Tucson Weekly: Tower Play (June 24

Will The City Council Vote To Build A New City Hall?
By Dave Devine
WHEN CITY manager Luis Gutierrez first pitched the idea of building a new City Hall last summer, the majority of the City Council warmly embraced it. But that enthusiasm quickly soured when Council members discovered that multi-purpose general fund dollars would be needed to pay most of the cost. The project was shuffled to a citizen committee for review.
Currents After that committee recommended the proposal, a majority of the Council again appeared to support the concept. However, now it looks like José Ibarra, Steve Leal and Jerry Anderson oppose the project, Mayor George Miller and Councilwoman Janet Marcus favor it, and Fred Ronstadt and Shirley Scott are the swing votes, waiting until an upcoming June 28 public meeting before making a decision.
Gutierrez is sensitive about the project. When Ronstadt jokingly referred to it some time ago as a Taj Mahal, Gutierrez "went off," according to those present, taking the remark as a personal insult.
Ronstadt says he understands the need for a new building and believes it would actually save the city money in the long run by reducing leasing and other costs. But he is still grappling with concerns about the project's importance in relation to other city priorities.
The proposal has also changed considerably since Gutierrez first suggested building a $57 million high-rise on the lawn next to downtown's Main Library. After changes suggested by the citizen committee and further analysis by The IEF Group, an architectural consulting firm working under a $90,000 contract, city staffers are now recommending a three-year program to plan and renovate the existing City Hall while constructing a new building for approximately 600 employees next door. The total cost of the project, with all its required attachments, is estimated to be $66 million, which would cover the costs of:
a new $38.5 million high-rise structure;
completely refurbishing the existing City Hall ($7 million);
improvements to the adjacent Presidio Park ($2 million);
New parking for 700 spaces ($6 million);
furnishings and equipment ($4 million).
There's also a contingency fund of $8.5 million, which includes $660,000 for artwork and $4 million to lease large amounts of office space for three years. The space would be required because the existing City Hall will probably have to be vacated while construction of the new building is in progress.
Bruce Messelt, an assistant to Gutierrez, says the need to lease space while construction is going on is one of several questions about the proposal which still need to be answered by the Council. The consulting architectural firm believes the move would be essential. According to its report, "Simultaneous new construction and existing facility remodeling and renovation would necessitate the relocation because of dust, noise and safety." But the Council could evidently override those concerns.
It's still unclear who would occupy the two buildings. Currently, more than 500 people work in the existing City Hall. They would move into the new structure, along with city employees now housed in the decrepit City Hall annex on Pennington Street and other scattered city offices.
Once the existing building was renovated, it would be occupied by part of the city's Transportation Department, which presently uses space in Pima County's Development Services building on Stone Avenue. Some or all of the city's Parks and Recreation Department, now located in Reid Park, could also be moved downtown, but that is a decision the City Council still needs to make.
Then there's the question of parking. Messelt says construction of a parking structure is planned near the Tucson Convention Center. If that proves problematic, the city could add space to the garage under the Main Library, but Messelt says that would be very expensive. A final alternative is to use more space in the existing city-state parking garage located a few blocks west of City Hall. But for now, this and several other questions about the proposal remain unanswered.
While a majority of the City Council seems to agree that the city needs more office space for employees, the details range across the board. Ibarra favors looking at other buildings downtown, many of which are vacant. Along with Ronstadt, Ibarra has expressed interest in the Federal Courthouse on Broadway, which will soon be vacant when the new courthouse opens at Congress and Granada.
In the long term, Ibarra would like to see mini-City Halls built around the community. He thinks one on the north side of the city, along with a midtown location, would help to reduce existing traffic and parking problems downtown. He's pushing to defeat the project, arguing, "We have other, higher priorities."
The public hearing on the new City Hall proposal is at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, June 28, at the Mayor and Council Chambers, 255 W. Alameda St.

Consider The Alternatives

CITY MANAGER LUIS Gutierrez refers to his proposal for a new City Hall as a "basic city service," equating it with police and fire protection, transportation projects, garbage pick-up and recreational activities. But how "basic" is it?
In a city that has 250 miles of residential streets badly in need of repair, how important is a new City Hall? Throughout Tucson, the community-based policing program is understaffed, neighborhood parks are in short supply and residents must pay before they can have sidewalks, street lights and traffic mitigation measures installed. So is a new City Hall really a "basic" need?
Proponents of the proposal argue that it is almost as cheap as the other limited options which were reviewed. Besides, they say, with new construction you get an elegant, dignified building to show for all the money spent.
The city government obviously has needs for additional space. But whether a large, centrally located building is the answer has never been addressed by the City Council. Instead, they took Gutierrez's "take-it-or-leave-it" pitch for one big new building and had a citizens committee look at it.
Among the other questions the Council needs to answer before it goes any further with this proposal:
Just how "basic" is a new City Hall, given all the other needs of the community?
Should the Parks Department be moved downtown or left in its current location in Reid Park?
Given the high vacancy rate downtown, does it make sense to add additional building space?
Could the old Federal Courthouse, which will soon be vacated, serve to meet most of the City's future space needs?
The Council also has not addressed what else could be done with the millions of dollars which could be saved by following a less grandiose scheme than Gutierrez's proposal. For every million dollars not spent on a new City Hall building:
More than 6 miles of deteriorated residential streets could be rebuilt.
Fourteen more police officers could be hired.
Almost 4 miles of major roadways could be lit.
Over 1,600 speed humps or 500 landscaped traffic circles could be installed to slow down traffic in neighborhoods.
Nineteen miles of sidewalks could be built.
The City's primary property tax could be reduced by almost 40 percent.
At a recent neighborhood meeting, City Councilman Jerry Anderson discussed the need for speed humps along Flower Street east of Dodge Boulevard. Anderson made the unusual gesture of saying his office budget, and not the adjoining property owners, would pick up the tab for the project.
That relieved one senior citizen on a fixed income, who couldn't afford to pay the assessment for speed humps, even though she thought they were needed. A man in the audience thanked Anderson for his offer: "I know there are other things you could have done with the money."

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