It has been a week and I have a few more thoughts to share
on City Hall. I must start with the caveat that I am neither an architect nor
an engineer. But I am someone who has
been chosen (at least for now) by the people of Paducah to look out for both
the city’s finances and its character. And I’m starting to think that tearing
down the old City Hall building and starting fresh is not necessarily the way
to go.
If we instead chose to renovate the old building, we would
have the unique opportunity to make some changes that would put parts of it to
better use. Take for example the way we could use the spaces in the building
that are underutilized now. What about moving the staff of Parks and Recreation
to the basement offices and closing the old Parks and Rec building? Yes, the Senior Citizen Program would have to
find a new home, maybe (as a first thought) the Convention Center. The old
building is terrifically inefficient, energy-wise. Could it be sold and have those savings
redeployed in the City Hall? Could E911 and IT Department be moved into City
Hall and those buildings disposed of? That could also create some savings.
That’s just one thought, but there really are lots of
changes we could make to the City Hall we have now that would allow it to be
just as useful as new building.
Another thought of mine is the aesthetics of the building.
I’ve talked to people who love how it looks and people who hate how it looks,
and we’ll never get a consensus there. But know this—there will never be
another built like it. It was intended to make a statement about Paducah, and
it has been part of the fabric of Paducah’s history since 1964. Shiny new
things sound exciting, but that’s because nobody wants to think about the fact
that when you bulldoze a piece of history you can never get it back.
I’m especially concerned now because of the RFQ (“Request
For Qualifications,” which is where we advertise for hiring an architect) that
the City has had out, and the accompanying timeline. This timeline calls for us
to have an architect chosen in only slightly more than six weeks, and the
design for the new building completed in January of next year. Are we that sure
that we want a new City Hall in the first place? Where’s a comparison of the
costs of building vs. renovating? We still do not know. Don’t we need a
better—smarter—idea of what we need to do before we rush off and choose who we
want to do it?
I know I am an impatient person who is going to slow down on
this because this is an opportunity to really get it right for all of us. So,
I’m still thinking about all this and you should too. Let me know what you
think.
Putting any post-disaster facility such as the 911 call center in City Hall is a really bad idea. I was always thankful that the police department got out of the basement.
ReplyDeleteThe cost estimates you have in hand is for a design that renders the building collapse-resistant. When you include facilities that are necessary after a major earthquake you raise the bar on the design requirements. Not only does it need to be safe from collapse, it now needs to be serviceable. The structural challenges go up, making it harder to bring it up to code and if you do succeed, costs will put it out of budget for certain.
Mark A. Caldwell, PE, SE
Save our current City Hall.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to acknowledge the accuracy of Mark's comments about a collapse-resistant building with regard to traditional seismic upgrades.
ReplyDeleteI'd also like to note that Dr. Mason's approach using the base isolation method DOES make the building serviceable after an earthquake. In his initial report, Dr. Mason shows that the City Hall building is an ideal candidate for a base isolation retrofit, and he offers initial numbers based on figures provided by a respected and knowledgeable contractor. Additional engineering needed to design the system here will increase the seismic costs some. But a price tag of $2.2 million makes this seismic approach only moderately more expensive than the traditional seismic retrofit priced at $1.8 million a year ago by BFW. When you look at the cost of the base isolation approach along with the lower cost of the method Mason suggests for strengthening the canopy rather than replacing it (approximately $1.1 million versus $2.3 million for the tear-off-and-reconstruct suggested by BFW), the cost for these two structural pieces is actually less. AND we get the benefit of a building that is "serviceable" after an earthquake AND a building that is much less disrupted by the work. To find out more details, you can check out Growth, Inc's Facebook page. We have posted Dr. Mason's report and video of his presentation. There is also a link to an amazing video that really shows how base isolation works compared to traditional seismic strengthening.
Fowler Black on behalf of Growth, Inc.