Item B: Next Steps on Facility Reserve

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Creating a Civic Center If all police functions currently in City Hall were to move to a consolidated Police Facility, relocating the remaining City Hall functions and planning for the future use of the City Hall site becomes a viable option. Numerous studies over the past decade have identified the problems associated with City Hall as well as the costs to address those problems. The lack of structural elements to resist the forces of an earthquake has been well documented. The building also has outdated mechanical and electrical systems that are many years past scheduled renewal dates. In addition, the lack of insulation in the walls, floors, and ceilings—together with single glazed windows and inefficient HVAC equipment—make the building an energy sieve. By comparison, the Eugene Public Library is about four times more energy-efficient per square foot than City Hall. Current estimates for addressing all deferred maintenance, capital renewal needs, and structural deficiencies are in the $40-50 million range. As noted above, even if all these problems were addressed, the building is still much too small to consolidate downtown City services. One option for vacating City Hall is for the City to leverage its interests in the Beam Development—and possibly the WG Development as well—to move remaining existing functions in City Hall to leased space in one or both of these developments. The remaining $6+ million in the Facility Reserve could be used to “buy down” the City’s cost of occupancy. This could allow the City to control the ongoing costs of occupancy while avoiding the tens of millions of dollars in capital costs that would be needed over the next 5-10 years to refurbish and update City Hall for continued use. In this option, staff would want to ensure that any buildings occupied by City functions would have architectural elements designed to create a civic presence appropriate to municipal government buildings. Relocating City Hall or other City functions to these developments would create a civic center focused th between the Beam Development at Broadway and Willamette and the Library at 10 and Charnelton. This would be an improvement over the current dispersion of City offices that stretches from the Library to City Hall. The Downtown Public Safety Station would also be included in this area to further reinforce the civic center. Options need to be assessed for the existing City Hall site including selling the property for development by others and retaining ownership of the property for future use while demolishing the building. This second option could include using the site to provide parking for the east side of downtown while other options are fleshed out. Keeping the property and leasing the building to others is another option, though it would require seismic and mechanical upgrades as well as significant ongoing investment to keep the building operational. Long-term options also need to be explored including the phased construction of a new City Hall complex, either at the existing City Hall site or elsewhere. In addition, the option should be retained to move some City offices to the EWEB administration building at some future date when EWEB is ready to consolidate all operations on its west Eugene site. This could be the first phase of a consolidated City Hall complex along the river. RELATED CITY POLICIES Addressing the deficiencies of the existing City Hall and providing safe, adequate space for the Police Department relates to the council values of effective, accountable municipal government, a safe community, and sustainable development. The council has maintained a continuing goal to adopt an implementation plan for resolving the issues related to City Hall and a police facility. The City Hall Complex Action Plan identified key issues that must be addressed as work toward the goal progresses.