Thread by @shayshinecastle

Moving into the study session now, which Brockett is leading. Lucky you, facilities master plan is up first!

Presentation: documents.bouldercolorado.gov/WebLink/DocVie…

Yates and Joseph have joined us, and Young is out.

omg NRV is a woman after my own heart. I am "geek-ily excited that we're talking about facilities," she says.

Get yourself a city manager who is excited about facilities master plans.

What is a facility master plan? A look at all the buildings Boulder owns and what condition they're in.

Prepare yourself for a lot of data, which Joanna Crean says is "scary" — it shows we're not taking care of our buildings, Crean says.

She's the director of the facilities and fleet dept.

Boulder owns:
75 buildings* (20 directly customer facing) = 1,870,326 sq ft

*Doesn't include 3 utilities plants (water treatment, etc.)

Average age of city buildings = 47 years (over half built in 1970s)
- 18 new buildings (less than 30 years old) 828,179 sq ft
- 41 middle-age (30-60 years old) 855,772 sq ft
- 10 old-age (61-95 yo) 150,363 sq ft
6 greater than 95 y.o.; 36,012 sq ft

Total value — which you'll see hereafter referred to as Current Replacement Value — is $577M.

CRV = what it would take to build or buy similar facilities

Or otherwise replicate them

So what kinda shape are our buildings in? So far, OK. But not for long.

Our portfolio is rated in Fair condition based on an international standard. It's a measure of how much deferred maintenance there is in comparison to the total value of buildings.

This is known as FCI.

Good - Less than 5%
Fair - 5-10%
Poor - 10-30%
Critical - 30%+

Boulder's FCI is 9.6%, but is projected to be in "critical" condition by 2033 bc of all our deferred maintenance - $55M backlog that is projected to grow to $175M by 2030 and $307M by 2050 with current maintenance spending levels

Currently, the city spends 0.5% of CRV toward facilities. Recommended is 2-4%, which would = $10.5M

Per staff: “The current funding strategy has resulted in uneven investment across the city’s facilities portfolio. As a result, many city facilities have accumulated sizeable unfunded liabilities and need substantial capital investment soon to merely continue to operate.”

Unfunded liabilities is fancy way to say deferred maintenance.

Deferred maintenance is a fancy way to say stuff that needs fixed and/or replaced but hasn't been yet

Michele Crane is talking about sustainability, which is a big focus for Boulder. Some shocking numbers: 75% of city's building emissions come from 25% of buildings

19 buildings = 6,600 MT CO2
57 buildings = 2,600 MT CO2

Sustainability is one of the 6 criteria this plan used to "grade" the city's buildings.

Financial, Sustainable, Resilient, Accessible, Functional, Experiential

Only 1 building got an A - the Brenton building, which was just redone for many millions to make it more sustainable. There was a Camera story when it was done a few years ago, but I can't find it....

Anyway, the rest of the grades:
A - 1 (Brenton)
B - 9
C - 26
D - 24
E - 19

Unsure why they went for E instead of F but in this case E = the worst, not Exceeds Expectations — unless it's like, this exceeded our expectations for how crappy it was.

Back to emissions, Boulder's buildings are actually emitting MORE than 3 years ago.

City goal: 80% reduction in carbon emissions from city fasciitis by 2030 (2,888 MT)
2008: 14,440 MT of CO2 from city facilities
2016: 8,700 MT (40% reduction)
2019: 9,200 MT (37% increase)

“Our buildings are inefficient and consume too much energy," staff wrote.

One way the city wants to address this is through Consolidation (so capitalized bc it's one of the plan's two goals).

Consolidation can reduce 7,600 MT (47%)

Deep retrofits can reduce an additional 5,980 MT (58%)
Greening grid can reduce 2,888 MT (80%)

Let's talk consolidation, shall we? Since it's a big goal.

The plan calls for 20 buildings (25% of portfolio) to be consolidated into two campuses
West: Alpine-Balsam
East: Municipal Service Center (by Valmont City Park)

Consolidation would reduce emissions, as discussed, but also maintenance needs and operating expenses, staff argues.

There are two timelines for getting there:
- By 2030 (quicker return on investment, lower operating costs overall, faster climate goals but really expensive upfront)
- 2050 (less upfront investment needed)

ohhh, Crane shares the Brenton building cost! $8M for that retrofit, which resulted in an 80% increase in efficiency

The other goal in this plan is to Maintain Well (which we obviously haven't done)

So, to recap: Two goals for city buildings
- Maintain them
- Consolidate

There are three ways to meet this goal
- Targeted Improvements
- Deep Retrofits
- New Buildings

Gonna share more about those, just bc I love the way this plan is organized. Seriously my favorite master plan so far.

(Side note: When did I become a person that has a favorite master plan?)

Targeted improvements
Equipment or systems replacements, limited remodels, small additions
Example: Main library
“Prior to the FMP, this has been the predominate approach in all city buildings, to fix what is broken now”

NoBo Rec center is being recommended for targeted improvements. Others will be prioritized based on council recommendation and incorporated into annual CIP.

Deep retrofit
Results in significant energy savings (usually over 50%) and renovates interior
Example: Brenton Building (made 80% more efficient)
Recommended: Municipal building, East Boulder community center

New buildings
Should be built for 100-yr lifespan, net zero, have accessible systems that can be adapted, reduced embodied emissions
Examples: NoBo library, Fire Station No. 3

“The city will need to build new buildings over the next decade and beyond, both for consolidation and more specific use buildings” such as fire stations

Of course, new buildings are *extremely* expensive. Fire Station No. 3, which is being relocated, was originally budgeted for $12.5M. Current budget = $23M.

Two other fire stations need replaced, and city is estimating $35M each.

Our first Wallach sign of the night! Two actually, in quick succession.

Swetlik: We've heard as a council from every dept about deferred maintenance and these huge backlogs.

But "why are we hearing about them now?"

Crean: "Strictly from facilities perspective ... it's been a fundamental shift in how we've thought about it. A lot of things have not been addressed for a long time."

Essentially that everyone was looking at their own little pieces of the pie instead of the whole pie.

Chris Meschuk adding that the Blue Ribbon Commission for financing in 2014 suggested that Boulder wasn't addressing capital maintenance.

After that, the city started addressing it (establishing a specific city budget fund for capital projects, etc.) This is another step toward that, Meschuk says: Looking holistically at buildings as part of capital infrastructure.

Weaver giving his thoughts as someone who has been on council since 2013(?) Soon after that, the city learned about buildings in the high hazard flood zone that had to "go away. .... And then Alpine Balsam came along."

That helped "shift perspectives," Weaver says. "We just happen to be having this convo at a time when focus on maintenance and building energy consumption has gotten better."

He supports the climate aspects of the plan, particularly the move to all-electric buildings.

We have to lead on this, Weaver says. We're gonna start requiring that of all large buildings in the city. If we don't do it ourselves and understand the challenges, we can hardly ask others to do it.

Swetlik supports the plan.

Swetlik: On open space, we switched the focus from acquisition to maintaining what we have. We should do that with facilities as well. It's clear we're struggling to maintain what we have.

Building new for the sake of consolidation makes sense, Swetlik says, but we should think v carefully about that. "Every asset we build ends up being a liability in the end."

Everything becomes a liability in the end, Adam. Everything.

Swetlik is our resident emo on city council, and I love it.

"It's a careful financial balancing act over the years," Brockett says, putting in a plug for the CCS tax renewal.

Nagle: "Taking care of what we have is one of the most important things. Ppl don't do it enough these days. That's why you can go buy $5 cheap plastic crap."

That feels so appropriate to drop in bc of Nagle's comments and also because IT'S ABOUT BUILDINGS. Well, the song title anyway.

Back to the plan! Forgot this little section titled, "Lessons from COVID"

City buildings need to "incorporate extreme flexibility" for hybrid work and "invest in space and technology that brings physical, online worlds together"

Another post-COVID goal for city buildings: They need to "combat digital exhaustion, isolation"

The city is gonna test this out with “curiosity labs” at Park Central and the Penfield Tate II Municipal Building, via hybrid meetings and shared workspaces.

Dang, now I'm sad I didn't drop in "Liability" by Lorde after Swetlik's comments... woulda been so good.

Gonna do it now anyway. I've never dropped songs into my Twitter threads before. A little treat for you, Boulder.

Crane going over the pros and cons of quicker consolidation vs. longer. Interested to see what council says, bc Idk where they're going to get $$ for this.

80% of building costs are ops + maintenance over its life. But buildings have long lives. It's like a 50-55 year return on investments.

With a longer approach, "we risk spending money twice," Crane says, because it costs $$ keep the older buildings operable and habitable (and then $$ to build new).

Yates kicking off council qs. He was very critical of early plans for consolidation/renovation at Alpine-Balsam, particularly bc it was so expensive. (Like $90M for one building)

I think his basic q is: Do you plan to reduce office space in lieu of COVID?

Yes, Crane says.

"We do our best work together, in person," Crane says. But we also learned that people do their best individual work at home, by themselves.

Yates: I assume this is going to be tens of millions of $$. Possibly even low hundreds of millions of $$. Where's that money going to come from? What are you thinking?

Crane brings up some mechanism I don't understand, but possibly related to some specific type of bonding. "The future anticipated savings is able to be quantified that you can fund the upfront project."

"That's one tool in the toolbox," Crane says.

Crane: "We haven't accounted for energy rebates." Those could be "significant."

We started down those paths, Crane says, but we needed to make sure council supported this approach first. "Our financial analysis is very conservative."

Basic answer = we'll look for creative financing BEFORE considering bonding (borrowing $$/debt, which voters have to OK)

Wallach: It's hard to know when we don't have "any clear idea of the magnitude of this project." Is it $50M or $800M? "It's hard to treat this as other than an aspirational approach."

Wallach Sigh-O-Meter: 3

Weaver: Do you think the east campus consolidation will cost $300M (as the chart on slide 46 shows)
Crane: "It is more than $100M when we look at the rough numbers."

"But again, when we look at our unfunded liability and what we WILL spend," it's also $300M, Crane says. "These are the magnitudes we're talking about, both with spend on our current portfolio as well as what it takes to build out a new campus and reduce that spend."

Weaver: Are those in today's $$ or in the $$ of those future dates?
Crane: We did everything in today's dollars. We tried to keep everything apples to apples.

Brockett: I'm concerned about the lack of transit options to the east campus. How are we going to manage/account for transportation emissions to the site?

Crane: We've been collaborating with other dept on that.

Example: Planning - East Boulder subcommunity plan calls for an extension of the HOP route
Parks & Rec also looking at transit as part of Valmont 2.0 buildout

Weaver: "I think consolidation makes a ton of sense." Brockett's q is important. "It could be shorter for ppl to travel to east Boulder than downtown." Think about that when you're locating services.

"$300M seems like a lot" for an east campus, Weaver says. "Like a lot, a lot. ... an incredible amount."

"I could believe $100M." The number seems "out of scale."

Wallach: "Consolidation makes sense... if we can do it. Those numbers are huge and almost unimaginable in terms of our resources."

To staff, he says: "Go to work."

Joseph mentioning one of the other factors for buildings: Equity and access (how easy are they to get to and for whom). Put a lot of emphasis on that, she says, for the community "and even for our staff."

Swetlik all for "alternative financing" to achieve consolidation. "There are seemingly insurmountable dollar amount needs."

Floats a head tax.

"For future councils, please keep options on the table," Swetlik says.

We'll bring back more details once we have them, Crane says, wrapping this one.

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