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[41:06] [Music] welcome everybody to the study session of a oh gosh January night 2018 I don't know where April came from and yeah we have two topics tonight and I guess we're just gonna jump right into central Broadway yeah okay great thank you good evening my name is Molly Scarborough I'm a senior project manager for the Public Works Department we're here today to provide information and get feedback from you on our approach to area planning for the Alpine bolson site and

[42:00] nearby surrounding areas we will also provide an update on our analysis of the potential for reuse of the existing medical pavilion on the site and discuss our approach for evaluating financing and partnership strategies for the area plan implementation concurrent with area planning so difícil take the discussion of each of these separate but interrelated topics we've divided the presentation into two parts in first Lesley Ellis comprehensive planning manager will provide background information on the central Broadway framework and objectives that will guide area planning for two of the central Broadway areas over the next year the Alpine balsam area which will be the focus of our presentation tonight as well as the Civic area East bookend in Kaitlyn Zacharias and Jean Garza will present their approach to alpine ball scenario planning and community engagement well then break for about an hour for council conversation and questions and feedback on these items in part two

[43:00] Michele crane with the Public Works facilities and asset management group will describe the analysis of the reuse of the potential for the medical pavilion staff conclusions and next steps for renovation of the building Amanda Beavis will then discuss our plans for developing a financing partnership strategy for implementation of both the Alpine balsan and East book and area plans and the potential city facilities within them I'll follow up with a brief recap of next steps and then we'll break for a 30-minute discussion of these items wanted to let you know in addition to these presenters we have additional staff in the audience you may be able to come up and answer questions as needed so with that I'll turn it over to Liz okay good evening so as Molly mentioned tonight we are here to begin with you a process as part of our community's vision really to implement the comprehensive plan and as expressed in the comprehensive plan we strive together to create and preserve a truly special place that is sustainable resilient equitable and

[44:00] inclusive and this part of these projects are really part of implementation toward our inspired future as part of the work that we do in planning so after several months of working with this team across the city and reaching out with the community and hearing some feedback I'm honored to be part of this group here who's here this evening and I'll be handing off most of the presentation to Caitlin and Jean shortly but first I'll provide a bit of context and background and share the planning objectives with you for the project and we are initiating with you as you can see on the map up there in yellow and I'll click the button here to area plans and we'll talk about what those are in a moment but they are as Molly mentioned the Alpine balsam the former hospital site that you see in the north circle on the map there and then secondly the Civic area East bookends this is the east side of the Civic area it includes portions of Central Park and the 13th and 14th Street blocks so

[45:00] you'll be receiving an information packet about the East bookend site and the conditions on that site in a couple of weeks so we won't spend a lot of time on that this evening but there is quite a bit of backdrop for the work that we're beginning now it's not a blank slate we've done a lot of work with you all as counsel with the community on the projects that you see up there on the screen so the central Broadway corridor design framework was approved back in June of last year that provides quite a bit of background and the interrelationships about the five centers along Broadway as well as the Alpine balsam vision plan you'll hear a bit more about that as well that was also approved in June of last year and recently we've been seeing the fruition of a lot of that plat past planning work and community engagement as you saw in the recently opened civic area park as well as the University Hill event Street and some of the activities that are currently happening up there in a public gathering

[46:00] space so this will set us forward on the next stage of implementation around those areas so what is an area plan and this brings us to the definition of that and as you heard a bit last week in our discussion about sub community plans and area plans they are guided by the comprehensive plan and its criteria area plans implement or bridge higher-level policies of the comprehensive plan with a more specific detailed zoning development review comprehensive capital investment decisions and so on as you see on the chart there on the left side of the screen they tend to focus on areas of opportunities or where we see special problems or areas that might be likely to change in the community and by their nature then tend to be a bit smaller in geographic scope the ones that we've done in the past have ranged from six acres to 160 acres to put Alpine balls balsam in perspective it's

[47:02] approximately 70 acres so it's right in that range the last plan we completed was Junior Academy in 2009 so it's been a few years since you or Planning Board or we have undertaken an area plan with the community and you'll hear a little bit later about Community Engagement when we do an area plan that doesn't mean that only people who are affected within the boundary of the plan are invited to participate I think it's important to point out that this is a community-wide of community-wide interest and so there are people who are more directly and influenced and affected by the work that's done here but there will be outreach that is much broader than that as well we for iris and Broadway are we are also coordinating with the county on the matter of planning to address the possible colocation of facilities on the site we don't yet have options that we're looking at but we do plan to bring some ideas and options to you later in

[48:00] the spring we're also speaking with county staff about what the planning effort for that site at iris and Broadway might be whether that might be an additional area planning type of effort or something to that effect so stay tuned for that and certainly if you have any thoughts or ideas we'd welcome those but we'll be bringing more information forward later on that we also know that council members some council members are very interested in simultaneously exploring a sub community plan for the area immediately around this site and we're not prepared tonight to talk about the all the issues around that we do anticipate that as a conversation that would continue as part of the retreat and as part of that topic around sub community planning I think I mentioned this just for rough context the Irish Broadway site is about 70 acres and then just in the context that North Boulder sub community area there is about a mile

[49:00] and a half square and it's largely residential and you'll hear a bit more about the Alpine balsam site which is much more of a mix of uses within the site we've defined eight objectives for the area planning process that are built from a lot of the previous efforts that we've engaged in and with from early input from the community and from the city's engagement framework and you can see these are also on pages 4 and 5 of your memo we are looking for your input on these this evening and just to be sure that we're all aligned as a team as we move forward with you all you can see on the screen here the first four relate to the community's vision and values sustainability resilience and so on respect our legacy and context of previous work get at the notion of a robust engagement process that you'll hear more about and acknowledge that we need to do a lot of coordination with some of the other efforts that are underway particularly the city facilities flood mitigation and so on so

[50:03] that's all taking place in addition the next four address engagement with the community to define our community values that are important to all of us to pursue consolidation of city facilities and then also you'll hear more in the presentation layer about this notion and it's going to take a wide range of approaches to make the community's vision a reality and so talking about financing and partnerships and then last but not least it's going to be very important to make sure that we do this in a timely and efficient manner so that we're ready to move forward as the hospital vacates the site next year after the this next part of the presentation we'll pause briefly and we would really appreciate your feedback around these objectives so I will now hand it over to Katelyn Zacharias who will share the initiation of the Alpine balsam project including some overview and background around that the

[51:00] components of what would go into the area plan the purpose statement the planning area definition and some of the considerations and then she'll hand it over to Jean to talk about Community Engagement thanks Lesley I'll start off with a bit of background the city purchased the site in December of 2015 and there were two main reasons for this first it was to ensure that redevelopment of the site fits with the community's goals envisioned and complements the character of the neighborhood and secondly to potentially consolidate to a modern and centrally located government facility that provides excellent service can inspire greater exchange of ideas and enhances community spirit so after the purchase of the site the city kicked off a multi-year planning process to guide its redevelopment and we began with the vision plan to understand the community's hopes and vision and this

[52:02] will serve as the foundation for the next step the area plan where we are now which will guide development of the site and the guide development on the site and potential change in the nearby area it's just an overview of the site this consists of several properties and buildings and these include the main hospital the medical pavilion the brenton building a parking garage with commercial uses and then two vacant properties on North Street and in Division planned process staff recommended that the hospital is not suited for reuse and receive direction to focus its efforts on the analysis to reuse the medical pavilion which we'll hear more about later tonight so the vision plan focuses on the site and also addresses the importance of integrating new development into the fabric and life of nearby neighborhoods and businesses and in this process we explore the

[53:01] community's hopes and vision in multiple engagement opportunities and concluded the process with the acceptance of the vision plan in June of 2017 the vision plan includes a set of guiding principles and these are supported by strategies and performance criteria that offer means and methods to achieve the community's vision for the site and these will be the basis for the area plan as Leslie talked about what an area plan is and just to provide some specifics about what this area plan will do it will outline the desired character and scale mix of land uses and so on it will create a common understanding the desired changes in the area defined the characteristics in the area that should be preserved or enhanced this plan will include implementation methods and also include more detailed planning for the city-owned site the project purpose

[54:01] statement reflects how the city will approach this project it's a way to define the project the problem as described in our engagement strategic framework planning board helps shape this with us last month in December we also brought to the community for feedback it includes aspects of a vision statement in addition to key outcomes of the area planning process and this full statement is also on page 10 of your packet if you'd like to review that further so planning for alpine Boston will occur on a series of different scales um this is an inclusive process that will include the broader community as well as people nearby and in the surrounding area the lines that you see here on the map can be adjusted these are not set in stone at this point and I'll walk through the different layers here so the first one the area focus is within the blue line that you see there indicated by number one and it it circumscribes

[55:02] about 70 acres and includes mostly mixed use areas and higher density residential as well as a portion of North Boulder Park that is currently having some flood mitigation planning around it this area focus also includes the 8.8 city-owned 8.8 acre City on site they see there in blue as well for which more detailed planning work will occur the recommendations and the implementation of the area plan will focus on this area and will address land use urban design access management and transportation connections as well as identify public improvements such as streets parking etc so coming out a little bit further the planning area shown by number 2 and the gray line includes approximately a 1/4 mile radius around the city-owned site and these are areas that may influence

[56:01] or be affected by what happens in this area focus and then going out a bit further to the Broadway corridor which is either in pink and number three we'll be coordinating closely with planning efforts along the corridor regarding transportation as well as regarding the activity centers along the corridor including the Civic areas bookend and the iris and Broadway site so for for the full framework that goes down even further to uni Hill but we'll have more close coordination with this project to the Civic area east bookend yep um how uni Hill is not discussed in this too much so how is that how do you envision uni Hill kind of eventually interweaving

[57:00] this part of the plan or do you because I mean as you know this we're continuing to me in not only the residential uni hill group but also the commercial and that meeting is on Thursday and I'd like to know if I'm asked um well this is part of the central Broadway framework and that is another hub within activity center within the central Broadway framework and so as Katelyn said it won't be the primary focus but connections to and in a relationship and tracking of what's happening in the Uni Hill site and how it can relate to what's happening in the Alpine balsam site will certainly be part of the conversation okay yeah I just want to make sure that dialogue is maintained all right so I'll now discuss seven key considerations that this area plan will address and these come out of the exploration of challenges and trade-offs and opportunities that were identified

[58:02] in the vision planning process as well as more recent work that's happened since then so a consideration of land-use trade-offs for the Alpine balsam site will be necessary to ensure development feasibility while working towards the vision for a mix of uses however as we know is an identified community need and is also identified as a top priority in the vision planning process berry plan will also seek to understand how to redevelopment on the Alpine balsam site can further support the flood mitigation work for upper Goose Creek and it will consider the relationship of the rest of the city on site to the these existing buildings on the site furthermore transportation connections along the Broadway corridor advancements in mobility and access will affect parking on the site and this in

[59:01] turn will affect what's possible in terms of site design we'll also be working closely with people and groups in the nearby neighborhoods to ensure that changes in the area are compatible with and contribute to these nearby neighborhoods and the conclusion of the area planning process is time to align with when the main hospital will be vacated so that redevelopment can begin in an efficient timeframe after that point so this is an 18-month process it consists of three main phases and each of these phases has opportunities for engagement there's a lot of detail on that in packet and pages 35 to 36 of your packet as well just hit a few points on the first phase we'll be engaging in site scenario modeling for the outline Balsam site further understanding the potential and the desire for change in the planning area and performing accompanying studies

[60:00] among other things so now turn it over to Jean to talk about engagement Caitlyn before you do that could you go a little bit more into the phasing that you spoke about briefly when you talked about deconstruction and future phasing could you got a line a little bit about what's being envisioned there please so you're used to give after the vacation of that's right if you go back a couple slides that one the phasing and the implementation if you just so just wanted to speaks about a little bit that is part of what we will be discussing through the planning process Amanda Bevis in the next portion we'll be talking about financing and partnership strategy being discussed concurrently with the area planning process so at this point we're still working through how this might be funded we need to work with the community about what they want to see on the site and so we don't really have a specific answer to that yet but that is something that we will be working through through the process

[61:01] we're timing the area planning process to be complete when we expect bch to be vacating the sites so that we will be in preparation to move forward with whatever comes out of that strategy in the process that we work with the community on okay so you're anticipating phased implementation but what that exactly that looks like you see yet to be determined exactly it'll be determined through the process thank you all right so we are very excited as are many many community members to get working on the really meaty part of the engagement of this process of this project as you know this project was identified early on as a 2018 pilot for to focus resources and help test our approaches and try new things that as we roll out our engagement strategic framework on the engagement decision-making wheel we're rounding the corner on step three which is create an

[62:01] engagement plan the draft that you see in your packet and this draft was informed by our recently adopted framework and a lot of pre engagement assessment work that was done in the last quarter of 2017 so we did a number of things to both inform community members about the upcoming planning process and gather information about how people really want to be engaged and how to get information and we asked them about their thoughts on what would make this a successful process our team talked to dozens of people at the what's up Boulder open house as well as several other open events and we also did an online questionnaire that had over 200 community members respond we learned a lot from people and we are acutely aware that there's a lot of interest in this project from community members so all of that information our engagement engagement framework and what we learned from these early and other processes that have been successful help them inform the plans

[63:00] objectives that you see here clarity transparency inclusivity and innovation and we're not just tossing out these words because we think that they're cool we think we've got a lot more detail about what we mean by these and what the promise to the community is in the engagement plan and how we intend to achieve these so specifically the next steps we have engagement events and tools that are planned over the next few months that respond directly to ensuring that people have the information they need about the process and offer a wide range of opportunities for members to be highly involved or or less involved depending on their level of interest as as leslie mentioned the engagement is well beyond the the lines on the map we know that the nearby neighbors are keenly interested and participating in every step of this process but we also know that many community members throughout the community are interested

[64:02] in all of the opportunities on this site the engagement plan is to design to accommodate all of these we intend to work with our engagement consultant to design each event and each tool to meet the objectives and ensure that the feedback from the community informs the decisions and informs the next steps and also the the key questions that Caitlin just described and in for next steps of the process so well thank you that concludes part one now we'll be entering the council discussion item these are the questions that we'd like feedback on specifically from you does counsel have feedback on the objectives for area planning that Leslie Ellis described previously and that are in your memo on page four to five and does counsel have feedback on the approach to alpine balsam area planning including the purpose statement scope key

[65:00] considerations planning area and the engagement and communications plan thank you okay let's jump right in okay nobody's jumping in okay I have a question okay so I am curious about the relationship between Alpine balsam and the iris site and specifically coordination with the county and we are a bunch of us wanted to tour the hub in Longmont which was very I thought a pretty compelling interesting visit to see what that could you know what was happening there and I don't know if that's you know the right model for here but I guess one of my question is is is my understanding is the county's doing their facility needs plan - and we're

[66:00] doing ours and I guess the question of what it might look like to collocate I guess I want to know how thoroughly were you going how we gonna tackle that what's that gonna look like and are we really gonna dive creatively into that are we gonna it is it a matter of colocation versus creating something together kind of I guess I saw a little bit of that I didn't see a lot about that so I'm just curious yeah Suzanne would you or someone describe a little bit what the hub is in Longmont that you just were sure I can just it it is a and now I'm gonna butcher this it is a a large building that has co-located men it's I think it's owned by the county but it's in coordination with the city or maybe it's owned by the city is another but it's co-located a bunch of the agencies so that you can walk in and as a citizen as a resident and get Human

[67:03] Services and well I think it's mostly focused on Human Services but you it's all in one building and both county and city or yes you you're gonna say it better yeah well not sure how much city stuff there was they have the motor vehicle registrations there as well yes is primarily Human Services focused but with some other county offices as well and there was a shared services model and an innovative layout and customer service approach where you they're these multiple conference rooms were you go and in schedule one and meet with one person there and then if there was a follow-up need meet with another social services provider the same place they had nonprofits Co collated co-located as well so it's a way for residents to get a variety of county services in one place in a kind of innovative interactive way there's childcare available there's child facilities

[68:00] available it was really inspiring honestly instead of piggyback on what you were saying I didn't seem like a huge opportunity to take that model and then add in city services as well so that that to really kalokhe eight many different kinds of things a one-stop shop but not just one-stop shop in the sense of well first you go here and then you go over there which is not too far away and then you go over there which is not referring that but that you could actually get people who are coordinating together on our side on the government side and meeting with people said they didn't have to go to many many different agencies well I'm just one of the sides helpful thank you that it would lend itself I think the Health and Human Services is an example where we do overlap with the county in the city so that for example would be a we haven't decided which departments would be there for example but if we were gonna do that that would lend itself to this vision so I I can answer that just briefly and you

[69:00] will have more opportunities to talk about that and be creative together but the city the county and the city are both working on their city facilities needs studies and the county has mostly completed theirs and they've identified a range of mix of uses that they might locate either on iris or a broadway site or possibly co-locate on the alpine balsam side affects something we're interested in it could range it from a low medium high kind of scenario and different mixes and so we'll be looking at that with them as we move forward you'll you'll have an opportunity at your lunch in a couple of weeks to learn more about the hub and ask questions and dive into that just a little bit and then we'll loop back with you on the city and the county will be having their conversations as well but we anticipate coming forward through the spring with some different options based on some of those conversations the lunch the city

[70:00] county lunch yes January thirtieth I believe it is that right Jane yeah well so let's exhaust this topic on this one yeah and so if if this discussion this partnership between the county and the city moves forward do you envision a signed IgA or something so that it's very clear who's doing what and so everybody is very clear in terms of what the agreement is and I don't want to belabor the point I can go into some other examples but I'll just leave it at that that it's very anyway I'm just wondering are we going to have a signed IgA and where the details are worked out not soon learning ultimately there definitely would be a signed agreement of some sort to set forth the obligations of each

[71:02] party and the financial obligations as well so we we have had partnerships with the county with regard to buildings in the past and we've learned a lot of things from that and so if they and so we would want to take those lessons learned yeah and that's good and I just think we need to be very clear so absolutely think we're it's good we're going in this direction so I just wanted to add one more thought to that which is I don't know that we know that this site is the place to do this but I guess what I wanted to do is make sure that we are actually having as we're visioning and having robust discussions that this is in play we may not you may choose ultimately one way or the other but I also think that this has in my understanding is has very much implications for the site on iris so to the extent that I think these are very linked and they're sort of linked in the area of focus planning the three different sort of looks but I guess to me that what we do on one will I think

[72:02] will directly affect the availability of the other so I guess to me it's a little stronger of a connection if we're serious about exploring so I guess I just want to say without predisposing the answer I would like us to robustly explore and I think that I'm blogs having some maybe some participation in the county that's some of some futures things that were planning so that you know again it does and I don't want to put words in the county's mouth they can talk to you on the 30th but they have been thinking about what how they might approach the planning on that site and how that might have tailed with the work that we're doing and so those conversations are definitely taking place but I don't know that we have all the answers just yet and just to reinforce that and what I said before I'm glad you're having those discussions because I think we do have a really enormous opportunity here to partner with the county and put together

[73:00] something that could be really innovative and help our residents to obtain county services and city services so I just really encourage you to you know be robust about those discussions anything else on this one yeah are you guys taking rfp's before a lot of the civic engagement so that they can then see them or after and then also are we gonna do multiple builders and designs like in Holiday we don't know yet is the short answer as I mentioned before we're sort of at the beginning of this process we do anticipate looking at different partnership opportunities what that might look like if we issue an RFP is that for the whole site is it for a portion of the site there are still a lot of unanswered questions in part because we don't have a plan for what should be happening on that site yeah we're at the beginning of that process but we recognize the importance of

[74:01] understanding that along the way and so we'll be having those conversations early and often as we are working with the community on what should happen on that site so not at this time but we will stay tuned in terms of what direction we will be going on that so first of all thank you for the presentation and full disclosure I live in the neighborhood so my question is going to be about as part of the area plan do you foresee conducting some sort of a baseline what is the situation on the ground right now in terms of things like parking and traffic and because there you know there it is at the moment quite challenging and so I just want to make sure that there's we know what it is at

[75:00] the baseline so that we go into it knowing that yes that's definitely to be part of the analysis that we're doing in the coming months so and is that going to be part of the outreach or is it just going to be like looking at the numbers so I think what we're envisioning is that when we have that kickoff meeting and either late February early March that we're really sharing with the community a lot of that baseline data key topics key information that so that everybody is on the same page so that it helps shape the trade-off discussions the issue discussions and all of the rest of the key questions that we'll all need to answer together as we move forward just a little bit of feedback one of the things that if you're going to be asking questions while you do the outreach of people maybe also survey the people that are parking in the neighborhoods because we see a lot of

[76:04] folks that Park in the neighborhood pull out a bike from their trunk and are likely riding downtown so it would be nice to know how much of the impacts of downtown might be moving north into neighborhoods Cindy I don't know where this is particularly in the process whether it's part one or not but I'd really like to see emphasis on transportation on the on the front end sort of what Mary was referring to but really particularly if it goes from Iris up to uni Hill that it's not just a segment and piece and in later in the memo on page 31 you talk about connections connectors but they're for pedestrians

[77:00] and bicycles and I think that looking at transportation people are not going to be out of their cars much as we might like that but also some kind of transit that is what more robust is a great planning word more robust than it is now so that that is really looked at as an underlying piece of all of this on the front end the parking as Mary was saying and those impacts of people driving their cars places in the neighborhoods and taking out bicycles I think probably happens all over close to the downtown so but those kinds of things but specifically the Broadway corridor and transportation means their thought on timing so the the lease runs out at I guess the end of May right with the hospital and so we have our timeline or area plan adoption mid 2019 and just

[78:02] want to really say that I feel like we should be ready when the hospital is done I'd hate to see the hospital leave and then six months go by without anything further happening and we have a good amount of time here so I think we should we should make sure that that our schedules designs such that we can move forward once the hospital is finished as part of I was asking about the phased implementations I look forward to hearing more about that later but it doesn't necessarily need to mean that everything is decided and ready to go but that we know what the next step is after the hospital is gone and and that there's for a few reasons I mean part of its that you know the carrying costs as we all know about but partly to the vitality of that area when the hospital goes away there's going to be a real hole in terms of the number of people are going to the local businesses and such and so I think we want to make sure we're moving on on a regular schedule so

[79:00] I know we're kind of popcorn around and maybe that's fine because I want to understand the relationship of this planning process with the call for we're gonna discuss at our retreat about a central a central Broadway sub community plan and how those might mesh or feet are happened at the same time or I don't know if this is well at least would you can you speak to that a little bit yes so we are we haven't done all the analysis for this evening to talk about the pros and cons and issues and that kind of thing of what it would take to do a sub Community Plan or a corridor plan for this area simultaneously and I think we'll have more conversation at the retreat so that you all can have that opportunity to prioritize and talk about objectives and that sort of thing the area outside of the the sub community plan beyond what's designated

[80:02] as the area plan is largely residential and I think we heard some input from you all last week about the issues being a bit different in those residential areas and so I think if we were to move forward at the same time we'd want to design a process that gets at the right kinds of issues and outcomes for that area and have you all help us define what that might be and so it could be something that happens in parallel with this effort but isn't necessarily bundled into this effort so that we're you know there's obviously some synergy with the engagement that's happening simultaneously and that kind of thing but I think we'd want to do the job of defining those issues and that problem statement and being clear about what we're trying to do as we do that on a on its own kind of planning process so following up on that it seems to me like if we move forward with sub Community

[81:02] Planning the first piece will be defining what sub Community Planning is and how it works and that will take a certain amount of time as well as staffing up to do the work and so it seems like this Alpine balsam plan process is going to move along that faster then sub community plan and so even if we launch a specific sub community plan at some point it might be a while and so this may be better crystallized by the time anything like that would start so I guess that's my thought is even if we decide to go forward it may not be as simultaneous as all that and I would just comment coming from the North Boulder sub community plan where we had a real area of change along North Broadway and that's where the bulk of the work was done in North Boulder but the sub community plan

[82:01] offered the opportunity to look at that wider and broader sub community area and really fine-tune what were the needs or the expectations of the people who were living in that sub community so for example we were able to identify transportation links so we got a lot of bicycle corridors ped connections people didn't want roads they wanted bike ped connections so we got those and also a great opportunity to look in North Boulder at the park system and we were able to identify areas that were underserved and areas that really needed to be filled in so from my perspective I I don't see the sub area and sub community is such a big distinction I think the sub area plan will really be

[83:00] the area that we focus into and really do a lot of the work but I wouldn't shy away from the sub community and area because there may be some opportunities to fine tune and identify needs that are unmet at this point in time one other comment I would have is that this central Boulder sub community is the largest sub community I think of all of ours in terms of population and I think maybe even in terms of area but you would know that better than I let's Li having done all those incredible fact sheets but you know we may want to have a discussion about north central central central and south central but I don't want to belabor the point but I wouldn't get people I wouldn't encourage people to freak out too much about sub community because there are opportunities there

[84:01] that don't take that much extra work and in fact you know picking up all the baggage for the sub sub area you might as well put on a backpack and do the sub community it's it's the same lift in some ways you you you outlined priorities for the site we've heard a lot about housing I thought the vision plan so far looked so great how you went from kind of lower density near the park to mixed-use and higher dancing commercial but I am wondering is there anything that we know for sure for sure is definitely going to be like these are gonna be city offices or you know I'd love to see a teen center or more Multicultural Center as part of this but other than housing and some mixed use and some commercial are we going into this thing hey there's definitely going to be this and we have to kind of figure that out work around it I think to

[85:06] answer your question um that portion would be maybe more focused around city facilities as we've discussed and we'll be talking more about later tonight but in terms of getting more specific and the types of non-residential uses etc there hasn't been any clear definition around that just yet and that's going to be actually what we're doing in the coming months so we have yes I mean we've definitely heard a range throughout the vision planning process there are some flavors of things I'll say that emerge at that point but I think we want to explore that a bit further with the community so nonprofit uses health-related uses that kind of thing emerged in the vision planning process just a follow-up question to that um I know you're probably not gonna be really excited about answering this but can you

[86:01] give us developing chills question can you give us a proximate range I mean we're talking on 8.8 acres and it sounds like some government offices will be there maybe city maybe city and county are we talking five percent fifty percent can you just kind of give us a general idea I know I know there's there's a range there and don't want to pin yourself down but can you give just so we can kind of scope it in our heads so Michelle crane will speak to that a little bit more in the next section but just to let you know and we currently have the brunt and building there's a parking garage and we're discussing the potential reuse of the medical pavilion those things combined take up between 25 and 30 percent of the property including the site area work that we need to be done around it so that's kind of the range that we're looking at it this time should we think of that 25 to 30 percent is that kind of a minimum at a minimum that'll be government offices it could be more or is that kind of like pretty

[87:01] much gonna be it I think the rest of it will have to shape out through the area planning process we are as Michelle will speak to later in the city facilities there are city facilities and that were called out as part of the Civic Area City facility hub in Alpine balsam area one of the reasons we're looking at these sites combined is as we're looking at those things making sure that as decisions are made in one area that might influence the other area were able to respond to that so I don't really have a good answer for you yet we're kind of leaving it open to the area planning process okay Sidney and Mary and following up on Bob's comment it is 8.8 acres but a lot of that land use is going to be predicated by flood mitigation is it not I mean just generally speaking without being exact there is a big pond there when it rains

[88:02] right where Alpine goes into ix it gets bigger depending on the amount oh right so about of the the larger parcel at 1,100 balsam so the parcel at the hospital is on okay just ask you to speak up and your money's not coming through okay so the the larger parcel that the hospital is on about fifty percent of that is in the hundred year flood plain and there is current flood mitigation planning happening on upper Goose Creek looking at a range of things and part of that would it would potentially involve some work in North Boulder Park potential detention but I think the outcomes of that guess they it would affect to some degree what could happen on the site there were we heard a lot through the vision planning process about an interest in a green corridor pulling through the site and that

[89:00] potentially playing a role in that but that's I think still kind of being looked at in this flood mitigation planning but in terms of the 100-year floodplain there's you know per our regulations in our code there's a lot that can still happen within that within but there are some uses that would not be able to fall within that um just critical facilities things of that nature but the only the upper corners of the site are affected by things like the high hazard conveyance so those would be obviously not having structures in them yeah you mentioned Caitlin that some flood mitigation would be considered in Northville to park I guess I was under the impression that it already is a detention pond it isn't I'm not because it certainly wouldn't win it when it rains a lot and it effectively access such yeah yeah my understanding is that

[90:00] there would probably be more work around that to make it a little more official I'll call it but if anyone wants to jump in here on more specifics around flood planning but that's my understanding yeah I'd be interested in knowing that I was always under the impression that it was yes specifically how will things be different if that happens like what will have to take place and what will it look like sure and a lot of that is part of the work that is happening in that mitigation planning study which just recently kicked off also I don't believe it's functional sylheti right now I'm sorry Edward Stafford the development or remarriage of Republic Works which also includes floodplain and wetland administration so the mitigation studies looking at a variety of different concepts for that area one of which is to have a larger regional detention facility in the park that would help downsize than the conveyance capacity needed and the channel as you go further down from there don't believe the park right now has been designed to act as

[91:00] any large detention facility to uh serve those needs and then it's part of what the mitigation study will look at that will be handled also as a part of the area planning process here in conjunction well not in the same project there will be coordination amongst those there will be some expertise also in the area planning process to look at the flood mitigation and flood impacts as it relates specifically to this parcel and Edward thank you that was helpful will you also be considering road infrastructure to mica on 9th Street where it really does get flooded when you have a heavy pour ninth in Boston that area I'd have to look at the mitigation planning I don't know that it will look to any heavy degree at some of the smaller street conveyance areas it's usually looking larger at the channel itself in what's needed through there whereas a lot of the street conveyance becomes our minor stormwater I think some of that has been looked at in the master plan for stormwater I don't know

[92:00] what the prioritization in that area is it's just that you know what I've noticed is that it really ponds there and it just seems like if you're in there looking at it you might as well get the whole thing and some of that is as we get into actual implementation of redevelopment in this area things we could be looking at in the infrastructure design also okay think so um follow-up to my own question the if there if the Park North older Park were to be used as a regional Detention Center does that mean that there is the possibility that there might be some excavation that happens in the green areas yes if it was to be utilized as a detention facility there could be excavation and or berming that would have to be done in order to create that impoundment area to hold those waters back and release them in a slower manner that's part of what will have to be analyzed in the mitigation study and will have to be discussed with the variety of community and resource ports of course as to what those impacts would be and then whether that's something

[93:00] that's the community wants to see they won't so I had another different question well does anybody else get any on the flood detention stuff okay keep going so I have a question about boundaries of the planning area the focus area and I notice for the planning area some of the boundaries go along streets and when a boundary on a planning area is going just shown to be going down a street does that mean that one side is in the planning area one side of the street is in the planning area and the other side of the street isn't in the planning area how is that handled so are you referring specifically Mary to number two up there the the planning area or the remember two and specifically 14th Street because it looks like it goes down 14th Street and then so I'm wondering if if it goes

[94:03] down the street is one side of the street in the planning area and the other side isn't so it's funny so on the west side you're going down alleys which seems to make more sense to me from a planning perspective and usually when you look at like uses you you don't do it you don't separate on the street you do it you know behind that the house so that is a big concern because you want like uses on either side of the street it's just basic good planning principles so right yes so yes it is absolutely basic and good planning principles to cross streets I think with respect to the planning area around those edges were not necessary for seeing land-use changes right and so you wouldn't have

[95:00] that kind of scenario where you'd be changing something on one side and on the other right just basically and good planning it seems to me that maybe you want to go in the back of these units instead of along streets yes and I get it that these are residential and most stuff won't be happening but again one of the things we have so many people as as you've all explained so many people are really excited we also have an opportunity to educate our public on good planning principles as well so we should do that and it's this process we have expect my question sorry so the reason I'm asking that is is I understand that there is there aren't any land use changes plan however there are other issues such as the traffic and parking and things like that that affect two sides of a street just as equally

[96:00] and so I want to make sure that those kinds of concerns are addressed that you're not cutting off one side of the street where they're seeing the same kinds of impacts right and you know I think I would also add that you know as we were commenting earlier these these lines aren't really set in stone at this point and I also see the planning area as it's not as much of a rigid line I know it appears as such but in this process and as we're working with neighborhoods there's again it's not going to be so boxed in that way you know it's how people identify in their neighborhoods and and what what kind of interests we hear that can be a bit flexible in terms of that area that those what the outcomes of that would address yeah you did so my question has to do with the shopping centers across the street so those are clearly in the planning area but the impacts of uses people who use

[97:03] those shopping centers are in a much bigger radius than that and so how are you going to be addressing exactly the shopping center uses because those are likely to change over 20 years 30 years who knows what the timeline is but I'm just curious how you think about that because when I think about sub-community planning it's obvious that you would want to talk to the community about what they would like to see eventually there may be what's there now and maybe it's something different but for the Alpine balsam site you're not gonna be having that kind of a conversation right you're gonna be having a conversation which is just about how will the change in Alpine balsam affect those sites so talk to me a little bit about how you approach the shopping centers right so the area of focus within that it's also about understanding the potential for and

[98:03] desire for change in that within that blue line and so as part of that we want to be having conversations with those property owners in that area including the non-residential property owners and understanding you know this is we're operating on a 15 year timeline roughly so understanding what their plans are and their their desires are for that type of change so we know that those shopping areas are very dear to the nearby residents it's a very important cornerstone of of that area and this broader radius and so with with this site redeveloping that does have you know impacts and then in the nearby area so it's it's it's basically starting off with conversations with those property owners and understanding the role and importance of these shopping centers and then with this vision for this vibrant

[99:00] mix of uses what relationship they would have together in the focus area that area where the Boulder Medical Center is I believe that's BT - is that correct where I'm going with this yeah okay so and BT - is the same zoning that baseline zero is and how the uses on BT - weren't quite compatible with in that particular in baseline zeros case weren't quite compatible with the neighborhood and allowed more things that were kind of incompatible and I I guess I would like to make sure that as part of this process we examine that particular zone and make sure that we don't encounter the same issue in the future as was happened at baseline zero

[100:03] well not just so that all night I do think context is important and I I'm glad that these lines aren't in stone and our rigid I mean we're cutting the park in half for example so if you're gonna dig up half the part like you can't to me that makes no sense because obviously the park is a whole it's an amenity it's important and what you do to one end affects the integrity of the whole park so I don't have to fuss over the lines but to me it would be a big circle because context I think matters and I also think that not only is this the shopping center to piggyback on what Sam and Mary are saying is important it's actually important part of town right it's important to the entire city this is one of those nodes of activity and North Boulder Park is more than just the pocket park and so anyhow I guess if we're going to to do something dramatic and creative that we are not talking

[101:01] about enough about that fun and creative stuff but in the middle of this we're gonna affect this important note in town and I guess to me that's a big circle and it's along a really important corridor and I it's so anyhow I guess I wanna to me this isn't like let's figure out a little time yeah so that's my thought on that you had to pick you back on that I like that idea of the of a circle and that when you're talking about the the 15 year planning horizon I think of one of the the ways to approach some community planning an area planning is areas of change in areas of stability and so we talked about their shopping centers as they are absolutely beloved shopping centers right in there they're different from other strip malls around the town or around the country and so you know that might be one of those things to be like your areas of potential change you know say for example some of west of Broadway some of the buildings with bigger parking lots that are older that you know may be good opportunities for redevelopment in 15 years versus say

[102:02] those two shopping centers which are probably areas of stability and it would not change in the next 15 years so it could be a really helpful part of the process I just want to ditto both of what you're saying I think it's really important as well not to narrow that focus too much but look at the wider impacts because I know if one were to do an analysis of who shops and goes to that shopping center it's pretty pretty wide pretty broad broadly through the community and particularly central Boulder the older parts they're good I just want to point out that the conversation we're having now is why I believe that if we get this done this planning process done that if you do a good job at it you've pretty much done with it for the sub community plan as

[103:00] well right you don't have to have the conversation again so one of the reasons why I'm interested in this being an area where we do a sub community plan soon is because we'll have done all this work the transportation corridor study iris and Broadway and this if you get through the conversation which includes a huge area of change right and possibly the shopping centers as well then that's a whole bunch of work you don't have to do again through the sub community planning process because you can say to the community look we engage you really vigorously on this important area change and we don't have to go through that same process again we'll say this one's done and so I just want to point out that there's this synergy here with all the work that's going on in this area of change in this sub community and being able to get through a sub community planning process quickly in my last point which might get into

[104:00] subcommittee planning is just that the neighborhood right next to the park on just to the north is still market rate affordable it's a pocket and whatever we do here is going to really affect that and I so as we figure out I don't know we're gonna do something amazing and it's gonna have ripples and I guess I want us to have looked at the larger context to try to plan for how we want to manage those ripples both the good ones and and maybe the ones that we wish wouldn't happen but that's another thing on my list is that's kind of a cool funky neighborhood that I'm it is in danger of being scraped but it provides a lot of really market rate a good market rate affordable right now so anyhow we can't ignore that even if that's not what we're focused on but that is a likely outcome so I just throw that into the mix as a concern I have in the back of my head well I'll just come

[105:01] in it's already happening yes I know and we've experienced a ton of scrapes and a pretty big change in the character of the houses that are right on balsam so and it is moving to the north so it's something I just want to support Suzanne and that excuse me if I could interrupt a minute I just want to do a time check we're about 10 minutes out from the time that we would say that we originally said we would start part two it's of course your prerogative on when we start that but wanted to make sure that you're covering everything that you wanted to cover I think we are but why don't you throw up the scope the things the specifics that you really wanted us to make sure we liked the questions well no Jay about the scope the purpose you know I think you've been come on of the areas that has not been covered yet as the objectives come and I'm getting there the planning objectives and again these

[106:04] are on two slides so I can flip when you're ready that one looks pretty straightforward hard doing disagrees okay how about the second page I would add but I'll go ahead I guess the the part that we haven't talked about but I want to make sure is there's a lot of energy and excitement about creating something cool on the redeveloped the empty lots right now and I guess it's maybe not quite that the the fact we have a chance to create something pretty amazing whether it's it's how we you know create the city offices or the hub or just make some really cool housing on that site maybe he'll that opportunity

[107:02] to be creative and kind of walk our talk in terms of amazing city planning and stuff I don't see that captured in there but maybe it goes without saying but I guess I would just underscore that this is a really that's a really cool opportunity to do something a little Legacy Project here um in the middle of our city so I think that would be great to have in their words like creativity and innovation and legacy and you know said things that are beautiful I mean you know there's there's some aspirational wording that could come in here that that I think reflects some of the community's hopes for this site just let me pilot you know we call out number six city facilities and it was helpful to know what our minimum amount is we don't I don't think specifically call out housing and we don't specifically call out with with Shannon and Erin

[108:00] there call out the cool the cool factor or the community factor and I guess the question is which way do we want to go I mean do we want to say City I don't want presumed the public process so I get that but but if we all sit around the table think there's gonna be some housing there then why don't we just kind of call a spade a spade you know we can talk about the type and the size and the location and pricing and all that kind of stuff but if we all think that housing is gonna be an objective of some sort within the site why wouldn't we call it out just like we call it city facilities and then take it a step further why would we not call out this cool community thing whatever it is going to be as an objective as well so I'd like to make a point of clarification these objectives really are intended to span both the east book insight and the Alpine balsam so these are really objectives for the central Broadway major planning initiatives that are will be happening over the next year as the context I know we're focusing on Alpine balsam tonight and they certain apply certainly apply there but they're

[109:00] these objectives are intended to span both as Kaitlyn went through her presentation she had and what we called in that sense key considerations for you know term change and in those key considerations for alpine housing was definitely identified as one of those key considerations so just a point of clarification this is supposed to span those well the aspirational creative factor I think very much applies to the East bookend yeah yeah we're gonna whatever gets theirs whatever it's gonna be built there is gonna be beautiful right I think we all talked about that before today yeah well but I'll just say I mean you do have a couple things about this goes and Alpine balsam this goes in the Civic area I mean yeah it does mention city facilities I mean housing is a critical piece of and I didn't mean to dissuade from that I just wanted to make sure we're good important thing that's good points we have some other people and we're getting I know Cindy's in the queue with another thought it was

[110:02] basically following up with what you and Bob have been talking about over on that side so I would just ditto that again just okay opportunity so this brings up the question that has been rattling around in my head about this particular project album balsam how do we keep it from becoming a Christmas tree so you know there's a term called blivet and blivet is essentially 10 pounds in a five-pound sack so we have to ask ourselves how are we going to sort through and prioritize because if you put all bunch of different things there in order to satisfy the Christmas tree ornament desire then you end up with a hodgepodge I'll call it but we'd like a little bit better so anyhow I would just ask for your thoughts briefly on how to make it

[111:01] not oblivia and again your heading will touch on this a little bit more later but you're heading on exactly why we want to have the financial and partnership conversation in tandem with the area planning process we will be going through looking at different options different trade-offs through the planning process but those options and trade-offs aren't only about the different land uses and activities that might occur on the site but also about how how eventually we might be able to implement those and so if you have the Christmas tree effects if you say as you say of everything that gets challenging to implement at the end of the day and likewise we will be going through as Katelyn said the phasing processes you kind of see on that handout well we will be starting with various conceptual options but working with the community on those trade-offs sort of narrowing it

[112:01] down throughout the process to eventually get to a preferred alternative but that will be a lot of trade off conversations with the community right and I think that's fantastic and I also think pointing it out up front that there's a lot of aspirations and projections on under this site that people want and that it will probably be very difficult to get all of them so part of the process will be prioritizing and that means that some constituencies may be disappointed on the make it beautiful theme once we've gone through the planning process and established what the community wants there and what fits best this does the building code is it going to be the same process that that we have now and all the same regulation or are we thinking about relaxing maybe doing form based code maybe maybe specifying styles or material uses or

[113:02] hey you can actually do some dormers here even if they float into the you know sometimes we think it's going to be beautiful and then it's just a box some of that's our faults our our process in our code so I think the type of design guidance that we have in this area plan is kind of remains to be determined as we work so it could be a range of things like its design guidelines or something beyond that like what you're describing so I think that's going to emerge through the process wait can you just sum that up that yes we can be creative yes we could be creative I was just speaking about the types of design guidance that would come out of this process and and that that remains to be determined okay anything else is there

[114:02] anything that else that you feel like we didn't respond to there's anything else about the process as we move forward that you'd like to make sure that you hit on I think this has been really terrific feedback otherwise we just want to make sure that we set out in a direction that meets your objectives I just comment on Bob's comment about housing kind of being not in this list and I think when we acquired the property we we made the point that it was for part of it was for housing so whether that happens or not I think we need to be really clear with with people and with the public and so and I will underscore my understanding for the county is that the site on iris which is also could be their county facility up there or could be housing and that that

[115:02] also to me is an interesting conversation to have as we look at the whole and what would serve us on the other on the process stuff I think we're doing good process and as long as we get to well in the things that are coming next about the facilities and figuring out what should go where and also creative financing I think those are two things I was going to call out in the public process that I think we definitely want public input into the trade-off conversations and also but you know I don't if we're gonna talk about those in a minute I won't talk about them now but to me they're they're relevant to the public process piece this is kind of a question I guess I don't know if it's or Sarah or Jean to what extent if any do you want us to be involved in the public engagement cuz I know we're shifting our public engagement process and councils

[116:00] trying to be more visible in certain ways do you want us to kind of stay out of your way and you collect it and give it to us or do you want us to be in front we would love an inclusive process so I think that that's up to you up to you we're trying to design events that are going to be really exciting and creative and we'd love to have you all participate in those so I think it's to the degree that you would like to be involved that that's always awesome when we did the lot of the comprehensive plan meetings I think it was really useful to have council members and planning board members and other board members at the events too firsthand here focuses thoughts concerns ideas so I think we welcome then okay shall we move to the part two thanks we're gonna switch to the staff up here but y'all just speak up yes

[117:34] Michelle crane city facilities design and construction manager I work with our facility and asset management group it's been a great conversation so far and a lot applicable to what we'll talk about now so fam has been working alongside the Alpine balsam team as they developed the vision plan for the Alpine balsam site our focus has been on conducting a city facilities assessment and our two

[118:00] key objectives have been to develop a vision and guiding principle for city facilities and also to form a recommendation on an organizational concept for consolidating city services between the civic areas book end and the Alpine balsam site we did provide an update to Council last February on some of that work in the Civic area we had envisioned this as a place for civic engagement and community to course and this is very much in line with what the first guiding principle of the Civic area master plan so the types of services we would see here are City Council city manager's office City Attorney those types of services at Alpine balsam for city facilities we envision this as a centralized hub for customer service so key priorities and strategies with that would be to prioritize the customer experience clear easy ways welcoming entries lobbies easy access to information variety of way to ways to access information to promote

[119:01] active community engagement so having flexible adaptable multifunctional meeting space the ground floor transparent and permeable and then again to really emphasize providing welcoming and inspiring spaces so showcasing information in public spaces city initiatives community accomplishments those sorts of things at the ground floor so the other thing that fam has been focusing on is just looking at the existing conditions at the Alpine balsam site and what portion of that should be retained for city services and what buildings so as we mentioned the bretton building is currently undergoing renovation and that's planned to be completed in the spring we're using the parking structure for satellite parking for city staff currently and sharing it still with VCH at the moment can I jump in there another question a little off point there was discussion some time ago about sharing some of that unused

[120:01] parking with downtown employees once the city employee take rate was known is that still on the plan because there's a lot of empty spaces there and there's a lot of people who would love to park who work downtown so I think Michelle knows the answer yeah so we we are working in collaboration with them but when we complete renovation of the branding building we're going to be moving close to 80 employees up there and we continue to promote it as a satellite parking so I think we will see more parking utilization so we've been a little hesitant to basically give away spaces at the moment until we know what's gonna Park up there I just asked you some numbers how many spots do we I know that the hospital has employees how many spots do we have I have to collect something it was half and we recently negotiated more spaces call it in the zone of 200 ish yeah I think more than that

[121:02] 400 really 400 and yeah 411 and how many I know we're gonna move 80 employees out there but how many employees per clear right now I'd have to look back at the numbers we were kind of calculating that on a an average monthly basis but I'd want to confirm okay this is 20 some like it in the zip code probably in the zip code yeah okay so if we had 20 plus 80 is a hundred still have a lot of empty spaces there yeah so it's something I think will continue I just I just want to make a point of it because this has been talked about and talked about for a long time we have a lot of downtown employees who would actually park there and so it's kind of a shame when we have a parking problem downtown and we have dozens and dozens of unused parking spaces mister four or five blocks away and just a tag on that we have had some issues with employees who work late at night and you know the cost of parking for them these people are those who are serving you in your

[122:00] restaurant doing dishes things like that and so I think because of right now some of our downtown garages are so expensive it's very difficult for some of our employees to park in our city-owned parking lots because of the rates and can I interrupt for a minute we are working on a new plan I've been talking with Mary about this for a while that would provide a very very substantially reduced rate for evening employees I I know that Mary Ann and Molly are going to be talking about that in the next week so we we know that they did a pilot over the summer that was not successful in my view is that it wasn't successful because there rate was not low enough and so we're gonna lower it to a rate that we can try to make it more successful and we prefer for them to park downtown because late

[123:00] at night it's closer right right then than this facility is and then getting back to this particular facility we Molly is also working with the downtown to understand what their needs are and we also have the surface parking lot that someday won't be the surface parking lot but in the interim we're trying to designate which part of it the city can use to work with the downtown as possible parking spaces so Michelle and Molly will work with Molly winter and report back to you on that information Jane that's music to my ears so thank you and I was thinking that you know they would still be able to be down downtown okay everybody let's get back to the present I just want to make one comment about this I know but real quickly do that again I just wanted to just reiterate that why it would be important to survey the people that are parking in the area to know what the impacts are and it goes to this yeah I

[124:00] think those are all good points and I also wanted to say neighborhoods and west of 9th Street anyone up there on any of those streets they are bumper-to-bumper through the week and people up there even though their neighborhood parking plans so it's a it's a big impact anyone anyone that could be moved off I'd be greatly in favor of even if temporarily even as an interim keep going okay we will continue to work on that though so as Kaitlyn had mentioned we had recommended back in November 2016 to deconstruct the hospital and so the focus tonight is on the pavilion building which is what is now highlighted in blue on the plan up there so you had asked earlier at this time the city is looking at preserving roughly 30% which is about two and a half acres of the site out of the eight point eight for city facilities it is what we've currently identified

[125:01] as part of the assessment is the need which leaves the rest of that site available to other uses so it also accomplishes consolidating facilities to this location of the site which is some things that we had heard through community engagement last year do you have a square footage for that for the city facilities you know you've said it two point yeah if you don't you don't it's roughly two and a half acres which includes sort of site development in there for the city facilities we looked at around 120 to 150 thousand square feet so just zooming in on to the hospital itself so one thing I want to point out as we look at the medical pavilion it is physically attached to the hospital and the yellow line here shows that actual connection of the pavilion to the hospital building so when we look at deconstructing the hospital essentially what you see here on this 3d the yellow here represents

[126:00] sort of the areas that essentially would not have walls and would have to be reconstructed so while this does kind of present a challenge as far as the timing of deconstructing the hospital moving forward it it really is an opportunity as we see it to create a vibrant plaza on that side to reinvasion of assad's that now have to be redeveloped in alignment with the alpine balsam vision plan so last year's city staff engaged a consultants to do trope to conduct the reuse analysis and our purpose was to evaluate the reuse potential of the medical office pavilion relative to the vision and the goals for the Alpine balsam site our approach was to develop a conceptual reuse design based on consolidating customer service oriented city functions and then to evaluate that concept for constructibility meeting regulatory requirements and then also meeting the vision for city facilities

[127:00] and the Alpine balsam site we then estimated the construction costs of that reuse and we compared that to a comparable new replacement building to see where we would land so our findings from this analysis as it relates to the context in the site we actually felt that reuse did contribute to the Alpine balsam site we thought we could create some really vibrant places for community gathering in these plazas left behind or open spaces we felt it respected the site's physical environment we actually thought we could preserve more mature vegetation through reuse than through redevelopment we thought that this would serve as a model of sustainability and we could provide some innovative design solutions in that renovation as it relates to the surroundings and the actual the site it actually the pavilion is right now developed in such a way it relates very well to existing grades which are a bit challenging as Alpine and Broadway come

[128:01] together and we didn't really think that a new building would be able to respond much better it provides good connections through the site so many of the gestures of bringing streets through and providing greenways were actually could be preserved as we reuse the pavilion and you could maintain a basement in existing utility connections as far as the building itself it's actually a really well constructed building it's concrete we likely would not get quite as well of a constructed building with a new building it is an office building and so it adapts well to those types of uses it has a core elements such as bathrooms and elevators that are in the right location its proportions are good for reuse and we think we could provide some really engaging spaces on the ground floor as far as the size of it we actually discovered that the floor the top floor it was structured to add an

[129:00] additional floor so if we wanted to that could be achieved within the 55 foot height limit and we could expand the building once the hospital was down if we wanted to to achieve desired program goals we didn't an energy analysis on the building and the real key takeaway here when we looked at embodied energy is that juice was the least energy intensive and preserved the most embodied energy even over just keeping the building as is we would look at replacing systems to meet our current energy codes and need to do that but again the key thing is reuse would preserve the most embodied energy so after developing essentially this conceptual building we went and got some construction costs for the reuse and then compared that to essentially the same replacement building of the same size and configuration and we found that reuse would likely cost us in this

[130:00] scenario about roughly eight million dollars less than in a replacement building and following up on just the deconstruction aspects of the hospital we did also estimate the cost of deconstructing the hospital and that has been estimated between six and seven million dollars this still doesn't include hazmat abatement which we're still quantifying and so we'll be addressing that through our regular CIP process this year so our conclusion really is that the pavilion is very well suited for reuse and should be renovated to consolidate city services so at this point we're suggesting moving from a reuse analysis which really looked at feasibility of the pavilion and moving to a renovation analysis and we would anticipate really involving the community and staff engagements in this to inform the program and the synergies and what should go in that building and in how that should be developed we would

[131:00] also want to do more analysis of what we're calling the city site so the relationships of buildings that would be preserved and create that little city cluster of buildings do some more regulatory analysis and then develop more detailed cost estimates based on that kind of actual renovation project and this would all be accompanied by a financing strategy which I will let Amanda talk to you now Thank You Michelle all right so we've been talking about my name's Amanda Beavis a project coordinator and Public Works we've been talking to you a lot tonight about our planning efforts and our intent to move forward on those planning projects to the extent that it applies as projects we a key factor that we'll be looking at is the understanding the budget financing and partnership opportunities involved in those planning efforts to get at some of the questions earlier

[132:00] tonight about phasing we're looking at this from a near term in a long term perspective as Michelle was alluding to earlier we will be evaluating the hospital deconstruction and the medical pavilion renovation costs during the 2019 operating and CIP budget development so you'll be hearing more about that this season and when we talk about long term that really means through the area planning process over the next year to year and a half we'll be looking at developing a strategy that addresses the implementation of the area plans that includes the Alpine balsam site the Civic areas bookend and the medical pavilion renovation we're looking at this as three potential funding options that includes on the screen and in your package the redevelopment of city-owned land the development of city facilities and any infrastructure investment or support of other community benefits in the remainder of those planning areas so

[133:02] keeping in mind the order of magnitude as Michelle just just talked about the medical pavilion renovate or reuse analysis suggested a cost of 42 million that will need to be revisited as we go into a renovation project but as we think about the proportionality of this financing strategy that's where we're starting from and a lot of questions to be answered through the area planning process and to figure this out knowing from some of the comments earlier tonight something that we've been considering as well is how to how to address this financing strategy knowing that we will want to consider the community perceptions and there values the cities continued stewardship towards public resources and our unique position as a property owner in these cases as well as a market feasibility of implementing these plans so as you all

[134:00] are aware the city has multiple funding priorities on the horizon as councilmember Weaver suggested earlier there's something to consider with ten pound ten pound meat and a five pound bucket part of that is to look at all the tools in our toolbox on the screen is just an example of some of the things that we'll be considering knowing that we're far too early in the process to take anything off or either add anything on to the table this just gives you an idea of some of the things to generate revenue towards implementing these plans as we move forward the area plan we look forward to working with you on with the community as this is a good opportunity to incorporate this into the area planning process speaking a little more towards phasing as you'll see on this screen and in your packet this follows the familiar graphic that's also a handout in front of you that follow the

[135:01] financing partnership strategy will follow the same methodology as the Alpine balsam and East bookend area planning process and then intent with the system move from research and analysis to development in the same manner that the area plans will do as you may have questions we will be happy to answer those but first Molly will wrap up with some next steps right thanks Amanda so to recap what some of the other presenters have stated previously and the city staff will move forward with the coordination of the central Broadway area planning for both Alpine area Alpine balsam area and the Civic area spoken sights continue planning for city facilities and services in these areas and develop an Associated financing and partnership strategy over the next year you'll be seeing an information packet in late January on existing condition in the east book in which will be the basis for launching area planning

[136:00] process and community engagement for that planning area the East book and planning will be synchronized with the Alpine balsam area planning phases and timeline and we will have check-ins with council to get the feedback from you at key phases along the way with a goal of plan adoption in 2019 so with that that concludes our part two we have it looks like about 25 minutes for council conversation the questions we are asking is do you have feedback on the medical pavilion reuse analysis and the renovation next steps and do you have feedback on the suggested approach to develop a financial partnership strategy in tandem with area planning processes okay let's do the first one first yes I'm curious since with the pavilion if there is reuse and rebuilding there and there is the this is going to be

[137:00] anathema I'm sure for some to hear but since there is the possibility of building another floor will you be looking at the costs of that feasibility costs of specifically building that that floor the actual cost that we presented included building that floor so we made that baseline assumption and could back off of that I think as we go through the process with the Alpine balsam area planning process and community engagement will further refine that but those costs actually included that additional floor an additional floor it might be a nice place for the penthouse housing hmm wait you're done no okay Erin pardon me if you said this earlier mister what's the status of the city's facilities studying well we've been we've conducted a city facilities assessment a first phase which is still in a draft but it informed essentially

[138:00] at a high level which departments might go in the Civic area as I'd mentioned and which we would recommend consolidating it al awesome working with the two area planning processes the Civic area and in Alpine balsam to a point Molly made earlier there may be some balancing as we look at what fits in one place and another and trade off and so it's really kind of a working document in order to help inform those two processes so you've got in the first phase a high level done but you still need some more detailed exploration as we start to learn more about each of those sites we'll get into more and the pavilion reuse or the renovation analysis will actually help us get into that at the with regard to the pavilion and the Alpine balsam site so we'll start looking more deeply at those services that would consolidate their what would fit and what makes sense in you know in keeping with the vision that we describe for that site okay well if I could offer feedback and I'm just on the medical

[139:00] pavilion I'm thrilled that the reuse situation comes out so favorably I mean I'm really glad to see us being able to reuse some of the hospital site so that's that's great and I really like some of the vision that you sketched for it I do want to be careful though about pre determining the outcome here because we're embarking on an area planning process and I we've already we've taken the Brendan building and say okay those are city facilities so that's one piece that's fine but well it's clear that this building is well suited to office functions I think we can peg City facilities as a good candidate but I think we really should do the aerial planning process before we say this absolutely is a city building because I mean potentially nonprofits could be they in there too if we work with the county that could be combined facility or maybe that's a different one somewhere else say OSI I would I would ask us to not predetermine too much so I think preserving a fantastic good do the renovation analysis but let's still keep

[140:01] the door open to exactly what uses might go in there justice that sound good to people yeah yeah well said if you want the public to participate don't predetermine it um I also yes to that and yeah you reuse I'm just gonna put a pull again for us being a model as we deconstruct to have a great recycling and reuse program for those materials I think the city we have great policies but they are not always implemented and it'd be great to show everybody just how good that could be yeah and before we do start deconstructing I would reach out to different partners in the community that do that and focus on that so maybe they can help guide how you go about doing that does your hand with the city

[141:07] offices being here is there I guess I just I've never really understood this site for city offices I'm sorry and it especially with how many employees live out of the city and how central this location is and is there something in moving city offices there that really benefits us or the community does it consolidate offices and make it more operations more efficient does it allow more you know community engagement I I just struggle a little with this site so one reason why we actually purchased the site was to consolidate and so right now we are actually have services spread out across about 14 different buildings it's hard for our community members to find different services and many times they'll go access something in one place

[142:00] and then they've got some other piece of business and they're trying to find their way to another location a couple things that consolidation accomplishes up here is we are also leasing space at a decent cost and so consolidating helps us get out of leased space it brings our services together and can create a better way just like it was described with the hub I think you know we have similar goals of serving the community and providing these great spaces we also can look at realizing some goals in the Civic area master plan of which was to deconstruct Park central in New Britain which are in a high hazard floodplain and so centralizing and consolidating in that location would help us achieve those kinds of goals and become more efficient we realize you know it might be ideal to centralize down here in the Civic area

[143:00] but there's also a lot of you know uses again to go back to the ten pounds and a five-pound bag we don't want to put everything here so that's where we did look at how do we how do we split but still be really efficient in how we centralize in two locations and how do we develop a concept around it that makes sense and make sense to the community about where they go to engage and to have discourse where do they go to to get city services I want to get a big picture on that on the outlay I know there's a potential to monetize some of the property as well but just on the on the expense side of things so we we bought the property for forty million dollars right rough just using round numbers and the renovation including adding a floor to the pavilion building is round numbers about forty million dollars right says the right eighty million and we spent should we spend on the Britain building renovation he's eight so we're kind of in the zip code of ninety million dollars for these city

[144:00] offices before we start monetizing stuff to the west is that right big picture roughly ninety million dollars in okay thanks so on the financing piece anything else on the pavilion piece and we already held forth on parking mean do we need to say anything else about the parking obviously that's a hot-button I guess I'll just underscoring the parking thing that even if things are temporary for six months doing this or it's still six months of relief so anyhow but it sounds like that's this discussions are happening on the financing I guess I'm glad that all the options on their table I do think that we were I'm not an expert on financing but people talk to us about creative ways that people in the community could also invest in things like public buildings or the housing piece or whatever and I guess I just think

[145:03] encourage us as we look at the options to also not be afraid to look at some of those creative options that some of the some of our colleagues are doing in other cities and again that's not my area of expertise but I hear a lot of interesting ideas as I'm out and about that seems like you know we should at least discuss and see if they would be appropriate for pieces of this because I think there's a lot of interest in the community in well-being I just keep saying being creative but being innovative maybe that's a better word about how we approach this so that we don't limit ourselves too much absolutely other thoughts on financing okay well thanks so much I mean thank you yeah this is gonna be a really fun part of the next two years so what just one more thought on the financing ice these

[146:02] important is we do the area plan that that that have at least a little bit of a test fit with financial resources right I mean that like I think we probably know that we can't develop the whole site on our own at a premium level just with city funding right so and so that just that those those constraints we don't know exactly what they are we don't know exactly with the financial mechanisms would knees that makes a little tough but just make sure that we don't ignore our financial constraints as we're going through the planning process absolutely thank you this is great yeah yep yay okay and then the part tubes this evening will be broadband but I'm gonna go get dessert what were we

[147:09] I don't know

[148:14] so we we do not have a quorum so we'll just wait for a little while you got the techie guys here we're all chomping at the bit emphasis on gaps right there's three of us on council three of us here entire male competitor the C council Mary's pretty techie too

[150:32] we have a real quantity all right sorry to keep everybody waiting take it away you ready for us we are ready for you okay broadband all right thank you for having us this evening to talk about broadband I'm Julia Richman I'm the chief innovation and analytics officer for the city of Boulder I'm also the interim CIO for the city

[151:02] I'm joined by Christmas check the assistant city manager we are recently on boarded to this project and so we're going to talk you through serve what we've done to date and really get a sense from you our goal of the meeting today is to really get a sense from you about the process that we're taking to explore broadband in our community less so the mechanics of broadband delivery and much more about are we on the right track with regard to the steps we've taken to date and our plans for the future so I'll move forward so we'll give you a little bit of a background about broadband in general recognizing we have some new council members and this may be a new topic to you we'll also talk about sort of the project vision and and guiding principles in general our scope to date the phasing and our approach to community engagement and then we'll round that out with some questions to you on the topic okay so just wanting to get everybody level set on the concept of broadband broadband can kind of broadly be

[152:00] understood as internet high-speed Internet there are four ways that you can deliver broadband services and what we want to talk about with you today is really focused on fiber services so data and light sent over glass fibers we have a spent we have made an investment in the city in wireless technologies and the over the past couple of years and so we have moved forward with that but the focus of the conversation today is really around fiber specifically we wanted to set the context for or what we're talking about when we're talking about high-speed Internet and you know everyone uses the internet regularly if you have access to it it's pretty much a human right at this point it is something you need to thrive to learn to gain knowledge and to access your community in many ways and we wanted to set the context for you about sort of what the internet looks like today because it's moving and changing really fast so thinking about 2016 last

[153:00] year or two years ago now welcome to 2018 we started to study parts of our community and so some statistics up here reflect both the boulder community specifically but also kind of global trends around the internet so we see in our studies to date that there are selective services to parts of our community so maybe you live in one of those and you have spotty or low speed internet inconsistent internet access we also know that about two to four percent of our population in Boulder have access to no internet at all so that's not you know spotty internet that's no access we also know that in many of the sort of mobile home or manufactured home communities that Internet is hard to come by and people are using you know little MiFi personal devices and things like that and if you've ever used one of those it's maddening so that may not constitute high-speed Internet in any way we also saw last year the rescind ins of net neutrality by the FCC in 2015

[154:02] that was advanced that's a relatively new concept but was also rescinded last year so the rules of the game have changed as recently as last year some things to think about just in terms of 2016 speeds in the internet we're about twenty seven point five megabits per second and the monthly kick per capita gigabit usage was about 13 gigs mobile devices constituted 50% of Internet traffic and we averaged about eight connected devices per person in total about 15 billion devices connected to the Internet about half of those were mobile devices and then you know a quarter of those were other and why this becomes as important is when we start to look at where we're going with regard to the Internet I'm going to start with the bottom half of this slide where it says by 2021 because that really sets up the context for the top half of the slide so we recognize and and the industry is

[155:01] showing that the Internet will double in speed in the next five years that the usage by an individual will almost triple and that mobile devices will actually remain fairly consistent in terms of their proportion of Internet traffic further we're gonna move from eight connected devices to 13 connected devices so again nearly double that and if you think about what that means it's your home you know your nest your doorbell the thing on your chicken coop that prevents it from you know burning down because you've now got a sensor on it in the winter if it gets too hot lots of different types of devices and tools are now connected to the Internet and we start to see how that plays out when we move from 15 billion devices to 30 billion devices globally it's an insanely fast growth in use of the Internet and the interesting thing is we start to move from seven billion mobile devices to eight over the course of five years but we almost more than almost

[156:01] quadruple the amount of other types of devices so what this means is that there's going to be an incredible demand for Internet services in a way that is rapidly accelerating and as a community being prepared for that is pretty important so you hear sometimes eight billion in the city of Boulder or yes where it says in 2016 and by 2021 this is global rates yes sorry thank you for asking that question follow up on the the first bullets in each of those categories available speeds we can say available speeds are you talk about average speeds and you know so in which geographies it's available so that's as fast as it can go and so that would be yes it is average available speed average is at us yes us okay and boulders roughly comparable yes so this all to just set the context of the Internet's

[157:01] really important and that it's changing much more quickly than some of the other commodities in our community this is changing more quickly than roads and water than other things that we provide kind of in a mass scale so with that I wanted to talk with you a little bit about kind of a project history to date and so the world is changing quickly and so is our project in 2014 the voters exempted Boulder from Senate bill 152 which basically limited our ability to explore telecommunications as a Utah utility excuse me and that again was a vote of the people it passed by more than 80 percent so is tremendously popular in our community in 2015 or 2016 we spent a lot of time investing in wireless expansion and we conducted a fiber feasibility study to understand sort of what broadband could look like in our community we then over the course of last year began to explore what partnership options could look like for that fiber and and thought about

[158:01] that because we had available options in some vendor partners who were interested in both meeting our goals and constraints and also we're looking at the opportunity to really build out in Boulder so that brings us to where we are today which is really in the process of refining our goals objectives and moving into the discussion with you all I'll turn over to you thanks Julia so as we talk about the project vision and we reflect on kind of where we've been and that on the landscape as Julia mentioned is is evolving and our landscape related partners potentially has evolved as well and I'll get into that a little bit more but the project vision as it was stated back in 2016 really is how do we provide a world-class community telecommunications infrastructure and really that connectivity and recognizing that connectivity is really as Julia set the stage for kind of essential going

[159:01] forward and so how do we now think about that that everyone to be able to have that opportunity and have that availability and that really it's becoming almost an essential service just like roads or water is and it's one of those foundational items that that we need in the community or thinking about kind of broadband almost as essentially an urban service for the community and so guiding principles were developed for the project back in 2016 with the assistance of the broadband working group and and council and as we noted in the May 2017 information packet memo that some refinements to these principles may be necessary based on latest changes in the marketplace and these principles are the ideas that these will be able to help us in guiding our evaluation of our options they aren't criteria but they're really principles to help frame the conversation so we've refined the principles a little bit to include now from four to six so the first is about

[160:02] citywide access so that's about really infrastructure and access for everyone in the community and the second is equitable and inclusive that really we should make sure that it's for everyone and that it isn't cherry-picking or providing maybe infrastructure in a community part of the community where subscriber rates may be higher than others the next is about future-oriented and the idea is really how do we make sure we meet the long-term needs of our community well also recognizing that right now there are things around 4G densification that are occurring future 5g wireless which is superfast wireless connectivity so how do we make sure we build an infrastructure that would be ready for that was future evolutions in the market the next one is about a competitive marketplace and this guiding principle is unchanged from what it was before but really how do we make sure that we facilitate a marketplace in the

[161:01] community that is competitive as nest as reasonably possible really for the benefit of of our residents and consumers in the community and then unfettered access is really about the principles of net neutrality how do we make sure that there data caps or there aren't kind of those potentials that we've read about in the newspaper about pay to play or throttling that sort of thing and then the last is about open access and that's how do we design infrastructure or a solution that could facilitate maybe even multiple partners utilizing that network why is open access in here and as a consideration retail isn't in there I'll say that again why are we why do you have open access as one model there's another model that long launch at a new Fort Collins are using which is a retail where the city becomes the complete ISP the Internet service

[162:02] provider gotcha so why isn't that in here reflected in there I'm actually going to specifically address that as a little bit here further in the presentation so there's some key areas for project exploration that were we've identified and that is really for the city to take steps to build out its fiber capacity and if we do that which model should we take should we look at a public-private partnership or should we look at a public build out and then along with that the other key issue is how should we fund that effort so the project scope reflects that same kind of two areas first is about the infrastructure for a broadband fiber network and then the second is related to the financing options and approaches to pay for that I do want to note that for the analysis of the project so far we've not assumed that the city at least at the outset would be the provider of kind of the retail internet or and be

[163:01] the internet service provider that we would that we would lease the fiber network to one or more providers and depending on the arrangement that we set up we may or may not be able to preclude that but I'm gonna specifically dive into this a little bit more and address your question that you're asking Lisa Lisa please let them present we're gonna have a robust discussion I'm sure I'm gonna specifically address the city being an isp so we've also heard some comments and questions about the relationship or interrelationship of broadband to municipal ization and so there are some synergies as well as some differences between the two but ultimately we do see them as two distinct efforts there's four areas that i wanted to dive into a little bit the first is related to the construction or building process during the construction process of broadband the vast majority

[164:00] of the way the infrastructure would be installed is underground through a boring process where you're boring conduit into the ground and then pulling fiber through it there could be a chance that there's some areas where we may need to do some work if we were to start an electric utility there's a part of that separation process where that work would occur in the same spot if that's the case we would obviously want to coordinate that work but other areas of the city we may just be doing that underground underground work the other benefit that could be there if we had our own electric utility would be related to the aerial portions in the city where the electric utility is above ground and other communications infrastructure is above ground there's a process of what's called pole attachments or making those poles available for our fiber if we owned those poles we'd only have to ask permission to ourselves to attach to those rather than another utility so there is a benefit there the other piece is related to overtime there would be

[165:03] under grounding of the electric utility if we were to have that the timing and I'll get to that at the end here is a factor related to broadband just quick technical question can you bundle electric and fiber together in the same trench are there any obstacles to that it depends on what kind of electric and what kind of fiber is my very basic knowledge but we can get more detailed information to answer that related to the financing based on what we know today financing for broadband and municipal ization would require separate revenue sources due to Tabor as well as some of the debt capacity and revenue requirements so we also recognize that funding a broadband network would potentially be a significant amount of money funding the start-up of our municipal electric utility is also a significant amount of money so there is that factor that's floating out there

[166:00] related to operating there are some similar customer service center needs between both an electric utility and a broadband service but actual system maintenance operations are really different businesses between the two and then last is timing so build-out of a broadband network could take the city about two to four years once we have that funding in place and depending on if we move forward to a ballot item this November we could actually be well under construction before we we know exactly what will happen with our municipal electric utility but all of that now said let's say we were to do both that doesn't mean that in the future once both have started up and are going that we couldn't connect those two from operational or service provision standpoint and we could have them have them function together so it doesn't close the door on that in the future so

[167:04] now diving into where are we headed over this next year so previously we've done the feasibility analysis what that feasibility analysis has told us is that full build-out of a broadband network is somewhere between a hundred and a hundred and forty million dollars throughout the entire community and there's some different approaches so at this point what we're working on now under phase one is refining that network design as well as what's called a backbone design kind of what's the the core part to make a whole system work and so we have consultants doing that as well as refining the cost estimates they're working on that right now and we're here at this January study session check-in where we headed next then is helping and analyzing the different options and approaches re-engaging if there's any potential partners out there and then we're aiming for a March or Spring City Council meeting so with that

[168:02] what really are the options that we're looking at and all the options are on the table at this point no options are off the table based on how the landscape has changed related to the partners that are out there we want to look at all the different options these are in no particular order the previous direction that we had heard from council was to focus on the partnership option but as I mentioned that landscapes change so it's time to step back so the first option is obviously do nothing let the market grow at whatever rate the market wants to grow at providing broadband services in the community the partnerships option is to look and see if there's a viable partner for the city to work with the next option is a fiber only option city build fiber only and that's one where we would build the fiber network and then we would lease it through negotiated agreements with one or more internet service providers so this is sometimes referred to as a wholesale model or a dark fiber model so if you read the

[169:01] previous reports you'll see those words in it the last option is a city build fiber plus an ISP so this is similar to that previous option I described except the city of Boulder would be one of the internet service providers to be able to provide Internet service in other words we would start an Internet service provider business now an important note to that is that we haven't done the detailed business case analysis for starting up that business so if council is interested in that option it'd be helpful to hear that tonight so that we can initiate that business case analysis so that we have that information available for the March and June upcoming meetings so as I mentioned we're targeting that March or Spring City Council meeting to check in on the options analysis see where we're at and then through June we would work on refining the options work on

[170:02] is there what's the preferred option and then bring that forward to council here for a June public hearing where we would make a decision on whether to proceed with a ballot item and select an option if we do that then we would work on preparing an item for the ballot through that August and September timeframe so that's where we're headed and we'll be looking for thoughts and feedback on if if this is the right approach and timeline you saw us a graphic very similar to this in the Alpine Boston presentation on just before us and all this does is it shows the nine steps to good engagement related to the phases of this project and I'll dive into that in a little bit more detail here the broadband project is a pilot for the city's engagement framework on that we discussed back in November and we've developed five principles for how we want to do engagement for broadband the first is

[171:02] related to raising awareness so tactics that we might use for this are things like informational sessions materials newsletters videos social media that sort of thing the second is to tap into the technical and financing expertise within the community so we have a wealth of expertise in the community and really smart folks and so we want to be able to tap into that and whether that's through some sort of a working group or panels we want to be able to leverage that experience third what input to help us make sure that we're that our analysis covers all the different aspects that we're not missing anything to really help make sure that that we're doing the best work that we can do so the third engagement principle is about reaching audiences that are feeling the impacts of the digital digital divide it's kind of the term so trying to understand what

[172:02] are the areas of our community that lack internet access we hear anecdotal stories about whether it's in mobile home parks or even school kids that struggle to get their homework done because of Internet access so being able to really reach the audiences through our community partners to have some one-on-one conversations and then collect some stories to be able to really make sure that that everyone understands that my internet service might be a little bit different than than your internet service that sort of thing the next principle is about effectively assessing public opinion and so this one's really important I think as we go forward if if we want to make a decision on whether to put something on the ballot for this year is to really understand where the community is at we hear a lot about a lot of support for broadband and it's not if we should do it it's really how we should do it should we partner should we not partner how much is this gonna cost what does it really mean for me as a person in the

[173:01] community so we'd like to do some statistically valid polling either by mail or by phone to be able to assess that to really help us have a good foundation to help guide what a decision would be as we move forward into June and then lastly is about modeling the city's engagement framework as I mentioned this is a pilot project so we really want to make sure that that we model on the framework that has now been adopted so with that here are the questions that we've posed for helping frame the discussion tonight the first is about revisions to the purpose vision and objectives the second is discounsel agree with the project scope and phasing in order to consider a 2018 ballot item and then lastly any feedback on the draft engagement and communications plan so with that we're happy to answer questions let's start with questions and then we'll dive into some of the meat Sam Lisa so I'd like to hear from Bob

[174:04] about the full bonding capacity of boat because one of the discussions we had during the you need you know financial impacts spoke to that a little bit so I'd love to hear from Bob on just thoughts of doing one or both or the order of doing them from a financing perspective thank you Sam it's a great question because right now we have many unknowns in both areas if we were talking about municipal ization and talking about broadband we talked I'm gonna get back up and give a little background because these large projects like this we always have their problem up front the first year before we have revenues that are flowing we had it with Boulder Junction we've talked about it when we talk about the hotel combination the hotel parking garage we've always got that gap that we

[175:02] have to cover in the municipal ization in the electric utility once we own that utility we have the right to issue revenue bonds and therefore we have a stream of revenue that can pay for that now if we have a cost before that we have to figure out how to pay for those same way with broadband but in the different there is a big difference broadband we will not be a monopoly in broadband we will be a monopoly we are in water and wastewater and storm drainage we will be in you in electric utility will have 100 percent of the customers we will not have that in broadband you have 35 40 percent is great Longmont 53% wonderful but you aren't going to have 100 percent so we have to cover those capital costs upfront and as we've talked before we have to have a revenue source for that and that's why the concern and and we

[176:01] have to know more about municipal ization costs we need to know more about Broadband's costs when they're gonna happen because let's just say that we've got the amount of money that we think we know we're gonna have to issue with this electric utility where we talked about that we're going to issue that debt we're gonna pay for it now we've got these costs before that we have to figure out how to pay for that now if we have a broadband that has to come in with 100 140 million dollars we put that with the electric utility and now the debt service we've got coverage problems for that capital that we're going to need to build later on and then later years the third the fourth the fifth of six year in capital so when Chris was saying five I would say five seven years from now yes they could merge and we'd have revenue sources to cover it we'll know what the costs are going to be but here at first we have to go very carefully kamilly words all right now it doesn't

[177:00] look like it with what we're seeing at this time but we need more analytical work done what was the verb you use can we merge yeah put together yep yes eventually so another question when we passed our muni vote in 2011 that was to fund the groundwork for deciding if a meanie made sense right it was doing the prep and we'll get to the end of it and say yes or no so was a funding source for the essentially the feasibility studies and really learning about it is that the kind of thinking that you're doing for what would be on the 2018 ballot there be a funding source for understanding the full costs because I don't have banned broadband yeah is that it or are you envisioning 2018 measured

[178:01] that would authorize the broadband itself what what's the thinking me I'm gonna let Chris go first for his thinking then I can fill in what we're thinking for broadband is actually it would be to go on the ballot would be the revenue source as well as the debt authorization to build a network so it would be going to move forward to build it and and create that broadband network so it would be a new revenue source to cover the debt service of whatever that cost would be right now it's somewhere between 100 and 140 million depending on which option we choose it could be less than that but that's the the work that we're working on now so in the case of the mute we have a full financial business model that's totally fleshed out and that was what we required before we would say something like yes go ahead and build it now there's other regulatory things in there from a financial perspective we had said we need to know the full cost and have

[179:01] the business model totally tweaked out before we go to voters for approval of the actual project so what's the difference in thinking here between this and the meaning I think some of the differences are obviously it depends on which option we we decide to go forward on if we go forward with that city build fibre only we're building infrastructure and then we'd be working with someone who would actually light that fiber and provide retail Internet service so we would be in the ownership of infrastructure there isn't a lot of additional business analysis necessary if we decide to provide can I stop you right there it seems to me like there is business analysis required because we'll the lease rates be attractive to the ISPs will it be enough to cover the full-on debt service requirements so how I mean

[180:01] it seems like either way there's a business model that has to get validated and it has to be validated pretty thoroughly if we're gonna be responsible about this and so a question I would have is do you think in your timeline you know we're picking options further down the line I don't know april/may kind of timeframe and we pick an option will you be able to have a full business model to us by September so that the the dark fiber model or that kind of this city build fiber only model on that business case analysis for that has already been completed what we haven't done is if the city were to enter in as the Internet service provider like Longmont has done and at what Fort Collins is exploring that's the more detailed work that we haven't done we have it at a very high level but not enough that we should rely on it for decision making we'd want to dive in and

[181:00] do more of that so that's the sort of yes we think we can at this point so another question you say the business model has been validated for the dark fiber model when we talk about the Muni there's a spreadsheet the financial forecasting tool that's online that any citizen can go open up and play with the assumptions and look at what that does to the business case do you have something like that available for the dark fiber model tell me you talk to that not you have all that Bob dive into it a little bit more to be the exact same as that as the tool that we have for municipal ization no it's not to that same extent it is tables and spreadsheets in a document that's been prepared and those models are ones that I've been working with is the consultants put them together there's been a lot of communication back and forth on the models we were looking at previously so those models are pretty robust it's

[182:01] now the next the ones we haven't completely finished or we want to look at saying adding the city as an ISP what is there gonna add an operating cost upfront the type of operating expenses and those things are what need to be added eventually yes you will have that say you'll have a model it's not it's not as huge as municipal ization because there aren't as many moving parts but there's enough so I'll just close with I think it would be valuable for citizens to look I mean I do it with the financial forecasting tool to be able to have some insight into what the sensitivities are so that if you couldn't get this lease right and it was like that and what's the impact to the debt service coverage you know I'd like to look at the models and say where did they break you know if startup costs are above X the muni doesn't make financial sense and it would be interesting to be

[183:00] able to do something similar with broadband because it's of similar interest level to the community and it's got similar risks okay we just have a follow-up question to that sure there's in terms of the there's the parallels between the two but is it fair to say that the the broadband case is a fair amount simpler in term of the variables and moving parts then the municipal electric utility yes I mean I would say that financially definite and I would believe that and I would say all the more reason to have such a tool up because it's not that much work so we're still doing questions we have a quite a queue Lisa Cindy Erin Mary so my question is how and what time frame could you complete the the full model where the city follows a model is the ISP provider and so can you answer that sure there's that additional

[184:01] business case analysis for us to look at entering into the market as a Internet service provider that work will require some consultants support depending on exactly how fast we initiate that work we could have that work ideally by that March conversation we may need to push that date out a little bit but we definitely be able to have it before we would make any kind of decision on the exact point to go forward in June and what's the rush here I mean why do we have to do something in 2018 why wouldn't we want to be a little more conservative be a little more confident in what we're doing have those same tools that Sam just talked about available for the public so in 2019 do you see downside to going in 2019 if if the direction was to slow down we could

[185:00] slow down okay yeah we're well where we were where we've been on the project is doing a lot of analysis and we do see that there's an urgency in how the market is evolving and especially as Julia showed with a lot of those statistics that's 2021 where those numbers were and so the big risk of waiting is just we continue to be further and further behind right so to Bob Sam asked about the binding capacity current capacity for the city and when we just finished with a discussion about the site the Alpine balsam site and in order to acquire that site we put forty forty eight million dollars in two certificates of public participation and basically that means that we put most of

[186:02] our assets into that is that correct or do I not follow that right we can start there's two different ways to do that if we did we did certificates of participation of by the hospital we did not use the buildings on that site because we didn't know I understand we're going to use it so if we have buildings that are left there they can become assets we can use later that's if we use certificates of participation we would still have to have break loose a hundred million dollars is roughly just roughly eight million dollars a year for 20 years in principle and interest so you have to have that source of revenue to make the payments each year if it's a hundred million dollars so if you can't break loose if you have a hundred million dollars you can't break loose eight million dollars out of your general fund then you have to have a new revenue source of eight billion or part of it to pay that annual debt

[187:01] service so the two would be separate either way we have to have a way to make to make the annual payments well for me and I'm wondering if I can get this and this is also linked with our last conversation it seems like you know we we have bonding capacity for the electric utility utility we have a lot of our assets right now tied up in certificates of participation and I guess I would like to get a better understanding of where we are financially even in this discussion that we just had as Bob helped illuminate you know we're still short forties forty eight million dollars something like that and so we have to come up with some other kind of revenue and so before we go really any farther it would be very very helpful to understand how much in

[188:03] debt are we really getting the city into with this direction at this point in time and I'll leave my comments to later Cindy I just had a question about the the last slide in terms of this statistically accurate survey what kinds of things you would be asking would you be including things such as the financial costs the different alternatives like the city being the ISP vs. partnership type thing yeah I think it would be things that would give us information about one the pulse of the community where they're at in terms of interest and then - I think it would be an opportunity to then test that if if we estimate that it would cost if the city were to build the whole thing X millions of dollars which would result in in either a sales tax increase or a property tax increase or whatever

[189:01] financing mechanism we could test those questions to see what level of support is out there for the community to tax themselves to support this so that would help us to bring forward for council to make a decision about whether to move forward or not so it would be some of some objective information to help in that decision-making process as well as the market research thank you the queue is Erin Mary Bob so talking about the wholesale model were word the dark fiber model where we're bringing in partner or we're having other people leased the fiber right to be ISPs who would we anticipate might be we'd be soliciting bids would be going out to people who what companies what might we expect to do that I think we would definitely be soliciting bids for that and it could be a wide range it could be maybe some of the partners that we spoke to before it theoretically could even be the current incumbents of Comcast or CenturyLink

[190:01] and so I think there's options or opportunities for others to use it there is also the potential in other communities some of like the cell phone providers have used it as part of the backhaul to their cell towers so that could be Verizon AT&T t-mobile those sorts of things so what exactly that would look like would have to be determined I think through a true bidding process so in other words there could be revenue opportunities that aren't directly linked to providing fiber and service to people's homes internet system correct potentially you know right now those those providers are investing in a network already in the community so whether they'd be interested and then utilizing this one is obviously a question but that has occurred in other communities in so that leads to my next question which is you know what are some other examples of cities that have followed that model and what kind of results are they seeing so we have some of that information I will totally admit I don't remember all of those cities of the different models but

[191:01] that's what we would bring back to you in March is examples of those cities different cities have had different levels of success both in the wholesale model as well as in the isp model of them providing some have been really successful out of it some of them are getting out of the business now because they didn't it didn't go so well so being able to understand what was it that worked really well what was it that didn't work well so that we can know what's the right decision for our community and if we thought about something that's a little different than what you've talked about which is like you were saying one of the principles was open access meaning hey we'll lease it to anybody who has a decent business plan is willing to meet our other criteria and then there's the city as the full retail provider right where people are actually paying us for their internet access is there some model where we contract with a third party to light that fiber and provide the customer service to clients to residents that's a little different from what

[192:00] you're talking about yeah we could potentially do within that kind of the fiber only model essentially we still own the fiber network but then we contract with a provider to provide that service that definitely is an option with that gene of other cities have taken that kind of approach there are some cities that have taken that approach as well on again we can include those as case study examples directly related yeah so my follow up on Aaron's question is do can we set the rate of that lease to outside providers or in Stata possible is that the revenue source that you're talking about let me answer but make sure I answer your question to make sure I understood it all yes if we were to say partner with somebody who we were gonna contract with to provide the internet service negotiating what those what those rates would be for the consumer could be a part of that process then what what essentially that provider

[193:03] pays for leasing utilizing our network that would pay for some of that debt service in the startup as Bob talked about there's such a massive capital investment at the front end the those lease rates wouldn't cover your debt payments at the beginning and then there's a certain break-even point where you break even and you start to make money and so that's about how you structure the financing so if you read the NPR article about Fort Collins you saw that they project that it's in year 14 that they start making money so we have some of that preliminary analysis but we would want to do more detailed analysis depending on which model we take to then understand what the right financing approach is so that you don't you don't under or also overcharge and that could be done by September yes Mary so I remember last year when we had we were talking about the other approach

[194:01] that we were taking the topic came up with respect to an alternative to fiber to premise and how that technology was evolving and that it might be a possibility and it sounds like we've forgotten that option and why sure I can flush that in and if julia has anything to add and two I would say we're not we haven't forgotten that option that's actually part of why we're doing this backbone analysis right now is there's the potential with what's called 5g wireless connection so you know on your cell phone right now you have 4G or LTE speeds 5g wireless is just emerging in the market now and it's it's you can get almost a gigabit speeds using 5g wireless so there's the potential that in the future we don't even need fiber drops to each premise you would get into

[195:00] a neighborhood area and there would be this 5g wireless node and then you would have essentially like a modem in your house that would connect wirelessly to that node and then you'd have internet access you wouldn't need a wire to your house and so in some areas that may be adequate for folks in other areas they may actually still need a fiber line or businesses would probably still want a fiber line to do their premise exactly you'd still have to have the fiber backbone from that node back to all the way where you connect to the broader Internet so you still need a fiber network of some size that technology is evolving is just coming out so depending on where it is that's why we added that principle about making sure that it's a future-oriented design so that we don't over build or design a network that wouldn't support that 5g wireless as it becomes mainstream does that make sense

[196:07] yeah it does and I guess the other option that might be available is mesh networking and can you speak to that a little bit that's where you have different I guess antennas that that provide service to small areas so could you address that as well that I will admit I'm less of an expert in mesh networking what I have what I do understand about it is that is a way to essentially provide Internet access speeds you can attain by that is the piece that I really don't understand and know enough about so I don't want to I don't want to guess but typically a lot of times that mesh networking is done through Wi-Fi which is you know like in this building we have Wi-Fi so that protocol for Wi-Fi is different than

[197:01] that 5g wireless it's a different type of wireless connection to attain the faster speeds so could that potentially be an interim solution until we see where we're going with municipal electric utility doing a mesh network yeah doing that kind of option I guess you'd still need fiber in some places so you need exactly okay I think to the the hard thing about this conversation is you have the confluence of the changing technology options and the ownership options and they're not necessarily mutually exclusive so you know when we're talking about the fiber only option that could be fiber core and backbone but could also be fiber to premises that we own or lease and so you know as we explore this all of those options can be laid on the table in terms of pricing in terms of partnership

[198:01] so it's really about finding the market mechanism to capture somebody who wants to own just that piece which is really valuable to the home versus the backbone and that or if we wanted to own that and maintain that over time so I have one question for Kristin Tori for