HomeMy WebLinkAboutCity Hall 3rd Floor Concept1Report to the Ad Hoc City Hall Space Needs Study Committee
March 16, 1994
Subject: Existing City Hall building
By: Rick & Gayle Vezie
RICHARD VEZIE & ASSOCIATES
94 Third Street, Ashland 488-1453
THE FOUR PRIMARY ISSUES:
1. Space requirements for City Offices currently housed in or near City Hall.
2. Addressing ADA and UBC chapter 31 accessibility requirements.
3. Seismic concerns.
4. The money.
SPACE:
The Committee seems to agree that the City Departments at City Hall need additional space.
Most of us agree that it makes sense for Public Works to move out to the East Main location.
This however, doesn't free up much space and we still have Engineering across the street
paying $1500 a month for a less than ideal location. In the mean time, the Department of
Community Development (DCD) is crammed in like sardines at. City Hall. The rest of the
people in the building seem to have at least a tolerable situation, as far as space is concerned.
Clearly, DCD has it the worst.
How a space is utilized can be every bit as important as how much there is of it. As with the
saying "a penny saved is a penny earned", using space efficiently is like acquiring additional
space for free.
The existing Main and Second Floors of City Hall don't allow for the efficient use of space
because they are so badly broken up. Essentially, the building is divided into two long tubes
on each floor because of the two story brick wall that runs the length of the building. The
tubes are further divided by various offices and compartments that were apparently fit into
or added to the existing structure over time in an effort to deal with changes in use or other
needs as they arose (see Fig. 1).
ACCESSIBILITY:
According to the ADA report by Darrel Ackerman, the City has a measure of "exposure"
under the ADA. The final paragraph of Sheet 011 of his Facility Evaluation reads:
NOTE:This second floor houses the primary activities of the city government and is not
accessible. This is discrimination under ADA Title II and is therefore your highest exposure
risk of litigation under the ADA. These executive offices must be located in an accessible
location.
No matter what we do to the City Hall building, we will incur some cost to make the
building accessible. The question is, how much? This will cause us to address some
interesting questions. Do we want to do just enough to past the law? Do we want to make
the building truly accessible? Do we want to arrive at some area in between? The only clear
way around the Accessibility issue is to sell the building. Maybe we could get around the
Helman Agreement with some legal slight of hand, but there is also the moral issue envolved
of honoring the intent of an agreement.
If we decide to hold to our agreement, keep the building, and start upgrading at some level
to comply with the ADA, the trail leads to the next issue, where not to be when the big one
hits.
SEISMIC CONCERNS:
Unreinforced masonry buildings are a seismic nightmare. We have additional problems with
the City Hall because of the additions. While some upgrading took place during the last
remodel, it didn't involve all of the building. Major areas are still just old non-seismically
retrofitted unreinforced masonry. A lot of it up pretty high. If you played with blocks as a
child, you know what that means. This brings to the table additional questions. What should
we do to try to protect the people who work in the building? What are the "reasonable"
expenditures? This leads to the next issue, there's never enough money.
THE MONEY:
Now that we're looking at spending some big money, we need to address both the cost of our
decisions, and what we might expect to get for our investments.
THE BEST ANSWERS:
If only we could open up the spaces in the building to allow flexibility in their uses. If there
was some way to remove a bunch of the interior walls, especially the big brick wall (see Fig.
2).
The City Administrator has said on several occasions "the existing City Hall building can't
support a third floor". This may be true. This led to the thinking that to try to impose a third
floor on the building is all wrong. A better and simpler solution is to construct a third floor
that would be mostly structurally independent of the existing building, but, along with it's
support structure, would actually help support and reinforce the existing building's two
floors and walls (see Fig. 3, Fig. 4, and Fig. 5). This could be done by using a system of steel
columns and beams A large beam would replace the interior two story brick wall. We would
also want to get rid of the two vaults which occupy and waste valuable space in the center of
the building. This work could be done with much of the existing floors in place. We would
have to install shear walls between some of the columns for bracing, but we would have
some flexibility in their placement. Some portions of the main floor would have to opened
up to pour footings.
The best configuration for a third floor is to incorporate it into the roof itself as suggested by
Brent Thompson, Marilyn Briggs, and others (see Fig. 5). This also provides a third floor
that causes minimal visual impact on the character of the building (see Fig. 6 and Fig. 7).
The elevator and stairs to the third floor pose no additional space penalty on the lower two
floors as they are needed for the second floor anyway. The third floor should be of light
weight construction (see Fig. 5). The roof trusses would help stabilize the existing exterior
walls without imposing any additional loading on them (as with the third floor cantilevered
floor trusses). We also pick up over 500 sq. ft. of storage space on the third floor at very
little additional cost. We should save what we can of the last remodel on the Finance side.
What will it all cost? unfortunately, the only way to find out is to have working plans drawn
up and put it out to bid. Keep in mind that we save the $1500 a month that Engineering
spends on rent, and we would have expenditures for seismic and ADA upgrades to the
building anyway (before we would pick up an inch of extra space). This plan provides the
space the city needs right in the bulls eye of the most valuable space we own and should
solve all of the issues. Of course additional time would be needed to work out the specific
Space Plans and professional engineering would be required to work out the specific design.
Maybe the best news is that this project could provide us with an unique opportunity. If we
were able to turn this into a "CAMPAIGN TO SAVE CITY HALL", we might be able to pull
in contributions from citizens and corporations. It could provide an opportunity for our local
government and it's citizens to work together. The real issue here has to do with ownership. I
think Ron Roth said it best ("who is the City of Ashland?"). If we provide a chance for
people to help City Hall, maybe they'll think of it as theirs.
Existing Main Floor 4272 sq. ft.
Existing Second Floor 3169 sq. ft.
Total Existing 7441 sq. ft.
Proposed Second Floor Addition 863 sq. ft.
Proposed Third Floor Addition 2287 sq. ft.
Total Additions 3150 sq. ft.
Total Floor Area 10591 sq. ft.
Additional Internal Storage 529 sq. ft.
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EXISTING MAIN FLOOR E X I S T I N G S E C O N D F L O O R
FIG. 1
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PROPOSED MAIN FLOOR PROPOSED SECOND FLOOR
FIG. 2
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SECOND FLOOR WALL LINE
STORAGE
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73' 7"
38' 9-1/2"
OFFICE AREA
PROPOSED THIRD FLOOR FIG. 3
33
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6
"
5' 3-1/2"
68' - 3/12"
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M A I N & S E C O N D F L O O R B E A M S & C O L U M N S
FIG. 4
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STORAGE
OFFICE SPACE
TYPICAL SECTION FIG. 5
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FIG. 6
CORNER PERSPECTIVE
WITH THIRD FLOOR ADDITION
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WEST PERSPECTIVE FIG. 7