, what that means is primary systems. So lights, energy systems, cooling, that sort of maintenance.
okay?
then the final vair why not of this is -- variant of this is design, build, maintain and operate.
and the distinction between that and maintenance is under operations, cleaning, staff and various other ancillary staff such as that are included in the operating.
and it can be for the entire duration of the contract, which is tiply 25 to 35 years.
those offer some very interesting risk transfers.
it is quite common, for instance, that buildings in all sectors, private and public, if you need to cut budget, a good way to cut it is the maintenance of the building.
it takes a long time for the problems that occur with that to manifest themselves.
and often 10 to 15 years before you get to a real problem.
so it's an easy thing to cut.
the advantage of the risk transfer under a ppp method is the provider is not allowed to cut them.
you have a thing called an availability payment.
which means you only pay for the space, a, when it's available as the name suggests, but also only when it's maintained to the service level agreement.
so you would say you can't have -- owe a simple example is you can't have any of the light fixtures not working.
okay?
I'm going to apply a liquid ap damage for every light fixture that isn't working.
it's very scalable in that regard.
that's a very simple example.
and that brings a risk transfer taos not generally available to you if you're maintaining your own building and operating your own building.
and that has been the primary reason that people have gone for a ppp type methodology.
there are lots of flavors of this and lots of vair quantities and our job between now and March is to look at all those flavors on your behalf and come to you with some recommendations on which we think will be the right way for you to do it.
clearly it will your decision on which to take.
but we will use design base build and traditional financing as our starting point.
we've talked a lot about p 3 or I've talked a lot about it for the moment, but that is really to help you understand these variants that are not as well understand as design bid build.
any questions?
>> on the finance, operate, maintenance component, will you be giving us cost benefits as associated to that?
because I understand that it is pretty high cost involved in that, if we were to include that in a p 3 arrangement.
>> yes.
we will look at the and we will compare that to the cost if you operate it had yourself, absolutely.
so we will always go back to what we call back to back.
we will always try and say these are the assumptions we're using on any of these models.
let's make sure we use those same operating type assumptions on all of the models.
the subtle part of this is while you can state the assumptions mathematically, it's not that difficult, the question is will you actually do that?
the more difficult question is looking in the crystal ball 20 years in advance.
so if you set up, for instance, on design build finance manage and operate, here's one of the challenges we're doing in the resource analysis.
we'll say we can absolutely put in numbers and put in writing that the consortium has to maintain that.
the question is will you maintain it under the design bid build traditional way to that same level.
now, we will state in our model that we assume that you will.
but that's been a difficult assumption for many organizations.
as I said, both public and private sectors.
and it's one of the key reasons why people have gone for p 3 because you bring that certainty, you bring that risk transfer.
I'm not trying to sell p approximate, what I'm trying to do explain that's quite a challenging element of the analysis that we will do.
>> autos in looking at your analysis on this, will you consider looking at not bundling -- including it in operation and maintenance component, but not necessarily bundling that in one complete package?
because you may have a weakness in strengths and different components of that package.
>> yes.
actually, that's the nuances behind this as we've gotten one, two, three, four, five six buckets.
there's probably 600 in reality.
you can do all these different combinations within all these different elements, so it's an important part of our analysis.
so when it comes back on the 20th of March you might say okay, where's the design-build finance option?
well, we've got 20% of that option mixed up with 40% of this option.
that's the sort of analysis we'll do.
we'll bring in the subtleties of all those various combinations.
>> I guess when I think of the public-private partnerships in other countries, in many countries they've been used a long time.
>> correct.
>> so if I were to ask for a list of some of the private components, would it be fairly easy to put together a list?
you think of restaurant and retail automatically, and in brooklyn we saw professional office building, I guess, right next to it.
but if we wanted to see more examples, would it be pretty easy to put that together?
>> yes.
in fact, the problem is that list would be too long in reality.
there's almost every variant and every combination.
not necessarily with courthouses, but if you think of the vast variety of ppp projects that there are around the world you will get a lot of combinations.
I think it's important for us as your consultant to help you filter that list.
so yes, we can come with a list, no problem.
I think it's appropriate for us to say, but what's appropriate for Austin?
that's part of our analysis.
we'll take the lens of the long list and we'll say, now, what fits here?
what's the right thing to do here in this context?
now, that's somewhat subjective and we'll opinion nate it as subjective, but inc.
it's couple bent -- I think it's incumbent upon us.
it's really a fans name.
it's really what should we put on the site.
we won't come with a static option, judge.
we'll come with a number of different options there.
>> I guess I would like to see the comprehensive list before March 30th -- before March 20th.
>> okay.
we can -- yes, sir, we will do what we can then.
>> we purposely put this process on a fast track.
I received one email from a resident who thought that the public input meeting was too soon, there l.
there be another opportunity for the public to provide input?
>> next Wednesday.
>> did y'all get that email?
>> no, I did not, if you would like to send it.
we also have an email address on the Travis County homepage, the courthouse feasibility study site.
it's our regular -- if they click on that they can email us comments or concerns as well.
so if there was a concern about speed or anything like that.
we haven't picked up much in the mailbox yet.
>> okay.
>> and we are also, judge, consulting with a number of other organizations.
not just -- as we explained in that meeting, we're not just talking in the public meetings and making that static.
we're going to a number of local organizations to try and get as much of the public opinion as we possibly can.
>> and the local bar association is one of them, right?
>> yes, sir.
tomorrow afternoon.
>> what other organizations have asked for meetings?
>> we have reached out to the daa, the local bar and have those scheduled.
>> we're still trying to schedule with the chamber.
we also have a meeting with several of the city staff in the economic development group, transportation, parks and neighborhood planning that we're meeting with at 1:00 tomorrow.
so the city has kind of consolidated some key groups that we heard comment that people would like us to reach out to.
>> did y'all make that chambers, the chamber?
>> yes.
>> I think that's important to do, to be inclusive.
>> if there are groups that you all suggest, please let us know and we can arrange that as well.
>> and then we also -- not only the public meeting is posted on the first for February, but at noon we're having a stakeholder meeting in the courthouse -- in the heman marion sweatt courthouse of individuals that are actually in the courthouse for the day that the judges have included staff, bar individuals that are in the meeting, ocr and opr staff to be there.
so we had kind of a mailout for that meeting as well.
>> so there will be multiple additional opportunities.
I guess if you're meeting at the bar, any non-bar member who wants to come can come in and Commissioner Huber will be able to go in, either as county judge or --
>> [ laughter ]
>>
>> I wanted to say there's an urban land institute breakfast that has sold out, but it's a penal discussion with sue edwards and the city of Austin.
and when you look at the guest list it's everybody who might be involved in a p 3 looking at lessons learned and opportunities.
and I would think it could be if you could get into that a great opportunity to hear conversations across the community.
>> yes, we have requested to attend that, I believe.
we'd love to present.
I'm afraid we might take up the whole meeting, so we're trying to balance that a little.
>> well, I wasn't thinking of presenting.
it's almost an opportunity to hear from the public.
not directed at us, but directed at ppp's in general.
the experiences, the concerns, the opportunities.
>> it's a good point.
there was some activity that took place on that yesterday.
belinda, can you difficult give us an update?
>> I haven't heard of that yet.
leroy is reach outing to make sure that at least one of us can attend.
>> regarding the availability payment and the possibility of imposing liquidated damages, have you found that in addition to being able to put that in the contract, it's easily enforceable when the need arises?
>> it has been, yes.
now, the devil is in the detail of what the contract says, and clearly there can be some dispute around whether that's true or not.
as long as the service level agreement is very clear, as long as the kpi key performance indicator that goes with the service level agreement is clear.
there's been no problem.
where the problem comes is in the construction of the contract.
if it's not clear, then you have a disagreement.
in general, most of those disagreements have been worked out, though.
it's in nobody's interest for there to be a problem with availability.
because the consortium is not getting paid in those circumstances.
and that's the last thing they want.
so you find in general, not absolutely, but in general they've been very good at maintaining the buildings.
>> and what kind of termination language is typically in the public-private partnership agreement.
>> it varies.
change of ownership often triggers a change or the potential for a change.
that's pretty typical.
repeated nonperformance is pretty typical.
but there are a number of -- again, as part of the commercial deal, you can dictate what you want.
now, there may be a price to pay for that.
there's often a price contract material and condition offset.
but in general, you can get what you want.
the challenge is in the construction of the contract itself, the actual language.
can you make is clear enough what you're trying to articulate.
remember, this is a deal for 25 to 35 years.
so the government's model around changes to the contract is a very important clause in these contracts.
>> okay.
any other questions at this time?
>> so if we could, if we could turn to page 7, let's give you a little bit of feedback from the rfi's.
now, we'd like with your permission to be generalistic with our feedback.
we'd rather not talk about each individual rfi.
we don't think that's appropriate.
but there are some common themes that came out of them and quite consistent in that regard.
the least common theme was actually the duration of the project, which would be page 7.
one of the reported benefits of p 3 is that there can be in certain circumstances a quicker way of building your building.
what was very interesting from the respondents is it showed their experience in this matter.
and there was a wide variety -- in fact, a very wide variety of answers to how long it would take to build the building, ranging from 24 to 70 months.
that's a little large in terms of duration.
and I think reflects the very early stage in which the rfi was issued, and that some people are being a little aggressive and some people are being quite conservative.
they're clearly not being held to anything.
so that they can say what they believe rather than contractually what they would be obliged to do.
so that's why there's such a wide variety in that number.
I would expect as the project progresses, and if you were to choose one of the non-traditional delivery methods, that time window would tighten up considerably.
page 8 talks about the general themes.
we had 21 responses, as you know, and we really had them grouped into five buckets.
we had global p 3 led consortium.
these were the most experienced of the respondents.
often from outside of the local area.
we had probably p3 developers -- global p3 developers, again, experienced.
we had u.s.
based developrs and their variance varied.
we had local real estate developers and their experience varied.
and we had others that we called other.
so the most by number were p3 led consortium and u.s.
led developers, which was very good.
21 responses is very good.
it shows a lot of interest in this particular project and I think that interest is warranted.
so six respondents, dbfon, design, build, finance, operate and maintain, they're a whole pie, if you like, the whole idea.
they were the most experienced.
they were also probably the best able to bear the risk transfer because of their experiences.
so they were prepared to commit to the whole enchilada.
we had quite a few go for plto, privatized lease to own.
we had four respondents, design-build and maybe more than that.
I'll explain that in a minute.
and then design, build, transfer.
many of the respondents gave us a laundry list of ideas.
so they were less than specific.
some of the more experienced guys were very specific, but most people gave a laundry list and that's entirely appropriate for this part of the project.
they didn't want to box themselves into one solution.
they wanted to demonstrate to you flexibility.
they wanted to demonstrate to you their wide range and experiences.
and so they said there's many ways of doing this as we all know.
so rather than see that as a criticism I actually see that as a goal.
there's a great deal of flexibility in the marketplace for your delivery method and they're open to lots of different ideas.
I don't think anybody really boxed them out from any one of the solutions, but they did suggest -- we like this one, but we can't do it that way.
so classic, early stage rfi response.
nothing I'm surprised with at all.
some of the responses were quite interesting.
not a huge amount of detail, but again, exactly what you would expect at this time period.
the most telling thing was that you had 21 respondents showing that level of interest and flexibility.
that's really good, judge, really good.
so we were happy to see that.
questions around that?
>> is it possible, for instance, for me to get some supporting data on that analysis for each of the respondents?
knowing that we can't release it out, you know, make it be general, but I'd be interested in seeing where the folks are who have the most experience, rather than the ones who are not.
could I have access to that?
>> I don't see any reason why you can't, Commissioner.
I'm just thinking of a structure to make it in a way that we could communicate it clearly to you simply.
that's why my brain is going there.
not no, it's how.
we can certainly do that.
we certainly have the detailed analysis.
it's just very large, ugly consultant spreadsheet.
we need to make it readable.
>> okay.
but I'm prepared to read ugly.
>> [ laughter ]
>> Commissioner, we also had a task to support this presentation a that they complete a report on the analysis that goes into more detail than your presentation and you all will be getting that as well.
>>
>> [inaudible - no mic].
>> any other questions on that?
so the rest of this deck is really for reading, but on page 9 there were 21 rfi responses and we saw four core things.
we saw a variety of development methods, as I just said, and financing methods.
great deal of flexibility in the marketplace.
which is good.
rfi validated significant local and international interest.
again, good.
should be a very competitive process.
suggested site orientations about -- capitalizing on republic square park and Austin walking ability as a city.
and also talking about this issue of going dark at night was also there.
that came up very loudly during the first public meeting that we had as well, by the way.
so that was very much in alignment and a lot of those themes were already in the master plan.
I believe all of you have seen it.
so the same core things that repeat themselves, which is good.
we're seeing consistently around those core things.
and to go to your question earlier judge, there was a consistency roughly around what should be put on the site, which is everything.
not surprising there.
retail on the ground floor, office, multi-family, hotel.
those are the main types of use of the site.
so everybody responded that way.
the master plan envisioned many of those.
so not surprising in that regard either.
so a bit of everything, a classic mixed use development.
>> at that meeting it was also mention that had the federal courthouse did not have retail.
what is the difference between that and ours?
I mean, it's obviously the criminal justice system.
obviously it is pretty serious business that goes on in courthouses.
>> I would say it's philosophical primarily.
I mean, you could choose to not have retail on the site.
you can choose to have retail on the site.
it's really philosophical rather than any other real barrier.
I don't know the federal courthouse well, but having worked with the federal government a little, they have a philosophical view of what should go on their sites.
and so in general they tend to be single use sites.
you have the opportunity to be a mixed use site.
you don't have to take that opportunity.
that's your choice, Commissioners, judge.
but there is an opportunity to do that and so it is just your decision.
>> because I think it was also mentioned that it's a courthouse, folks.
you know, it's business.
and that folks would really not want to go into a courthouse voluntarily unless it's just to get copies of things and you leave.
but not /to go/( ing)to and do serious business.
so I just -- is that the -- along with the philosophy that the federal courthouse would take?
>> somewhat, but not absolute.
I think that's an architectural challenge, personally.
and most architects would agree the site is of sufficient size to allow a mixed use development there.
it's a follow so far kel barrier rather than a physical barrier.
you could put them and separate them efficiently to allow people to understand the differences in the usages.
I don't see a problem there.
it's just whether you want to avail yourself of that opportunity, that's all.
>> okay.
>> yes, sir.
>> so that's really it.
this page 10 there which talks about some of the lessons learned.
there was a specific question in the rfi about that.
we as your consultant will be bringing more of that to bear as well.
we clearly have our own history of lessons learned.
and so when we look at the different options, we'll be saying pros and cons about those options, many of which will bring out the lessons learned.
and you heard about availability payment.
the lesson learned about that is make sure we have a good lawyer writing the contract basically.
>> the conversations that I had with the public based on what I had heard and read, I claimed that the private component would enable a public entity to save on costs or reduce the cost, so sort of cost avoidance or what I was trying to argue was that financially it's a whole lot better off for the public entity to have a private partner because of revenue that the private partner could bring.
have you been -- have you seen that to be true in your experience?
>> absolutely seen that to be true.
now, will that's true on this site, ask me on 20th of March and I'll give you a straight answer to that, judge.
right now I don't know the answer, but in theory absolutely.
and there's two true economic benefits to this.
one, you'll obtain the building in 25 or 35 years or whatever the duration turns out to be.
so there's an immediate economic benefit that can accrue.
you don't have to do that by the way.
you can completely keep it separate if you wish.
but you will obtain the building.
that's one economic benefit.
the second economic benefit is that effectively a transfer payment between the commercial development to the public sector development.
yes, I have seen that.
whether that's feasible on this site, I don't know today.
I need to do the numbers.
once we've done the numbers I will be able to give you the right answer on that.
>> somewhere -- I won't forget my question.
I'll come back.
>> somewhere along the line, I guess what the judge has stated earlier in looking at the menu of mixed use and the areas that have had p 3 experience, wherever it may be.
and as you say there's a whole list of things that may be used in such a configuration.
my concern, I guess, is, is there an example where you can maximize the possibility of the revenue end to make sure that we get the most bang for the buck.
and that's really part of what I'm really looking at is how we can get the most bang out of the buck.
and there has to be some examples somewhere where someone has done that.
and so since there is a record somewhere, it would be good to see what that is and not saying that we need to go with the same format, but -- nomenclature or where that is, but somewhere there's some success stories, super success stories.
so what I'm looking for, those success stories that can fit in here and yet take care of the needs that we try to accommodate here in Travis County.
and I know this is what we are striving towards.
>> absolutely, Commissioner.
that is part of our deliverable.
we call it the value for money analysis.
vfm.
arguely the most important part of what we will deliver to you is exactly the answer to that question.
and we will take those previous success stories, but apply them for this site.
that's a very key lesson learned that we've experienced, is yes, it's good to take previous history, but you must apply it to the specific conditions of the site.
and the most interesting one that we're currently investigating would be under 25 f.a.r., it would be possible to build a 1.9 million square foot building on this site.
well, that would be the largest building, single building, west of the mississippi.
so the question is can answer absorb that?
because we heard in the building meeting we would like to build the maximum we can on the site.
well, that's fine in theory, but is the economic reality, or would you have 20 floors of that building unoccupied?
so that's part of our analysis of getting this value for money.
what's the best -- best has many definitions.
what's the best combination of structures to put on this site that offers you, the Commissioners and the taxpayers of Travis County and Texas, the best solution?
that is our key deliverable here.
now, it is somewhat subjective and it does require a lot of experience to do that, but that is that we are tasked with delivering to you.
>> are we able to document that the quality of the operations and maintenance work is usually better when performed by the private partner than the public entity?
>> that's a very tough question because --
>> thank you.
>> [ laughter ]
>> I'd love to be able to just say yes to that answer, but it is incredibly subjective.
you have a long time period.
let's face it, the people in public sector and the people in the private sector are the same people.
they both come to work and they both want to do the right job for the right people.
the issue comes around budget constraints.
the private sector has set up what's known as a sinking fund to manage the operations of that building.
it's not possible for you to do that.
you therefore have to manage it year to year and budget to budget.
so you might go into the building with the absolute right best intentions and say, I am going to absolutely maintain this building to the same standard as the private sector would do.
the private sector set aside money to do that, set aside operations to do that, guaranteed that contractually.
in 10 years time, judge, there will be a different group of faces on the bench -- sorry, but probably true -- and they might make a different decision.
and that's the risk transfer we talk about here.
and that's when you see buildings deter rate.
I was in the private sector and public sector as well.
happens in both sectors.
but you see buildings deteriorate because while everybody goes in with the best intentions, things change over time.
the beauty of that risk transfer is that contractually are bound to not changing that unless you instruct them to do so.
you can do that by wait.
you can say you don't need to maintain it to the same standards.
have you that flexibility.
but the beauty of it is you have this set payment regime that means that they can't contractually bend the rules.
or if they do they get penalized.
>> so can Travis County do the public-private partnership?
it's different aspects, but that's being research and part of the March 20th report will contain that issue?
>> it will, judge.
>> in fact, it was part of the contract that was set up to be used only if needed.
and my understanding is that you all have requested that as of today.
>> that's correct.
>> and we've issued a notice to proceed.
>> notice to proceed today.
>> today.
>> our intention is to include that on the March 20th deliverable, provided that the legal community has given us enough time to process it and include it in your analysis.
>> if not we'll let them bring it.
>> yes.
>> my understanding is there's also a local component to that legal team.
>> that's correct.
it's actually two local components, yes.
there's a local component that's specifically going to look, Texas ppp law.
and a component that's going to look at everything else because there's other legal things to consider.
planning being just an example of that.
>> okay.
>> next step?
>> next steps.
it's seventh of February for this forum, when we will present the synthesis of everything that we've heard in terms of criteria.
so when I'm saying we might want retail, we're going to say yeah, almost everybody said we should have retail on the site.
we think it's a criteria to feed into the analysis.
so going to your question about whether it should only be a site for a courthouse or whether it should be a mix mixed use development and if it's a mixed use development, what sort of flavor of mixed use development should it be?
we will present to you that and we will actually ask you at that time, judge, Commissioners, for a vote on whether the criteria we've laid out are acceptable.
so that's a very big day for us because then clearly all the analysis hinges on those criteria.
>> and to staff, separate from -- from ernst & young who are helping us out with that, have we looked at other -- we don't have anything quite like this?
but other circumstances where Travis County held property, sold it into private hands and what we declared through covenant could not be on that property just to give us some -- at least a starting point?
I know we have in the past sold property with restrictive covenants because we had -- we already have at least some idea of that minimum what we would not tolerate on a piece of problem that we had owned and were now selling.
>> I know of one, but we would have to ask legal to look into what the covenants were.
I don't know what they were on the farmers market.
>> I know of three and (indiscernible).
I can provide you each of those.
I know of another transaction as well that was started where you didn't own the property and it was sold to you on a sale, lease-back method.
so there were several opportunities to be creative and show you those examples.
>> I just thought that might be a starting point for us so we wouldn't have to start at ground zero.
that we already do have at least a history of what kind of private activity we would not like to see.
and we could start from there.
>> because things can change.
>> is that something you want us to try to bring back or do you want us to just look at the --
>> all I'm asking is that we have it sort of in the back pocket so that when it is the appropriate time to start to discuss what flavor of retail, as mark said, that we at least know what our president has been with regard to our flavor preferences.
>> all right.
>> any idea of how long the February seventh presentation may take?
>> that's a very good question.
can I think about that and come back to you, judge?
>> okay.
if we expect to give you feedback that day, we will need the backup I'd say three, four, five days in advance.
>> we fully appreciate that, judge.
>> I think it's worth repeating there will be a public meeting welcoming public input on February 1st at 5:30 here in the Commissioners' court room and again it will be posted on the agenda as well as advertised much like the hearing was last time.
so if you're listening, please come.
we would appreciate your input.
>> that's the full public.
>> yes, sir.
>> any and everybody.
>> any and everybody.
>> okay.
>> it's in this room.
we welcome all opinions and input.
>> we had a nice showing of city of Austin folks at the last public hearing too.
that was a good sign that there is some coordination going on.
and cap metro.
thank you for reminding me of that.
>> did we post the last public hearing in this courtroom?
>> yes.
>> okay.
let's do the same for the February 1st one.
>> okay.
>> anything else?
>> anything else, folks?
thank y'all very much.
>> thank y'all.
appreciate it.
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
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