City Hall cost estimates 'frightening'

Whitefish is moving forward with design plans for a new City Hall, even after several city councilors expressed concerns over climbing cost estimates that put the building combined with a parking structure at up to $14.6 million.

“That number frightens me,” councilor Andy Feury said.

Mosaic Architecture provided several cost estimates for the City Hall and parking structure depending on the size of building that is constructed. The largest of the options would put city hall at about 30,000 square feet.

A two-story city hall with a half floor basement and the parking structure is estimated at about $12 million. The parking structure makes up about half the total cost.

City hall with a full basement would add another $500,000 to the project. Adding a third floor to city hall is expected to add $950,000.

Including retail space at the corner of East First Street and Baker Avenue as part of the parking structure would tack on another $687,000.

If all of the options are selected — a full basement, third floor and retail space — the combined cost is estimated at $14.6 million.

Council said it wants to construct a full basement as part of the building. However, most councilors said they needed more information before making a final decision on including a third floor, which would likely house a staff break room and a community room. Council seemed to favor including a retail space as part of the parking garage.

In addition, council said it wanted more vetting of preliminary designs for the interior layout. The city hall committee is expected to continue that process.

Feury said constructing a third floor has some merit, noting that while he is undecided on adding it, he could be convinced otherwise.

Councilor Frank Sweeney said he wants to construct the full basement, but wants more analysis on the costs for the third floor. He said he wants to know the cost difference between constructing the third floor now or adding it at a later date, and also costs for engineering the building so the floor could be added later.

“The cost of this building does scare me to death,” Sweeney said.

Councilor Jen Frandsen spoke in favor of including the retail space at the corner of First and Baker.

“It’s a revenue generating space,” she said. “It’s a way to tie in our Railway District to downtown.”

Frandsen noted that she, too, has concerns with the total cost.

“The cost is way higher than I am comfortable with,” she said. “I am looking at it in today’s dollars and I know not too far in the future that’s not going to seem like a whole lot. I know we are doing the prudent thing by maximizing that lot to its full capacity.”

The city has already earmarked $11 million for city hall construction. Council has also asked for the creation of a construction special improvement district, likely for $750,000, that could add funds.

City Manager Chuck Stearns said a decision on whether or not to include the third floor, besides cost, comes down to if council wants to include a community space in the building.

“The third floor is really geared to be the community room,” he said. “It could also be expansion space later if we needed it.”

Stearns said the additional cost of the third floor is for a good purpose, but the overall cost estimate is higher than what the city has been planning to spend.

Several city staff members and the public urged council to choose the larger sized city hall with a full basement and third floor.

Vanice Woodbeck, assistant city clerk, made a pitch for the full basement and a third floor. She said preliminary designs showing items like a balcony and green roof are unnecessary and could be eliminated to save money.

“We will need the space in the future,” she said. “To go back and try to build a third story after the fact will cost a lot more money.”

John Kramer asked council to consider constructing the full basement and the third floor.

“We only have one chance to do this right,” he said. “This building has to last 100 years or more. We want to maximize the site. It’s better to build for the future.”

Reservations were expressed from members of the public and the city hall committee members about moving on in the design process when a conceptual design hadn’t been decided upon.

However, Mosaic architect Ben Tintinger said a blending of the top two conceptual design choices is possible as the process moves into schematic design.

“We have a pretty good feel for it based upon the input we’ve had over the last few months,” he said.

One shows a layout that has the main lobby space cutting directly through the center of the building. Departments are set along the east and west of that center lobby running through the middle.

The second option, showed a main lobby on the first running the length of the west side of the building. In that design, departments on the first floor were all in one central area of the building, with an open floor plan in the center, and individual offices along the outside walls.

Council decided it could move into the second phase of design work as long as the city hall committee continues to hammer out the design details for the schematic design.

“If we can move forward with phase two without approving a specific scheme I’m comfortable,” Feury said.