Still from last week Monday, but almost done . . . I hope.
Overview
Oops, forgot the new guys name and they didn’t mention it. Sorry. He says that projects 1 – 5 are the same as last year. The only additiona was #6, an elevator. Parking garage repairs, number one is 20% higher than last year, the majority is due to two major projects – replacing high pressure sodium lights with LEDs in Capital Square ($200,000) and constructing redeisgned storm sewer ($150,000), those are two major projects. Judge Doyle Square gargae they repositions from 2015 – 2018, and now there is money in 2014 if a hole needs to be built in 2014, one of the proposals requires that. Number three would allow them to replace 800 single space meters in the city with single head meters to allow the entire on street meter system to be smart meters to allow credit card or pay by cell at all meters. Video cameras and shop maintenance are placemarkers and elevator maintenance was added for voerture and state ST. Capital garage.
Ramp Maintenance Plan
Sue Ellingson asks about the money being spent on the Judge Doyle Square Garage, will that take care of all of our problems. Do we just knock the rest of them down. No, no, no, no, line number one is remediation and we are spending $1.1M on all the garages, that is a continuing process. They look at a bigger stragetic plan and they are looking at a sustainability report. The report will give them the first piece of a strategic plan for the next 20 years, they have 6 garages, they are all 32+ years old and they were all built with about a 50 year life span, so that would suggest that we would need to replace all of them or do remediation in the next 20 years for all of them. Judge Doyle Square is piece number one of the 20 year startegic plan and you will see items in the future to do the rest.
Multi-space meter functionality
Mike Verveer asks about the functionality of the multi-space meters. (“Tom” is his name) He says the system was down for a period of time this summer, how is the system working and what is the update on the study to replace the Zeag (sp?) system. He says that system is in the garages and that is the revenue control system and that is different, the on-street meters are Metric Parking. In June we had a two day instance where AT&Ts network was down and it had nothing to do with our system, but it was AT&T wireless, that was addressed after a couple days, they have no issues since. They have updated the modems and they have tested them and they are showing higher more reliable network connectivity. They have a line item to replace the rest that would allow them better network reliability moving forward. Verizon’s network is on 3G and AT&T is 2G which they won’t support past 2016 and they think have a plan for that. The Zeag system for parking ramps is line item 3, that is $1M in 2015 and 2016, its a placemarker for that, their system is Zeag with is not the Hub group, a bigger technology group, that is 10 years old and the lifespan is typically 10 years and they will need to replace that in the next couple years, it will be in the 2015 budget. They need to replace that in all 6 garages and the Brayton lot.
Verveer asks if he is confident that we won’t have another outage like this summer, he thought there were other issues with they system. We aren’t looking at replacing that system any time soon? No. And you are looking at expanding the system. Yes, everything he has seen in the over a year he has been here has seen improvement to Metric Ssytem, we have issues we still work to resolve to provide the most reliable system, but we believe we have a system that meets the needs and we want to expand to have simpler, easier to use multi-space meters and he thinks that will be a big benefit. The system is reliable. The issues they have had have been with network connectivity, not the system. Which are out of our control with a wireless network but we work to minimize difficulties. Muttering off camera I can’t hear and I”m not sure who it is.
Handheld Parking Enforcement Devices
Verveer asks about the Parking Enforcement Officer issues – he says they are working with the police department to replace all of the handhelds, the RFP hasn’t gone out, but it will go out in the next few months and in 2014 there will be new handhelds. Dryer says that they will be able to check???? Can’t hear him. Verveer says that is one of the concerns he has heard from staff. Verveer asks if that will be fixed in 2014. Tom says that that was reauthorized from the 2012 budget and is already approved. They are not sure if that will funde all the handhelds, they are more expensive ($7500 – 10,000 a piece), it might be more like $400 – 500,000 instead of $300,000. He says they need to finalize the RFP and choose the best system.
Elevator at State St. Ramp
Lisa Subeck asks a question about what they need to do with the elevators in the State St. Ramp. Tom says that when they push the button both elevators respond and this would separate their function. It is not efficient, people wait longer and more issues when it goes down. By duplexing them they can run independently. It will improve service to customers and staff and ultimately cost us less.
Judge Doyle Square Parking Ramp Staging
Mark Clear asks about the staging of the Judge Doyle Square, what happens when that comes down, where will they park or are they on their own. David Dryer says that they had always wanted ot build something else first and then take the old building down. So it maintained the cash flow for the utility and keep the parking in place. There is come concepts out there that take everything down at once and they are debating if they can maintain some parking. Maybe monthly permit holders can be moved to another facility. They have to work that out with the developers and they are concerned about what that will do for the businesses like the Great Dane. Tom says they wanted it done in two phases, that was in the RFQ and RFP. They need the 520 spaces to be available, but that is yet to be determined. Journeyman group had a clear proposal timeline, the 2014 timeline was based on that, they thought they would start in Jan 2015, which would mean they would need 6 months to build the hole, that would be 9 months. They put a hammer in the current ramp in September of 2015. Then they would build the hole under there, that would take 9 months, then a year to build it then they would transfer the parking. Then they other side would be finished on time for the new uses. Clear asks if that complexity doesn’t work out is the Brayton lot still a possiblity? Dryer says that they have not looked at structures on there, but the capacity to move some short term parkers there, but it is already filled with transients during the week. Tom says that the problem is Mon – Fri 9 – 5 it is full, there is no place to push customers. There is some space in Capital Square North and State St. Capital, but the question becomes do they serve the businesses the same as Govenrment East and he would guess no.
