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HomeMy WebLinkAboutUpdate Direction President's Plaza Parking lot 758-14STAFF REPORT CITY OF PALM DESERT PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT MEETING DATE: April 16, 2020 PREPARED BY: Tom Garcia, Director of Public Works REQUEST: Update and Request for Direction on the President's Plaza Parking Lot Improvements Project (Project No. 758-14). Recommendation Receive update on President's Plaza Parking Lot Improvements Project (the "Project") and provide direction on next steps, particularly whether City Council supports: 1) Continuing with the advertisement and construction of the Project this year as planned; or 2) Delaying the Project until 2021 while contracting with a construction management firm to conduct constructability and value engineering reviews and working with the business community to renew the President's Plaza I Business Improvement District (BID) for 18 months. Strategic Plan Obiective Economic Development Priority No. 1: Expand job and business creation opportunities. Action Step: Revitalize Highway 111. Look at creating a possibility of creating a "City Center" atmosphere. In order to encourage growth and revitalization of the Highway 111 corridor, the City assists in providing large blocks of attractive and efficient public parking within the corridor. General Plan Obiective Chapter 10 City Center Area Plan: Establishing a city center within Palm Desert. Goals and Policies 3.6 Parking Strategy: Encourage district -scale and shared parking strategies while discouraging new surface parking lots. The Project will serve the goals listed in the General Plan for providing functional, well maintained, and attractive parking lots within the Highway 111/EI Paseo corridor. April 16, 2020 - Staff Report Update and Request for Direction - Presidents Plaza Parking Lot Improvements Page 2 of 5 Background Analvsis On March 12, 2020, the City Council authorized staff to solicit bids for the construction of the Project and advertise for construction management services. Staff has not advertised the Project or issued the request for proposals for construction management due to the emergency declaration and temporary closure of city hall on March 17, 2020 and the increased economic uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, staff is concerned that the construction of the Project this year may impact the surrounding businesses as they begin their recovery from the pandemic. For these reasons, staff is seeking additional direction from City Council, In support of these considerations, staff is providing current information on the Project and the BID. Proiect Site Condition: The last major rehabilitation project for the President's Plaza East and West parking lots was undertaken in 1997 and the parking lots are currently in need of major repairs to the asphalt concrete pavement, planter areas, and pedestrian walkways. These improvements will require the existing utilities to be upgraded, including water, fire, and electric services. The modernization of the trash enclosures to both reduce ongoing instances of illegal dumping and comply with current State mandates on trash collection and recycling are also included in the Project. Proiect Description: The Project was selected from numerous options and consists of enhancements to the parking lot surface, landscaping, utilities, waste service areas, and shade structures. The enhancements for pedestrians in the form of pocket parks were eliminated from the design. The result is a design that has 35 fewer parking spaces overall than the existing condition, but includes an additional four golf cart spaces, for a total loss of parking of 31 spaces. The Council and business owners endorsed this design and final plans and specifications were developed. Proiect Schedule: The Project is anticipated to take 300 calendar days. Staff had worked with the business community to reduce the impacts of the construction during season, but given the time needed to construct the Project, it is anticipated that the improvements would take two off-season construction cycles. Staff intended to work with the successful contractor and construction management firm to minimize the impacts of the Project during season. Proiect Costs and Funds Available: The engineer's estimate for construction costs for the Project is $7,780,000. The City has allocated $656,120 for design services and construction management services are estimated to be $1.1 million. The total estimated cost is $9,536,120. There are $8.8 million in capital project bond proceeds available to fund the Project, which leaves an estimated deficit of approximately $736,120. There is also $1.185 million in unused capital bond funds remaining in Project Area 3 that were identified for the El Dorado Street Connector project, which has been superseded by the CV -Link project. The CV -Link project is funded by CVAG under an agreement between the City and CVAG. April 16, 2020 - Staff Report Update and Request for Direction - Presidents Plaza Parking Lot Improvements Page 3 of 5 The City purchased the property for the CV -Link Project from the Whitewater Wash to Hovley Street from CVWD using the Project Area 3 bond funds. The remaining use for the $1.185 million in bond funds in Project Area 3 is to upgrade the fence required to separate the CVWD facility from CV -Link, which was a requirement in the Purchase and Sale Agreement between the City and CVWD. CVAG has included the cost of a chain link fence in the funding for the project. The City would be required to fund the differential between an upgraded fence and the chain link fence, estimated to range from $200,000 to $400,000, depending on the type of fence selected. The Presidents Plaza project is not eligible for Measure A funding. If bids come in higher than expected, Project costs not covered by bond funds would come from other sources, such as unobligated General Fund Capital Reserves. A project contingency (typically 10% of the bid amount) would also need to be allocated, which may also need to come from the General Fund Capital Reserve. Business Improvement District (BID): The President's Plaza I BID was established to pay for the maintenance and upkeep of the parking lots. This includes payments for services such as water for irrigation, electrical for lighting, and waste/recycling service through Burrtec. The remaining funds can be used for maintenance. Unfortunately, the majority of the current BID funds collected are used to pay for services, leaving insufficient funding for maintenance needs. This has caused the state of the pavement to decline over the last twenty plus years. The businesses were approached with a request to increase the BID to cover the needed maintenance costs, but in 2014 they declined to vote for an increase. The current BID expires on June 30, 2020, and must be renewed by a vote of the business owners. Staff contracted with Wildan to calculate the new BID fees based on the increases in service costs, including water, electric, and waste fee increases, as well as maintenance costs. The maintenance costs were calculated based on the successful construction of the Project, which included costs for regular slurry sealing, striping, and other maintenance activities. The term of the new BID was calculated to be a fixed five year duration, at which time it would expire and a new BID would be calculated and voted on by the business owners. Proiect Analvsis and Recommendations: The current project design has been modified numerous times in order to balance the needs of the businesses with adequate parking and the need to rehabilitate and modernize the parking lot, bringing it up to current standards. The existing pavement has deteriorated to the point where surface treatments would be ineffective. The existing pavement must be removed and replaced. The cost of rehabilitating the parking lot is complicated by the need to upgrade the existing utilities as any disturbance would compromise the existing water line, require moving electrical infrastructure, and disturb existing sewer lines. The engineer's estimate for these three utilities is approximately $2.4 million. Any project that addresses the April 16, 2020 - Staff Report Update and Request for Direction - Presidents Plaza Parking Lot Improvements Page 4 of 5 pavement condition would incur these costs. For these reasons, staff recommends against a wholesale redesign of the project as the fixed costs would remain. Any savings due to a redesign would be marginal as the major costs, pavement and utilities, would remain consistent. The timing of the Project is of concern due to the current economic uncertainty. The project as planned would begin this summer and continue through next summer. This would impact businesses just as they are trying to recover from the imposition of measures intended to prevent the spread of COVID-19. For these reasons, staff is recommending that construction of the project be delayed until summer, 2021 while still contracting with a construction management firm and renewing the BID. The construction management consultant provides many services, both before and during construction. If construction of the project is delayed, the services needed would be to conduct a constructability review of the plans. This review would be critical as we seek to minimize the impacts on the businesses during construction. The outcome of this review would be a staging plan for the execution of work on both parking lots, maximizing access to businesses while being as efficient and productive as possible, which in turn would help to minimize costs. Staff would also add a value engineering review to the construction management services contract, with the goal of finding those aspects of the project that could be done more efficiently in order to reduce cost and/or schedule. The BID needs to be re -authorized by a vote of the business owners as it expires on June 30, 2020. If the Project is delayed, staff recommends that the BID be re-scoped to address the increases in existing utility costs and services and set for a fixed 18-month term. At the end of that term, the construction project would be near completion and a new BID would be prepared to address the new utility and maintenance costs. After analysis, staff recommends the following actions on the Project: • Delay advertisement of construction contract until spring, 2021, with construction to begin summer, 2021; • Direct staff to advertise for construction management services, initially to provide constructability and value engineering reviews, with the option to provide complete construction management services should the construction contract be awarded; and, • Authorize a vote to renew the BID with updates to the utility costs for a term of 18- months. Fiscal Analysis The engineer's cost estimate for the Project is $7,780,000. The City has allocated $656,120 for design services and full construction management services are estimated at $1.1 million. The current total estimated project cost is $9,536,120. A project April 16, 2020 - Staff Report Update and Request for Direction - Presidents Plaza Parking Lot Improvements Page 5 of 5 contingency would also need to be allocated, which is typically 10 percent of a construction contract. There are $8.8 million in capital project bond proceeds available, leaving a deficit of $736,120 without contingencies. There is an additional $1.185 million from unused bond funds identified for the El Dorado Street Connector (CV -Link) project, which could be reprogrammed for the Project, which could cover the existing deficit. The Project is not eligible for Measure A funding. The General Fund Capital Reserve may need to support contingency funding and any costs exceeding the engineer's cost estimate. The staff recommendation is to authorize the advertisement of a contract for construction management services in the amount of $150,000, with an option to award for full construction management services should the construction contract be awarded in 2021. LEGAL REVIEW N/A Robert W. Hargreaves City Attorney DEPT. REVIEW ra Tom Garcia, P.E. Director of Public Works City Manager, Lauri Aylaian: 2Q ATTACHMENTS: Vicinity Map FINANCIAL REVIEW JDX Janet M. Moore Director of Finance ASSISTANT CITY MANAGER AF Andy Firestine Assistant City Manager i - �tf"4�-�RXNT