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Upcoming City Council decision to spend $189 million (or more) on building projects

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ami...@willamettewatershed.com

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Nov 20, 2024, 8:03:23 PM11/20/24
to Annette Mills

Dear Action Team Members,

 

The Corvallis Sustainability Coalition doesn’t take positions on public policy, but we do encourage community members to become informed and engaged on issues of potential significant community interest.

 

An item of interest is coming up tomorrow (Thursday, November 21, at 4 pm) when the Corvallis City Council will be meeting to discuss a decision that involves significant changes to our government facilities downtown at a cost of between $189.0 million and $241.4 million.

 

The agenda item is titled “FACILITY INVESTMENTS - Civic Campus and Police Facility Community Engagement Task Force Report and IAP2 Sustainable Decision-making”.

 

Background

 

January 2022 – The Corvallis City Council adopted a Citywide Facilities Strategy (CFS), following a facility needs assessment that evaluated 17 City-owned facilities. The CFS recommended a new Civic Campus facility on Madison Avenue that would bring together in one location the services provided by Finance (including Municipal Court), Community Development, City Manager’s Office, Human Resources, Information Technology, Parks and Recreation Administration staff and Mayor and City Council operations.

 

Two basic design concepts were proposed by staff for the Civic Campus: 1) renovate the current City Hall building for Council and Municipal Court services, and construct a second building for the remaining program areas; or 2) remove the City Hall building and construct one new building for all services.

 

February 2024 – A Civic Campus Community Engagement Task Force was created by the City to engage community members, organizations, and businesses to raise awareness about the Civic Campus concept and to gather community feedback about community values, goals, and outcomes that the Civic Campus would achieve.

  • Members of the Task Force included Julie Manning (Co-chair), Steve Clark (Co-chair), Penny York (Co-chair), Anthony Broncheau, Lee Eckroth, Griselda Lopez, Jan Napack, Kourtni Rader, Diana Simpson, and Lori Stephens.
  • The Task Force was charged with assessing and reporting community feedback and developing a recommendation on the Civic Campus and proposals to renovate or remove the existing City Hall building, as well as other input that may help the Council reach a decision.
  • The Task Force engaged the community and gathered public input from 961 community members through an online survey, through more than 15 outreach meetings with community members, and at a variety of venues.

 

October 21, 2024 – The Civic Campus Task Force Final Report, including the following recommendations (passed unanimously by the Task Force), was issued and accepted by City Council:

  • The City of Corvallis should retain and re-purpose Corvallis’ current City Hall structure and construct a new, purpose-built City Hall/Public Services Building along SW Madison Avenue between 5th and 6th Streets.
  • The City should lead the creation of a prioritized, multi-phase downtown strategy.
  • Improvements to the existing City Hall and construction of a new purpose-built City Hall/Public Services Building should be part of the second or third phases of a downtown strategy. This will provide sufficient time for additional community engagement concerning all aspects of a downtown strategy, as well as the design, building features, cost and funding of a City Hall/Civic Campus and re-purposed current City Hall.

 

November 7, 2024 – During the City Council Work Session, City staff and FFA Architects presented new design alternatives for City Council to consider, all of which are detailed in the city manager’s staff report, “Facility Improvements – Civic Campus and Police Facilities”:

  1. Retain and renovate the current City Hall to house Council Chambers and Municipal Court staff and operations, and construct an attached 3-floor structure to house City departments and service areas.
  2. Retain and renovate the current City Hall to house Council Chambers and Municipal Court staff and operations, and construct a separate, detached 3-floor structure to house City departments and service areas.
  3. Remove the City Hall building and construct one new building for all services.

(In each of the above alternatives, the Madison Avenue and Municipal Court buildings across from City Hall would be removed and replaced by a new Police facility with underground parking. A plaza would be created in the outdoor space between the north and south sides of Madison Avenue.)

  1. Remove the City Hall building and build a 3-floor structure in its place to house the Police Department, and include an above-ground 3-level parking structure to the north of the Police building. The new Civic Campus building would be located on the south side of Madison Avenue.

 

The cost of the four building alternatives ranges between $189,000,000 and $241,400,000. The above-ground parking structure included in the fourth alternative would cost a total of $53,300,000.

 

Current Timeline (outlined by the city manager)

 

November 21, 2024 (4 pm) – City Council Work Session at which Council will provide direction to City staff regarding a preferred alternative

  • Council will first discuss the Task Force Report.
  • They will also receive information on the technical, environmental, financial, and community benefit components of each of the four design alternatives.

 

December 2, 2024 (6 pm) – City Council meeting at which Council will adopt a resolution identifying the selected building alternative.

 

December 16, 2024 (6 pm) – City Council meeting at which Council will discuss funding alternatives to support moving the selected Civic Campus and Police facilities forward. Staff will have a recommendation for Council to consider.

 

 

If you would like to address this issue as an individual, you may send your testimony to any of the following:

 

The deadline to register for oral testimony (time permitting) and to submit written comments for the November 21st Work Session is 12:00 pm on 11/21/24. You may register online (www.corvallisoregon.gov/publicinput), via mail (ATTN: City Recorder, P.O. Box 1083, Corvallis, OR 97333-1083), or by telephone (541-766-6901 ext. 3).

 

Thank you for your interest and participation in this process.

 

Annette

 

Annette Mills, Facilitator
Corvallis Sustainability Coalition
541-230-1237
www.sustainablecorvallis.org

 

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