Cedar Rapids may revisit sharing proposals with county, schools

Council member Kris Gulick said Tuesday night the public's apparent interest in replacing key flood-damaged buildings with new ones is not connected to “financial realities.”

This prompted Gulick to suggest that the City Council once again approach the Linn County Board of Supervisors and the Cedar Rapids Community Schools to see if either or both of those entities would reconsider earlier decisions and join with the city in sharing new or renovated buildings.

For some months earlier this year, the city, county and schools were meeting to consider “co-location” ideas, but both the county and school district dropped out of the talks months ago.

Gulick's council counterparts quickly agreed to go back to the county and school district, both of which have had flood-damaged administration buildings, and try to revive some kind of sharing idea.

Otherwise, Gulick said the financial models for new city buildings left him with one question, “How do you get it done?”

Gulick was responding to an overview of the city's key buildings taken from the comments of about 600 people who attended public open houses two weeks ago and from comments of more than 150 city employees that were included in the mix.

The mix of comments favored building a new downtown library, new animal control center, a new central fire station, a new fleet maintenance building and, perhaps, a new public works building, consultant Dan Thies, president/CEO of OPN Architects Inc. of Cedar Rapids, told the council Tuesday night.

Regarding what is among the biggest issues confronting the council - whether to return City Hall to a renovated and upgraded Veterans Memorial Building on May's Island or to build a new City Hall elsewhere - Thies said there was no “overwhelming majority” that favored either option. But he said more preferred a new building over a return to the Veterans Memorial Building.

After last night's meeting, Thies and Sandi Fowler, assistant to City Manager Jim Prosser, said they did not know if the comments taken solely from the 600 or so members of the general public, without the comments from city employees, favored building a new City Hall building or not.

Thies reported that the public library was the focus of the most public comments, and he said an “overwhelming majority” favored building a new building. Of four sites suggested, the public favored both the site now occupied by TrueNorth on Fourth Avenue SE across from Greene Square Park and a site that had been more strongly favored by the city's library board between First and Second avenues SE and Seventh Eighth streets SE.

The city's Fowler suggested to the City Council that it will be making decisions related to facilities in the next weeks, months and years. Not all the rebuilding or building new can take place at once, she said.

Council member Tom Podzimek said he was comfortable with make the library a priority, and he suggested keeping ideas for new neighborhood centers, a new public safety training center and a reuse of the former federal courthouse on the back burner.

City Manager Jim Prosser reminded the council that it has wanted to view decisions about the city's flood-damaged buildings with consideration for long-term operating costs and for providing services as efficiently as possible.

Prosser said he has talked for more than a year about the costs the city would be facing with its flood-damaged buildings. “This is a serious financial challenge,” he said.

Fowler noted that states are permitted to seek a waiver from the federal government so that Community Development Block Grant funds can be used for civic facilities. The city should seek such a waiver for future allocations of CDBG funds, she suggested.

Council member Monica Vernon said she needed to know the actual upfront costs to build buildings so she could know “where would we come up with the money.”

The council plans to have “preferred” options for buildings sorted out for a next round of open houses on Oct. 6 and 7.