Architect Presentations 4/10 - Casino Building

Yesterday, my day was spent in the City Commission Chambers listening to the final presentations from the potential architectural teams for the Casino building re-do at the beach.  There were six teams; three presented in the morning and three presented in the afternoon.  All were given an hour total - about twenty minutes to present and the bulk of the time to answer questions from the Commission.

I don't have a lot of time today since I am taking part in a Community Supported Agriculture demonstration in Loxahatchee this afternoon - hoping the rain holds off.  I will highlight some important information and revelations from yesterday here.  I have my rough notes from the meeting and you can read them by clicking here.  They are typewritten, but still in a bit of shorthand.  I plan to elaborate more tomorrow.

First of all, this is a textbook example of the cart being put before the horse.  You have already read my analysis of the city's questions posed for the respondents.  It was clear the presentations yesterday that nearly all threw back the questions to the city regarding the use of the second floor, what will happen with the first floor and if additional retail space is available.  All of these are part of a scope of work that the city must decide based upon analysis of the amount and use of space, projected revenue based on same, etc.

This is where I want to make a plug for a professional planning staff that is equal to the demands of a city of our size.  While chairman of the PZHRPB, I pleaded with members of the Commission and the city administration for a director, a secretary, two planners for current work on applications and the like and then two comprehensive planning people to staff our planning department.  One of those positions could be designated the city's urban designer, depending upon education and experience.  Given the lack of development activity now, you could pare back the positions for current work.

But, you ask, what do comprehensive planners do Wes?  Comprehensive planners work on longer term projects: text amendments to the comprehensive plan, amendments to the zoning code based upon trends and problems being experienced through the zoning review process, attending neighborhood meetings and holding charrettes as needed for special projects.  Think what would have happened with the south Bryant Park re-do if we had held a charrette before work began, everyone would have a buy-in on the work to be done, the project could be bid accordingly and we wouldn't have the Chinese fire drill we had with the current project.

As I was sitting there yesterday, I asked myself how different this discussion and process would be if we had developed a scope of work based upon city-sponsored charrettes on the topic and then go out for an RFQ or RFP for architectural services - so that what we decided that we want could be designed and ultimately built.

The way we worked it this time was to really have no idea other than say we are going to be using the original building.  As I have said before, it is my strong opinion that, with the limited amount of money the city has and the public nature of the project, this is the more complicated and expensive way to go.  It would be nice if we could at least have a cost analysis what the difference is between demolishing and building new - or keeping the existing building and rehabilitating.  Due to the involvement of public money, I think the taxpayers should know the cost/benefit of the final decision.  Demolishing and rebuilding new would ease the logistics of tenant relocation, code issues and better site plan integration.  But at this point, we have no hope of seeing this type of analysis.

Given this, we heard how the various teams would run charrettes and how they would achieve community consensus.  This after we already asked them how they would address the project in architectural terms - that's how we ended up with renderings and their vision for the building.  This is going beyond asking for qualifications of the firms and runs the risk of the city being called on using ideas from an unchosen architect in the final product.

Here are some of the juicier things learned yesterday and assorted opinions:

• The city entered into a contract with a market analysis firm to determine market rents, draw of the property and casino building for a cost of under $15,000.  This will be available in about three weeks.  From there, the Commission will have to decide how much, if any, it will continue to subsidize the tenant leases.  This will plug into the final financial model for the project.
• The Commission will be meeting at 8:30 a.m.Tuesday to determine the top respondent and direct staff to negotiate a contract.  What is the rush and why is this being done at an early Monday morning meeting?
• One of the potential funding source, to support an eventual revenue bond, is making certain parking lots in the downtown pay lots.  Not only do I think this is a flawed policy as it is using revenue from another area of the city to support the beach, it may do harm to our already economically fragile condition found amongst our downtown merchants.  The only time that we should be doing that is if we actually built an over-size parking garage in the downtown to support retail and restaurant activity, restrict parking at the beach and direct all beach parking to the downtown.
• There is not a lot of grant money available to support historic preservation projects.  One of the respondents produced a letter from the State Historic Preservation Office which said that national designation would only be likely if the city stays with the current 1949 design.  Anything else would be a gamble and would entail preparing an argument for a designation for a hybrid project or a purely 1922 themed project.
• There is more grant money available for "Green" projects and deadlines are coming up right away.

Time is up for me now.  More later.  Hope this gives you something to chew on in the meantime.