Memorandum

City of Lawrence

City Manager’s Office

 

TO:

David L. Corliss, City Manager

 

FROM:

Diane Stoddard, Assistant City Manager

 

CC:

Cynthia Boecker, Assistant City Manager

 

Date:

 

February 4, 2009

RE:

Authorization for Carnegie Building Architectural Expenses

 

 

Please place the following item on the consent agenda for February 10, 2009:

 

Authorize payment in the amount of $30,040 for additional architectural services for Treanor Architects for the Carnegie Building Rehab project.

 

Background:

 

In 2005, the City of Lawrence entered into an agreement with the former Glenn-Livingood Penzler firm (now Treanor Architects) for architectural services on the rehabilitation of the Carnegie Library Building (the former Arts Center) located at 9th and Vermont.  The total amount of the agreement was for $69,900 for base architectural services.  To date, a total of $52,425 has been expended.  With the additional services of $30,040, it is anticipated that the total architectural services fee will be $99,940, once the City is invoiced for bidding and negotiation services and construction administration services as the project proceeds at some future point towards construction.  It should be noted that at this point, there is no authorization to proceed with construction. 

 

Request for Payment for Additional Services:

 

For a variety of reasons, the project did not proceed immediately from 2005 to the present.  Additionally, over this time, Destination Management, Inc. and the associated national heritage area effort was identified as a tenant in the building in addition to the City’s Parks and Recreation Department.  Due to the delays in proceeding with the project, need for additional design work associated with DMI’s projected occupancy, and the fact that the City’s building codes changed over this period of time and the design required updating due to the new building codes, Treanor Architects is requesting additional compensation from the amount originally authorized in 2005.  The letter submitted by Treanor Architects outlines the reasons for this request. 

 

After a careful review of the original agreement with Treanor and the request for payment submitted, City staff recommends payment of the invoice for the additional services and concurs with Treanor on the need for additional payment.  The need for cost estimate revisions, project delays, new building codes and need to work with another end user were all outside of Treanor’s control.  Additionally, it is important to note that the original fee was based upon 7.5% of the 2005 estimated construction budget and the new anticipated architectural services total of $99,940 is only slightly above 7.5% of the revised construction estimate of $1.3 million.  The City has resources in the Carnegie Rehab project account to pay this invoice. 

 

Carnegie Project Update:

 

As the City Commission has recently authorized, the Carnegie Library project is on the City’s list of potential stimulus projects once a program is authorized by Congress.  Now that the construction documents have been completed, this project is truly “shovel ready” for construction. 

 

Further, the project has been awarded a sizeable grant from the National Parks Service.  The National Parks Service was sent a revised schedule last year along with a request to extend the grant deadline. The City’s request was granted, but the approved schedule calls for construction to be completed by December 31, 2009 with a final project report due March 31, 2010.  All of the money has to be spent by December 31, 2009, or the City will lose the grant.

 

Other deadlines to keep in mind include dates for the site plan approvals to remain valid and an upcoming financing deadline.  The site plan for the project was approved on April 1, 2008.  The approval will be valid for 18 months, or October 1, 2009.  If a building permit is not issued by that time, the site plan will expire unless an extension is granted by the City Commission for six months.   Also, the current notes that are funding the balance in the Carnegie Rehab Fund (current balance of $482,426.76) mature October 1, 2009. 

 

Recommendation:

 

Authorize the City Manager to pay Treanor Architects $30,040 for additional architectural services for the Carnegie Building Rehab project.