Prosser doesn't foresee Cedar Rapids city offices at Westdale

The City Council and the Linn County Board of Supervisors agreed this week to see if there is any prospect of joining forces on a new government services building or buildings to replace flood-damaged ones.

However, this retreat to the future - the supervisors dropped such a discussion months ago,  as did the Cedar Rapids school district - must take into account that the county supervisors are pushing ahead with a feasibility study to see if it makes sense to turn their temporary operation at Westdale Mall into a permanent one.

On Friday, though, Cedar Rapids City Manager Jim Prosser had trouble seeing any future for city government at Westdale Mall.

In answer to questions from The Gazette editorial board, Prosser pointed to the analysis of a Westdale Mall option for city services that was provided to the public by city consultant OPN Architects Inc. at open houses on Aug. 18 and 19.

“It became pretty clear that the Westdale option didn't have as many advantages as you might imagine just looking at the building,” Prosser said.

OPN Architects of Cedar Rapids, which Prosser identified as a “homegrown” firm with an understanding of Westdale Mall, concluded that it would cost more to renovate the mall for city services than building a new building - both in upfront construction costs and costs over 50 years.

OPN estimated the cost to buy Westdale and renovate a portion of it for city services at $63 million compared to $53 million to build a new City Hall. Over 50 years, those costs, including operating costs, are $115 million compared to $91 million for a new building.

Prosser said OPN has explained that a mall is built for a different purpose than an office building, and a plethora of factors, like mechanical systems and circulation concepts, must be changed for an office setup.

“The first reaction I had when I see Westdale is, ‘Wow, this should work. We can just put stuff in there and reconfigure these buildings,'” Prosser said. “But when you actually work through the details ... ”

The city included a Westdale option for a potential city services center - along with returning City Hall to the Veterans Memorial Building on May's Island and building a new City Hall - because some people asked to see how the mall might stack up.

Dan Thies, OPN's president/CEO, told the City Council earlier this week that a “small vocal minority” at the city's two open houses two weeks ago expressed concern for the future of Westdale Mall. The comments centered less on putting city services in the mall than in having the city help figure out the mall's future, Thies said.

Sandi Fowler, assistant to the city manager, told The Gazette editorial board on Friday that people who talked to her at the city's open houses wanted it known that they care about the mall. A few, she said, even suggested tearing it down and starting over if that's what it would take.

Prosser noted the city brought in three different teams of retail experts to the struggling mall before the June 2008 flood, and he said they all concluded: “Wow, cool building. However, given the current retail trends and given where you are, we'd demolish this building and put up something different. Because the next generation of retailers isn't going to go into this type of building.”

In reference to a question Friday about building a new city services center or City Hall - with or without Linn County or the Cedar Rapids Community Schools - Prosser said it is clear that the least expensive option upfront and over time is to return city government to the flood-damaged Veterans Memorial Building on May's Island.

The many arguments for a new building remain, he noted. A new building, he said, would allow government to function better and be easier for the public to use.

When asked, Prosser, though, said the Vets building can be retrofitted to put departments like development, engineering, building and the city manager together there so they don't have to be in different spots as they were before the flood.

He said, too, that the difference in upfront cost to build a new building can be so large the city could have to “take a pass” on something new that might deliver benefits over many years.

“We're still working through those issues,” he said.