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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes 2022-09-07 MINUTES COTTAGE GROVE CITY COUNCIL September 7, 2022 COUNCIL CHAMBER 12800 RAVINE PARKWAY SOUTH SPECIAL MEETING - 6:00 P.M. TRAINING ROOM - Open to the Public 1. CALL TO ORDER Mayor Bailey called the Special Meeting to order at 6:00 p.m., noted it was regarding review of the Glacial Valley Park building design. Administrator Levitt stated the application on tonight’s Council Meeting Consent Agenda is a planning and zoning application, addressing setbacks, building materials, parking, etc. It’s nothing related to the actual design that we’re talking about now. You’ll approve the formal bid set, so the full plan set with specifications, in October or November, including all the feedback we get today. The designers have a lot of work to do, based upon directions Council provides tonight regarding a final design set. 2. WORKSHOP A. Glacial Valley Park Building Design Review Staff Recommendation: Receive information and give feedback on Glacial Valley Park building design. Parks and Recreation Director Zac Dockter stated he’s excited to be back to talk about some of the concepts. They met with Kraus-Anderson, who’s partnering with us on the construction and money side of this project, and Wold, our architectural team. The current bidding environment is weird with supply-chain issues, etc., but we’re giving the best estimates and feel pretty good about them. However, until things are bid, we just don’t know; he wanted to be upfront and honest about that. John McNamara, of Wold Architects stated they’re here tonight to finalize some of the things we’d previously discussed at our last meeting in June, some stated building features that we needed feedback on to finish up the design work and stay on track. There was some feedback given then regarding looking at some different materials and potential changes; we have those for you tonight. Some of them have budget implications, so we want to make sure we talk about those. There are also some new questions we’d like to pose to Council on which we’d like feedback. Mr. McNamara stated he’d first speak about some things related to sustainability. Beyond some of the things that we’re going to look for specific feedback on tonight, CITY OF COTTAGE GROVE  12800 Ravine Parkway  Cottage Grove, Minnesota 55016 www.cottagegrovemn.gov  651-458-2800  Fax 651-458-2897  Equal Opportunity Employer City Council Special Meeting Minutes September 7, 2022 Page 2 there are several things that are already incorporated into the design and the budget, that are traditionally applied to buildings like this. He displayed a list that’s intended to just highlight some of those; we’re not looking for any sustainability certification for it but wanted to share the list with them. There’s a whole page of things that are site related; if they want specifics on any of those, he’d be happy to discuss them. Everything on this list are things that we’re incorporating into the project as a baseline. Solar Energy: Mr. McNamara stated this was a big topic brought up at the last meeting. It was asked what that would look like, where it could be, and he displayed a diagram that they’ve been working on with IPS Solar, one of the largest solar providers and installers in Minnesota, who collaborates with them on projects like this. With the new energy bill, there’s a change in how cities and governments can access rebates and the ability to get some funds related to purchasing solar vs. going through a power purchase agreement, which the City previously did. There are different ways to procure solar: You can still do a power purchase agreement; you could purchase solar and look for Federal rebates to reduce the cost, which could be 30% of the cost of solar. Some of that hasn’t been vetted out and would take some discussion with the Finance team, but that’s an option that previously didn’t exist for the city. Upfront cost: About $125,000 to purchase the solar and put it on the building for the size of the array that we’re planning. If there were no rebates or no incentives to do this, payback on it would be in 12-to-15 years. Certainly, that payback would be less as you get rebates, depending upon how you want to purchase it. The decision related to solar is one that’s important because we need to make sure that we’re coordinating with electric, coordinating with materials, etc. to be able to maximize the array on the roof. We’ll need feedback from the Council on that tonight. Geothermal System: We’d also discussed the potential of doing a geothermal system on site. We looked at what it would take with the available space and how many wells would be needed to provide heating and cooling for this building. We coordinated with the civil engineering group doing the park right now as to where we could put a well field, which is next to the ice rink. It would be completely underground, so wouldn’t be visible at all; the only entry point would be into the building’s mechanical space. It would take about 30 wells to do this, at a cost of about $110,000. The payback for geothermal is an interesting one; the payback for geothermal alone is quite high, maybe 35 years, but when you combine it with the solar option on the building, with some of the rebates, etc., it brings that overall payback for that system down to 20-25 years. That’s because you’re using solar to offset some of the electric costs and some overhead of purchasing the geothermal system. Regarding sustainability, solar and geothermal combined together drive the building towards what we call a net-zero building; that means that there are no utility costs for the building because electricity is being provided by the solar array, and heating and cooling is being provided by the geothermal system. Your only net utility cost would be providing water and sanitation, whatever those connection charges are for the building. From an energy side of things, you would end up with a net-zero facility as part of a combined solar and geothermal solution. Again, there are some upfront costs in order to be able to get to that. City Council Special Meeting Minutes September 7, 2022 Page 3 Council Member Olsen asked with the solar, what impact, if any, would that decision have on the orientation of the building. Mr. McNamara replied none, as it’s designed around the current orientation. Exterior Wall Insulation: Another sustainability strategy on the table right now is changing the exterior wall insulation; it has little to no impact on the building itself, but it reduces our construction costs by $30,000. It changes the thickness of the wall in a few areas because we’re proposing to use Mineral Wool insulation in the building; that’s derived from concrete waste materials so it’s completely sustainable, provides better insulation in the building, and doesn’t have any negative impact on the building at all. It’s not an extruded polystyrene product like wall insulation, but it’s a completely natural product. The only thing that it does is add an inch or so in the building in a couple of locations; we think it’s easy, without impacting spaces in the building, so we feel it’s a good strategy to implement here. Council Member Khambata stated that insulation had different volume but asked if its R-value was the same; Mr. McNamara replied yes. Council Member Khambata stated it didn’t impact the utility cost, which was confirmed. Council Member Khambata stated the physical size of it required alterations in some of the wall structures. Mr. McNamara explained it requires them to add a couple inches of space in between the metal studs and the exterior material to accommodate the extra thickness of the material to achieve the same R-value. Bird Glass: Could be added to the building, it’s something worth considering, but it has an added cost. If interested in pursuing that, Kraus-Anderson gave an additional cost quote of $25-$30 per square-foot. With the amount of glass on the building, it would add about $45,000 to the project. Council Member Thiede asked how many square feet of glass we have; Mr. McNamara stated he’d have to do the math on that. Council Member Thiede stated the north side seemed to have the biggest expanse of glass, but that was more pane, it wasn’t a huge clear glass. Mr. McNamara stated there are two areas on the design that have large, expansive glass; one is in the education classroom, and one is in the multipurpose space. The north side and the south side have similar amounts of glass. Administrator Levitt stated the reason we looked at the bird glass is because the County was encountering challenges with bird strikes at their building, with their expansive glass. At the HERO Center for the first year, because of our bonding dollars, we had to count all the dead birds related to the glass on that facility. It adds up quickly, so it’s important to look at that cost, as we’ve had examples of where that became more significant. You probably heard about it with the Vikings stadium, too, as it was substantial there. Council Member Khambata asked if this glass uses some sort of UV coating to prevent that, which Mr. McNamara confirmed. Council Member Khambata asked if the coating is done after the fact; Mr. McNamara stated yes, this would be part of the product’s upfront cost. Sustainable Exterior Material: Thermally modified wood was also discussed at our last meeting, which we had used on both wings of the building. A question was asked about that cost and if we could consider other materials; we’ve included a couple of other design options for consideration tonight: Regular cement board siding, a metal panel City Council Special Meeting Minutes September 7, 2022 Page 4 system that would provide a similar texture, but would be metal, or the thermally modified wood. He displayed exterior images with the thermally modified wood; if we don’t treat it with anything, the idea is that it ages naturally over time. One thing we didn’t want to necessarily introduce was added maintenance; we’re assuming at least for discussion purposes that the thermally modified wood would age over time so it will start to turn into a warm gray color. It will be a little bit variated depending on its exposure. As you look at that material, it will change and warm up; it won’t stay that natural wood color unless you add a sealing product to it, which would be a maintenance cost for the building over time. You must decide if you want to let the thermally modified wood age naturally or not and if you like that appearance. The Hardie board cement siding you’d maybe see on a house; they make color versions of it that do not require future painting, so that’s what we’d be proposing. This would achieve a similar texture to the building as previously discussed. We’re proposing a warm gray color to align with the base that we have on the building right now; it certainly changes the look of the building, and it wouldn’t be something that would change or fade over time. Council Member Olsen asked if the color he displayed is what he considered warm gray; Mr. McNamara stated what’s displayed is probably a little cooler than what it would be, as it’s supposed to be more of a natural warm color that would complement the stone on the building. He stated the warm gray would be significantly darker. There are other colors to choose from, so we chose a color to go with the base. Mr. McNamara stated this is a cheaper product, and so a change to the Hardie board siding would reduce costs by about $18,000. Mr. McNamara stated he didn’t have a rendering of the metal panel but stated it would look similar; it would have an added cost of about $68,000. He thought they could obtain a different material without going to a more expensive metal panel. Council Member Olsen asked from a useful life perspective, thermally modified wood vs. the second option, which one would wear longer. Mr. McNamara replied they’re both probably the same; thermally modified wood is engineered to stand up to wear and tear, and the only aging of it is the change in color. Otherwise, it would last if the Hardie board siding. Council Member Olsen stated in terms of useful life, they’re apples to apples, which Mr. McNamara confirmed. Mayor Bailey stated with the change in color, different parts of the building might fade at a different rate depending upon where the sun hit it. Mr. McNamara agreed, that’s correct. Mayor Bailey stated he thought that would almost look like it’s unfinished. Significant discussion followed:  Council Member Olsen stated he’s not liking the wood and liked the second option better.  Mayor Bailey stated he didn’t like the wood either; his reason was not even because of the cost savings.  Council Member Khambata stated to be fair, the Hardie board is going to fade to some extent as well if it’s exposed to UV all the time.  Mr. McNamara stated the Hardie board has warranties with it for fade resistance and longevity, and that’s the product we’d be looking at; while things fade over time, City Council Special Meeting Minutes September 7, 2022 Page 5 we’d be looking at a product that has a guarantee with it for fading and stability of the color.  Council Member Dennis stated he has that on his house, and it comes with a 50- year warranty; the paint, which is applied at the factory, has a 20-year warranty. At his house, he can already see where the paint has challenges and is starting to pop up; so, that would require periodic maintenance of having to repaint it.  Council Member Thiede stated so the Hardie Board is painted; Mr. McNamara confirmed that its factory painted.  Mr. McNamara stated they’d want to provide the highest degree of stability; in his opinion, painting the Hardie board in the field is not going to be as good a solution as a factory finish on the product. They looked at other options related to treating of the corners and looking at different ways to do that; if we went with the Hardie board solution, we might want to entertain adding a little bit more of that stone look at the corners of these larger pieces.  If Council direction is not to put the thermally modified wood on the building, he wouldn’t suggest having it on the outside in different locations. We’d intended to use it on the underside of the soffits where it doesn’t get the exposure so it would stay the color we’d discussed, which ties into the wood that we have inside the building, in the lobby.  Council Member Olsen stated it was said that the wood product would fade over time unless we choose to do some ongoing maintenance; he asked what that ongoing maintenance would look like. Mr. McNamara replied depending upon the sealer, you’ll probably have to reseal it probably every five years or so just to keep it looking natural. Council Member Olsen asked if we did that kind of maintenance, if it would maintain that original wood look; Mr. McNamara confirmed that. Interior: Mr. McNamara stated when we last met, Council felt the interior wasn’t as appealing as what you’d like it to be, that it was a little bit too much of a solid mass in that area. There were concerns about a couple of different things, as well as conversation about opportunities to add some texture in this space, like some of the images that we’d previously shown. We looked at utilizing wood in that same space but added some texture and openness to it; so, these would be wood panels that would be laid up in a variety of different ways, either vertically, or where we have light fixtures and ventilation, more of a horizontal plane to try to give some more texture in that space. We’re also suggesting changing out the floor from polished concrete to a porcelain tile; the thought on the porcelain tile is to add a pattern to it that would give it kind of the variegated look that we’d have in some of the striations that you’d see in glacier formations and images shown previously. The floor itself would have a texture to it that would give us some of that design feature that we were looking for in here. Just for discussion purposes, we added some wood on the far wall at the far end of this area, to enable thinking about something that we could put on the wall that would give us an opportunity to add some art in this area. We don’t have any preconceived ideas as to what that art would be; we would need some additional feedback from this group, but we want to at least start the conversation with providing a backdrop for something. We City Council Special Meeting Minutes September 7, 2022 Page 6 could also leave it as a blank canvas so local artists could come in and add something to that wall. We would just want to support that effort by providing lighting or being part of the dialogue with that individual to be able to make sure that the art highlighted in this area is properly lit. This would be just taking that wood and running it down the wall to complement the wood benches that would be provided in that space for seating and staging during the wintertime. These panels would be applied in that area to give it a little bit more of an open feel; you’d be able to see the structure through it, which we were planning on painting black. That would provide some acoustics and allow for easy access to anything that might be up above that ceiling. Council Member Thiede stated he was just going to ask about noise abatement considerations. Mr. McNamara stated this would be very acoustically appropriate in that space, it would really cut down on noise because the sound would be transferred up through it and bounce around and then come back down in this space. Council Member Olsen stated he mentioned porcelain tile, but wondered what the impetus was for that option, why we’d choose to do that vs. the polished concrete. Mr. McNamara replied there had been some challenges in some other buildings with the polished concrete cracking and moving over time. Rather than dealing with repair and maintenance on that, it was thought this would be an opportunity to do something different in that area. Council Member Olsen stated in terms of the wearability of that material, on occasion you can get some cracking in those porcelain tiles, and they can also get slick. As this is a year-round building in a park, he’d be concerned about people slipping. He asked if that was a valid concern. Mr. McNamara stated we can specify a porcelain tile product that would have some amount of slip resistance to it, like what you have in the lobby spaces here. We’d propose a porcelain tile product, which is much harder and denser than ceramic tile, that has less chance for cracking. The nice thing about porcelain tile is that there’s also a through color in it, so if there is a chip on an edge, it’s not as noticeable as it would be on ceramic tile. Council Member Olsen asked what about a Luxury Vinyl Tile (LVT) or a Luxury Vinyl Plank (LVP). Mr. McNamara stated they’ve struggled to be frank with the city over the last number of years with LVT; they do not perform as well in public buildings as what we’d initially hoped. We’ve gotten feedback from several our clients that the maintenance and durability of it is something that they end up having to replace with a more durable product, especially in public areas where there’s a lot of traffic. Scratching of it is a bigger challenge than wood. They’ve been recommending for public areas that clients move in a different direction than LVT. For storage rooms or rooms where you want a product that’s easy to clean and which doesn’t get as much traffic, it’s still a good product. In a public space like this, they wouldn’t recommend it. Mayor Bailey stated regarding solar and geothermal, he knows there’s additional costs we’ll hear and there might be some funding opportunities that we’ll have to dig into; the only thing he wanted to pose to Council that he thought was unique was if you think about Glacial Valley Park, it’s very natural with the prairies. If we wanted to make a statement about sustainability, he thought we should take it to a step where we even have a plaque or a sign there that talks about the sustainable features of the building. City Council Special Meeting Minutes September 7, 2022 Page 7 He didn’t even know if they could install a piece of glass so people could see how this geothermal system works; he just thought this could be unique from a sustainability standpoint. Council Member Olsen stated when we built this City Hall/Public Safety building, we made sure to follow GreenStep Cities guidelines because we wanted this building to be as sustainable as possible. It makes sense. He wondered if there was any kind of acknowledgment from a GreenStep Cities perspective if we were to do something like that, to celebrate it in that fashion. Mr. McNamara stated he thought that would be a great thing to incorporate into some sort of educational narrative with this building and others. Mayor Bailey stated that’s where he was going; other than the functionality of this building being Net Zero at some point, if you look at all the trails that are going to go around Glacial Valley Park, they’re going to talk about all of the natural amenities of this park, thinking back to the glacier times. He just really thinks this could be something that could be another good teachable moment for the families and youth in our community to come here and see what this is and then walk the trails and see all the nature. Council Member Dennis stated he thought the community would feel very good if we had this type of a process. Council Member Olsen agreed, as when we built this building and did the GreenStep piece, one thing we touted was rainwater recapture. When people took the tour of this building, that was one of the main things they wanted to talk about; they also started thinking about if they could do that on their own homes. With solar, there’s so much return with tax credits, that it makes good financial sense, too. He stated he thought this building speaks to our values as a community and as a Council. Mayor Bailey stated there are other cities that are putting out messaging about sustainability; it’s in their value statements. We don’t have that, but we talk about it. Council Member Thiede asked how unique this is anymore; people have more solar than geothermal. Council Member Khambata stated geothermal is a unique factor. Mayor Bailey stated the geothermal would be more unique than the solar, but with the solar the idea is to have a Net Zero building. Council Member Khambata stated a Net Zero building would be the important proposition for us in terms of promoting the green aspect of it. He asked regarding geothermal, having that in the ground and having whatever anticorrosive tool or whatever is in that system, what is the service interval and useful service lives of the solar panel, hardware, and of the geothermal hardware. If the ROI on this is 20-to-25 years, and the solar panels are done at 20 years, the geothermal pump is done at 30 years, then from a financial aspect, we’re only breaking even. So, then the only real intrinsic value to it is being able to say that it’s a Net Zero building. In the end it’s costing the city the same amount of money; if they must redo this again in 20 years, when will we get done paying for it? He’s in favor of it, but he’s just looking at what are the long-term operational costs associated with taking on these additional features. Mr. McNamara stated he has not heard of the life cycle related to solar panels; certainly, if there’s breakage and normal maintenance, etc. that’s just going to come. With that, it’s a solid-state system, so there aren’t really any moving parts, per se, for City Council Special Meeting Minutes September 7, 2022 Page 8 that. Maybe there are controller upgrades, etc., but his understanding is the reason why these power purchase agreements exist is because they take some of the front end, then the city gets the back end, so there is longevity kind of built into the idea of that. He couldn’t tell them exactly what that is, but they’d certainly get more information on it. For the geothermal system, most of your upfront costs are drilling the wells. Once those are done, they’re done. Council Member Olsen asked if those would be protected from any type of potential vandalism, which was confirmed by Mr. McNamara, who stated they’ll be completely underground. They won’t be visible, so you’ll want to put up a plaque if you want to celebrate it. Maybe you’ll lose a pump or must replace a pump, but those things happen on occasion. Council Member Thiede stated he’s in favor of this, he likes the idea, but with his financial sense, we’d also still have to have conventional heating, cooling, and electrical. Mr. McNamara stated you’d have an electrical connection to the building because as part of the solar, some must be put back to the grid. For the mechanical system, once we go to geothermal, there will be a heat exchanger and that’s it; that will provide heating and cooling. There’d be no added equipment, except maybe an exhaust fan for the restrooms. For the building heating and cooling, it would all be done through the geothermal system. Mayor Bailey stated he’s hearing a consensus on this, so we’re going to proceed forward with the solar and geothermal from a sustainability standpoint. Mayor Bailey stated regarding the exterior, he thought the insulation was a slam dunk, and Council Members agreed. Mayor Bailey asked about the bird glass, discussion followed: Council Member Thiede stated no. Council Member Olsen stated he didn’t know that it was necessary. Council Member Olsen asked if we had issues with bird strikes. Mayor Bailey stated Administrator Levitt had stated we had bird strikes at our HERO Center. Council Member Olsen asked how many was quite a bit; Administrator Levitt stated there were a lot. Council Member Thiede asked if 10 was a lot or if 100 was a lot. Council Member Khambata stated it’s plausible that it’s a problem, but maybe we should move that question to the end and see where we’re at on the budget. Mr. McNamara stated we can probably defer this question towards the end; this is a potential alternative project with the glass product. He can’t do geothermal as an alternate because it’s engineering, but we can revisit the glass. Council Member Olsen asked Public Safety Director Koerner if he wished we’d done birdproof glass at the HERO Center; Director Koerner stated he didn’t think it was that much of an issue. Mayor Bailey asked about the exterior: Council Member Khambata stated he personally liked the Board and batten cast corners. Council Member Dennis and Council Member Olsen agreed. Mr. McNamara stated it’s very handsome, and obviously we still must pick the final color; renderings are not exact. Council Member Thiede stated it still costs $18,500 less, which was confirmed. City Council Special Meeting Minutes September 7, 2022 Page 9 Mayor Bailey asked about the interior: Council Member Dennis stated he went back and looked at the meeting minutes from June 15, and we’d talked about doing some things to bring a little bit of beauty into this building. To be honest, the sign we have in front of us is plain; it’s a utility grade design, it doesn’t have a whole lot of imagination with unique touches to it. It’s a basic type of government building. We’d previously talked extensively about doing some artwork and the meaning of this area, why this is special, what it represents. It’s the whole history of the area that is not being highlighted: We had glaciers that came here 10,000 years ago; as they made their way through, they altered landforms and brought in tremendous amounts of material that got deposited here. When the melting occurred, there was tremendous water runoff, and the Mississippi River was very much wider in that time than what it is today. He’d like to see us capture something that we could do along the lines of using some mosaic opportunity to add a special touch and feature to this to make it look nice. It’s a simple concept, which he thinks is important. Lately, in government buildings, we no longer see special touches; previously, there was beauty in older structures. This is a chance to do something to highlight the importance of the area. Council Member Dennis said he found the images displayed here in about four minutes time on Google. Mayor Bailey likes the one on the right-hand side; this is an opportunity where we could bring a design element like that in. There are other options, including panels, textured materials that you could put on the walls, different things that could be done to enhance the overall effect and not just have that plain wood inside or even the slatted wood. We could do something that has color to it that sparks enjoyment and imagination of people who come there. It would tell a unique story about why we have this building here and how this park is involved. He stated there was a link in an email that he had sent regarding a community in California who reached out and brought their community together. Administrator Levitt clicked on the link, which showed a mosaic mural at the school park community garden. He explained there were many people involved in that, and it brought their community together in a creative spirit, with some art culture of the local area. Council Member Dennis stated we really have some talented people in Cottage Grove, and we previously had an Arts Commission. It would give an opportunity for the community to have a buy in so that when we were putting certain pieces of this together, people could come here, bring their kids, our staff and workers would be there. We could create something and put it up on the wall. Everybody could contribute. There’s an opportunity here for community involvement, and others have done this very successfully. Because of this unique setting, he felt the Council wanted to do something nice at this location, something we could all be very proud of. It would also give us an opportunity to incorporate some of this. Council Member Olsen stated we could make it educational as well. Council Member Thiede stated he liked the community involvement, to put the product on the wall. Mayor Bailey stated when Wold added the wood to the wall, to him it just looked like there was too much wood in there. He understood the comments about acoustics for the ceiling. If we have the brick or the columns on the main part and then a nice mosaic City Council Special Meeting Minutes September 7, 2022 Page 10 or something on that wall that will signify Glacial Valley with the glaciers, etc., he thought that would be fantastic. Mr. McNamara stated that they could also add some plaques to it to explain some of the features. He loved this conversation, and it requires more engagement with others outside of their team to make this happen. Their goal is to support what you, as a professional organization, want for this building. We want to make sure that when that product is done, it can support whatever it is that you want to put in the building. He noted Hopkins had engaged an artist to do the light fixture in the main entry of their building; they spent time engaging with them to make sure that we were providing design solutions, but we weren’t designers for the artwork. We just want to make sure that we’re providing a building and whatever is necessary to make it shine when it’s done, via adding light fixtures, aesthetics for the wall, and being strategic where we leave out materials so we can add materials later. We want to make sure that what we have inside the building will be surfaces that aren’t going to change, like the ceiling, the floor, and making sure the wall is a nice, smooth canvas that can have something added to it. He would not suggest that they do anything as far as the project, and that Council work toward engaging the community in a dialogue related to what you want that to be. He felt all the images shared by Council Member Dennis were wonderful examples of what this area is all about. We just struggled with what does that mean in a building, so they’re just making sure things can be put up on a wall. Council Member Dennis told Mr. McNamara now they kind of know, and Mr. McNamara confirmed that now they have a better idea. Council Member Thiede told Mr. McNamara he could see them probably providing what the wall surfaces are, and then we would try to define it. Mr. McNamara stated what he sees many communities do is a Request for Proposal from the community. Council Member Thiede stated then maybe we’d have a few different people to give a theme. Administrator Levitt stated she’s struggling with the fact that this is just the lobby, and where people are going to spend most of their time are in those two other rooms. She asked if we’re going to want to make the wall surfaces there something that will last over time so maybe the finish is not going to be the same Sheetrock if we’re going to be something different. Council Member Thiede stated if we’re going to put a mosaic on it, it could be just kind of a treated cement. Mr. McNamara stated in the spirit of trying to get this done, he hears where they want to go with it; he didn’t think they needed a decision on that to finish up their documents. He just needed to keep this conversation on the table so that we don’t forget about it. Then, when we get under construction, we engage in whatever process Council wants to make sure that what’s built out there supports what those final art products can be. He stated they won’t put any wood on the wall; we’ll make sure that we have identified areas where it can go and will continue that conversation. Mr. McNamara noted they received feedback from Council on the bigger cost elements related to geothermal and solar. On the bird glass, Mr. McNamara stated he would maybe suggest doing that as an alternate if we’re interested in figuring out what the cost would be for that. City Council Special Meeting Minutes September 7, 2022 Page 11 Director Koerner stated he spoke with HERO Center Manager Dan Anselment, who informed him because it was a State-funded project, they had to use the bird glass. He said it was six bird strikes in a year; once a week, he walked around the building and had to count them. Mayor Bailey stated he was worried Director Koerner was going to tell them it was hundreds of birds. He stated he felt that was a small number, so we don’t need it. Mr. McNamara stated they could always add it later if it became an issue. Mayor Bailey stated they could also do it as a bid alternate. Mr. McNamara stated he would only suggest with the idea of not doing the bird safe glass, that might taint something as negative. Council Member Thiede stated he would say just don’t do it, based on what we know. Mr. McNamara stated they could always add it later if it feels like it’s a problem. Council Member Olsen stated let’s say no. Council Member Dennis asked Mayor Bailey what his final thoughts were on the material inside. Mayor Bailey stated he was fine with the wooden slats for the acoustics and the painting. Council Member Olsen stated that would make a huge difference in the acoustics in that area. Mayor Bailey stated he was also fine with his idea of changing the flooring to the porcelain tile. Mr. McNamara stated with the floor, they’d come up with a layered pattern that looks like an abstract of the glacial formations. Council Member Olsen stated that would be perfect, and we’ll borrow the polar bear from the North Pole restaurant; Mayor Bailey stated we don’t know, maybe they’ll donate that. Mr. McNamara stated we’re not done with design, so we will be back with final plans and specs. Our intent is to work with Kraus-Anderson on getting this issued by the end of October, so Council should expect to hear back from us sometime in October with final budget and final design solutions. Mayor Bailey thanked Mr. McNamara for pulling this together and now he’s got his marching orders. 3. ADJOURNMENT The meeting adjourned at 6:50 p.m. Minutes prepared by Judy Graf and reviewed by Tamara Anderson (City Clerk).