Feb 5, 2008

New price of renovations: $80 million

Cost per square foot still average, city says

By Kristina Peterson / Daily News Staff Writer

Plans to renovate and improve three of Palo Alto's library sites will likely cost $30 million more than originally estimated, according to new price estimates unveiled Monday night.

The cost of renovating the Main and Mitchell Park libraries and adding significant improvements to the Downtown branch will likely come to $80 million - not the $50 million listed in last year's preliminary estimates, city staff said at Monday night's city council meeting.

But when compared to other recently built city libraries, the cost per square foot of the Palo Alto project is still middle of the pack, said Assistant Public Works Director Mike Sartor.

At an estimated cost of $455 per square foot for the construction of a joint library and community center at Mitchell Park, the Palo Alto project lies between the $413 per square foot spent on San Jose's Santa Teresa branch library and the $561 per square foot spent on San Mateo's new city library.

"We're right in the middle," Sartor said.

Figured into the new cost projections are estimates for the project's design work, contingency sums to cover changes during the process, escalation costs and budgets for technology as well as temporary facilities to keep primary operations ongoing during the construction, Sartor said.

He also listed separately the optional $1.2 million cost of upgrading the library from its targeted "LEED silver" certification to a "LEED gold" certification, a higher level of the environmental ratings set by the U.S. Green Building Council.

Vice Mayor Peter Drekmeier said that such an initial outlay of funds would bring energy and cost savings after a "payback time."

Assistant City Manager Emily Harrison outlined a series of options for the council that included continuing the full set of projects, moving forward with improvements at only some of the sites or scaling the project back to just renovating the Mitchell Park library.

Citing lessons learned from the failed Measure D campaign, Harrison said staff wanted to give the council options to reduce the number of projects if desired, but warned against downsizing the individual library plans, which would send a "very involved design process" backward.

Council Member Jack Morton bristled at the idea of building just a library on the Mitchell Park site, rather than the joint-use facility with a community center the previous council had agreed upon last year.

"We previously decided it made no sense to do just the library," he said. "So much work has gone into fabulous designs."

Several other council members praised the latest conceptual designs unveiled Monday by Group 4 Architecture for renovations and improvements to the three library sites, but questioned details of the financing and timing of a bond effort.

When Mayor Larry Klein asked about the progress of the public outreach effort, staff said more time was needed to reach the community, listing November 2008 as the earliest possible time for a ballot measure.

"The production and dissemination of materials has not occurred as quickly as we would have liked," said Kelly Morariu, assistant to the city manager. But she said the city has begun to conduct public meetings for neighborhood groups and is finalizing the scripts for informational videos which will be filmed in the next few weeks.

At press time, the council had not yet given staff direction on how to proceed with the projects.



E-mail Kristina Peterson at kpeterson@dailynewsgroup.com.