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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2009-03-03-10:00AM-WORKSHOP SESSION o~ ~o .27r of ~gQ' i-!.'=i FEB ? -1 F-~ 3= 2G BI2AZOS COUNTY , BRYAN, TEXAS NOTICE OF MEETING AND AGENDA BRAZOS COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT WORKSHOP SESSION THE COMMISSIONERS COURT OF BRAZOS COUNTY WILL MEET IN A WORKSHOP SESSION ON TUESDAY 3 MARCH 2009 AT 10:00 A_M_ IN THE COUNTY ADMINISTRATION BUILDING, 200 SOUTH TEXAS AVENUE, SUITE 106, BRYAN, TEXAS_ 1. Call to Order 2_ Update From John McBeth with The District on plans For the proposed parking garage and alternate parking locations during construction- 3. Discussion regarding parking at the Tax Office- 4. Adjourn The County Administration Building is handicap accessible. Handicap parking spaces are available. Any request for sign interpretive services must be made two working days before the meeting. To make arrangements, please call (979) 361-4102. Office of the County Judge - 200 South Texas Ave. - Suite 33332tp~ Bryan, Texas 77803 Fax: (979) 361-4503 I of 21 COMMISSIONERS' COURT WORKSHOP SESSION March 3, 2009 The Commissioners' Court of Brazos County, Texas met in a Workshop Session on Tuesday the 3rd of March, 2009 at 10:00 a.m., in the County Administration Building,200 South Texas Avenue, Bryan, Texas, 77803, with the following members of the Court present: Randy Sims, County Judge, Presiding; Lloyd Wassermann, Commissioner of Precinct 1; Duane Peters, Commissioner of Precinct 2; Kenny Mallard, Commissioner of Precinct 3; Carey Cauley,Jr. Commissioner of Precinct 4; Karen McQueen, County Clerk. Attached is a list of the citizens and officials in attendance. Attached is a transcript of the meeting. Vol Page 2 of 21 BRAZOS COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT Proposed Parking Garage and Alternate Parking Locations March 3rd, 2009 Sims: We are going into a workshop. Commissioners' Court of Brazos County will meet in the workshop session on Tuesday the 3`a of March, 2009 at 10:00 a.m., in the County Administration Building at 200 South Texas Avenue, Suite 106, Bryan, Texas. I will call this workshop into session. The second item on the agenda is update from John McBeth with the District on plans for the proposed parking garage, and alternative parking locations during construction. Yes Sir, John. McBeth: Thank you Judge. Commissioners. Miss Lucas is here with me today; she is my deputy and is actually the person responsible for this project. What I brought with me today is a map that I'll go over later that basically shows the shuttle route that we will actually put together and operate for the remote parking. But first to give you an update on the garage and terminal. The plans for the facility are now at 100%. Powers Brown Design Firm out of Houston. Adult Probation has reviewed the two story office building that they are going to be in and they signed off on the layout, including the finishing. That's how far along we are, we've picked out the finishes. The design team will complete the construction document and the bid package for the project by mid April. They are in the process right now of creating a new, three dimensional architectural model that is about twice the size of that piece of plastic right there. Once they have gotten that done, that's going to actually include the finishes...the colors and finishes... it will look identical to what the finished product will be. We will be working with the Judge once they have completed that and we're thinking it will probably be done by the middle of April, to decide where we're going to display; whether we display it in this building or if we want to display in the Courthouse. We just want to reach the largest audience we can. We want to place it one time because it is very difficult to move. We will bid the project in late April and award in late May with construction start date of June 1St. Construction will take approximately 18 months and we're told that, that is a long out day; it actually could come a lot faster than that. The good news is the cost of concrete has drastically dropped in price so our cost estimates have come down from Vol ~~1 Page 10 3 of 21 about 20.8 million to about 18 million dollars. If concrete continues to drop, when we get the bid, we may be as low was 16 million dollars. At the same time that we issue the RFP for construction, we're also going to issue the RFP for the property management firm that will be managing the retail space on the ground floor where Probation will ultimately be located. We intend to grant that particular contract to some property management firm locally. And what we have told the architects on construction bid documents is that it's also possible we'll also want to see construction contracts stay as local as they possible can to stimulate the economy here. The Design team is currently working with the City of Bryan on several issues; the major issue is the final building permit. There are two other outstanding issues. One is the abandonment of Washington Street, which is kind of just going by the book, and the other one is the abandonment of an alley way that we discovered that runs through the center of the existing parking lot from basically Washington Street to Texas Avenue. Nobody knew that alley way was there, but we discovered it, so in the building permit process, we're in the process of getting that abandoned at the same time. The staging of the project... our first step will be to demolish the current parking lot across from the courthouse. Once we have demolished that parking lot we will build the retail space and the Probation Offices. Once we have finished those... and Washington Street during that time, we will close, that will involve closing Washington Street. It will never reopen again, once we begin that process. We do not know how long it will take to complete the retail space and Probation Offices, until we have a contractor for the project, and they can tell us how long they think it's going to take. That particular building like the garage is also going to be all pre cast so it should be pretty quick to complete. With the completion of the new office building, we will then move Adult Probation and demolish their building and the parking lot adjacent to that building. During that construction Regent Street will be closed for safety purposes. During the whole process, various areas in the square from Regent Street all the way to Texas Avenue and from 26th and 27th Street, we will be making changes throughout there for safety purposes, you'll be seeing safety catwalks, with covered areas so people will be able to continue to walk between this facility and the courthouse. Those will be located based on what we're doing and when we're doing it, but there'll be plenty of notice. Vol (11 Page 41 4 of 21 The parking during construction, each of you have a map that we passed out, we intend to follow the initial plan that, we will utilize existing surplus property in the area around the Courthouse to handle parking during the construction. Lots will be tied together with a shuttle that we will operate free of charge, that will begin at 6:45 each morning and go until 6:00 p.m. each day, Monday- Friday. The lots are, the lot across from the tax office these are lots we've spoken of before, the city owed lot on Taylor Street, between 23rd and 24th (which has an ATM on it), and the lot at the old Piggly Wiggly Store. We will be negotiating a lease with the owner of that particular property to utilize all of that lot. Our survey that we continue to do during this process indicates that between those three lots, there are 150 unused parking spaces a day... sometimes 150, sometimes 160, which gives us an average of 150 unused parking spaces on a daily basis, and that's actually 35 more than currently exist in the current city owned lot, or the county owned lot that we're going to be raking out. During that time period, in addition to the shuttle survey we'll also be putting together a whole marketing program to market the transit system ...the fixed route systems to encourage jurors and people visiting the Courthouse or Administrative Offices to actually use the transit to get here. That will be both in the Eagle as well as on our own website where a person right now is able to actually go to our website, type in their address in Bryan or College Station and then put in their destination and it will show them a customize bus route for them to go the fastest way possible. Jurors will be allowed to ride free with presentation of a jury summons. If they are chosen, we will work with the Administrative Judge to issue them a transit pass for the time period they remain as a juror so that they have free access to transit. Not only to get to and from the Courthouse each day but basically to use transit when ever they want to use it free as a service for being a juror to the County. The circulator route that we have chosen, and that's what's on the map, is in black and E is where we are today, the proposed lot which is your mobile parking lot and then the Courthouse and then these are the lots A, B, and C...this is the tax office lot, this is the ATM lot, and the Piggly Wiggly lot. And if these do not suffice then we're going to locate other lots and we'll try to keep them as close to this area but we may actually have to work with the City of Bryan to use some of the excess parking that they have at the new Courts Building, the new Public Safety Building over at the Police Department. The shuttle system takes 10 '/z minutes to go starting with the origination point at this lot and coming back to Texas. The shuttle comes back to Texas so we can use the lights, we don't like to make turns without lights, without some kind of signal. We Vol _ ~ Page 01 5 of 21 will then come down to the Courthouse, drop here, come back here and repeat every 10 minutes. We are looking at a modified route that we, perhaps, between 11:30 and 1:30 actually add a route for people who want to get to the downtown area. For people that are at these locations that would want to access the shuttle system to get to downtown to eat at either on Bryan Street or Main Street. The whole goal is to make this area accessible via the transit. If you start at E and you ride all the way around it's going to take you ten minutes and that'll be ten minutes at the hour and then ten minutes and it will do that all day long from 6:45 until 6:00 p.m.. We will be working closely with the Administrative Judge and the courts at the Courthouse to work out any problems that may develop, we can get on those immediately and make changes to whatever we need to do to make sure people have complete accessibility and that we have the least amount of inconvenience possible. We all know there is going to be an inconvenience because we are building a five story parking garage and a three story office building. We will try to be as least intrusive as we can but it is going to be intrusive. With that I will open up for questions, suggestions, or comments that you may have that will make this better. Sims: Is A, B, and C, John, the only parking areas you will have? McBeth: Right now those are the only parking areas we've identified, if we need more, we're going to first look in this circle to see what else we have. We want to stay as close to the County municipal complex as we can, without going further down Texas Avenue. There is a lot of surplus parking on Texas Avenue, and we have looked at the old Kroger Store and the old Albertson Store, there's tons and tons of parking there, but these are so far away from the Courthouse, our fear is once a person gets into the car and they get that far, they're going to say, we'll keep driving to get to the Courthouse. That's been our experience of our commuter program at the Woodlands. So we're trying to keep the parking as close to downtown as we can and we're looking at some other sight in the down town area ...we really want to stay on this side of the railroad tracks if we can. We've looked at the church parking lots that are across the street, we have 2 buildings at 409 and one over at 504 that both have parking in them right now. We had also looked at the parking at the old First Bank and Trust drive though windows but that property has been bought and there is a building that is about to build there. Sims: There is a restaurant going in over there, I guess you've heard about that and they will be looking for parking also. Vol Page ..3 6 of 21 McBeth: Yea they are. This plan is not a static plan, it's a dynamic plan and as much as possible we will continue to try to change this plan to accommodate the changes that are going to go on. There are so many changes going on in the downtown area now, so many new things coming in to the downtown area. And there is about to be a major project starting in the downtown area so all of this is going to be tight and if we have to go to remote parking we will go to remote parking... fortunately for us we have a lot of buses. We can move a lot of folks. We have a good arrangement with the University and they also have a lot of buses. Sims: Sue Haswell is not that far and they have parking during the week anyway. McBeth: Yes, they do, and that is a straight shot. We have looked at that and talked to the City of Bryan about that. The City of Bryan is a partner in this project and is dedicated to working with us. We're basically a tri-partner agreement between us, the City, and the County to get this thing done. The beauty of it is, once it's done we're going to have enough parking for all the demands of downtown and the County until 2010 or maybe even 2015. The building is being built to support not just that five floors, the piers and beams are being built to support a ten story parking garage if that ever had to be done. Cauley: How many parking spaces will there be? McBeth: Right now, it's 2012. There's parking on the bottom floor, on all the other floors, and then there's parking on the roof. There will parking reserved for the jurors and for county employees. There will be three floors for paid parking. We are getting a lot of request from attorneys and also from business owner's downtown to actually lease spaces. We have request from people who live in lofts downtown to actually lease spaces on an annual basis so we think we will fill, we're not going to fill it up real fast but right now the Walter Moore Parking who is doing all of our parking analysis as far as our revenue stream than can be expected to be off of this (inaudible). We have to pay that out of this money because we are actually borrowing money to build this. Unless something comes through with the stimulus package... which we're actually hoping it will because we just got a pretty big infusion last week and (inaudible) gave us, basically, another million dollars for it last week. So right now, even at a 20 million dollar price tag, we have about 8.5% of it already funded in solid federal funds. The parking estimate of this particular facility will be at about 65% occupancy most of the day. Weekends will be much slower except for football weekends. One thing we do have at this particular facility is that Vol I Page 7 of 21 on this end there is a transit terminal that once this is completed there will be a shuttle system that will circulate through this complex and into the downtown area all the way over to here. That will also circulate every 15 minutes. We have worked out an arrangement with Rod White at A&M, for remote football parking for the football season, so people that live in Bryan instead of having to drive all the way out to the University and try to find a parking space, they will be able to park at this garage and A&M buses will serve this garage on a fairly frequent schedule. It will be a real big convenience for the people in Bryan to get to those actives. Both football games and basketball games as well as graduation. We are actually working with Rod to use his same parking software so people that have the tags from A&M will have access to the garage. Mallard: Is there going to be other buses here like Greyhound? McBeth: Coach USA has committed to actually locate in the terminal; they will operate probably no more that two buses a day, one in the morning and one later in the evening. We will have a bus terminal there also where we will have our own security people selling tickets for our buses as well as Coach USA. Coach USA will not have their own staff; we will staff it for them. It will probably be two busses a day for either Coach or Kerrville Bus Lines or Greyhound. On our fixed routes we will have 3 of our buses that actually come into this about every 30 minutes... on the 1/2 hour, every hour. We will continue to use our central transfer point at 3400 Texas Avenue, half way through the cities, but we'll also have this as a sub terminal and we are working on having another sub terminal in far south College Station so that we can extend service to the further portions of South College Station. They will be all tied together. Mallard: How are they going to access the complex? The buses? McBeth: The buses will come in on the Regent Street side ...we are working with the City of Bryan on that right now or they will come off Texas Avenue, come down 27th into that particular terminal. It doesn't show it on the map, but there is a terminal there that is covered for bus parking only. They will exit on Regent Street and 26th Street and they will turn right instead of turning left so that they are not turning against the lane of traffic. The buses coming in from downtown will enter the terminal off of 28th Street. Mallard: Are they going to make room for that ...busses need more turn radius? McBeth: Yes we have turning radius worked out. We are doing a traffic impact analysis and all of the stuff that we have to do. There have been all sorts Vol C Page 4-•~ 8 of 21 of suggestions of making Regent Street one way but I don't think that's going to happen. We're already eliminating one street ...I think pressing our luck to ask to convert any more streets. We continue to tell people that this is not going to have that great of a traffic impact because we are basically replacing parking that is currently there. We're moving a little bit of parking from downtown but that parking is not going to be coming and going the way your parking is. It's going to be coming and staying and then going maybe six, seven, or eight hours later. We are really pleased with Powers Brown and they have put together just a really good group of people as far as using Walter P. Moore Parking. Those guys have been in the parking business for probably a century. So they understand parking real well. We're beginning to learn a lot. And, of course, we've learned a lot from Ron Weise out at A&M...he's a parking war horse of Brazos Valley. Sims: Give me an idea of when we are going to start, and when we are suppose to finish. McBeth: We are going to start June l"...that's when construction starts and this should be finished by December 2010. Unless something gets in the way like another war or another Olympics that keeps using up all of the concrete and steel. With the economy the way it is, I know it's frustrating that it's taking so long to get this done but it's actually been a silver lining, because 2 months ago concrete was $146.00 a yard and now it is $44.00 a yard. We're hitting it at the right time. We want to be able to get our bid packages out on the street ...I know because of the stimulus package, TX DOT's going to award another billion and a half dollars. We've got a tremendous amount of interest on this project. We're probably going to have no less than 15 bidders ...big bidders. This project has gotten interest all the way from Dallas, San Antonio, Oklahoma City, and Houston; we've got a lot of folks interested. Our package is going to be on the street before any body else in the stimulus package... that's one of the reasons we are getting as much money out of the stimulus package as we are getting, is because our project is shovel ready, we're ready to go today. Sims: It is going to be pre-fabbed. in Houston or Dallas or wherever? McBeth: Yes, it's all pre-fabbed. It's all pre-cast. Every thing going into this garage is out of a box. Mallard: Has there been any thought to having some sort of covered pedestrian lanes to the courthouse from the parking garage ...I know you can't do it over the street? Vol III Page 9 of 21 McBeth: Yes, we looked at doing either a tunnel or a sky bridge but the cost added to the project and just the geometry... Mallard: Well not that grand, but maybe just a covered area to kind of get people.... Sims: Think big. McBeth: We looked at it but 26th Street is such ...it's just difficult to envision what we can do there. But we'll have the architects look at it again. We're changing the plan on this. Sims: Don't slow it down. McBeth: No, from March 10th, we have exactly 180 days to get this thing started because we've got a pretty big infusion of stimulus money in this. We're hoping to get another big gigantic infusion on Thursday. Jett: How many stops do you envision? Is it just two stops? McBeth: The shuttle will stop at each of those lots, and there will be a stop at the courthouse, there'll be a stop at the annex. Anybody that wants to get out anywhere along the way can ring the bell for the driver. The driver will stop at the next safest intersection and let them out. It's going to be a very friendly thing. There will be 2 drivers that drive this; they'll be the same drivers all time so you'll become very familiar. We are working with TxDOT about the crossing between the tax office parking lot and the courthouse on Washington; we've got Darla Walton at TxDOT working with her people over there in Traffic Safety to see exactly what we can do. Maybe blinking lights ...we are not going to be able to put a traffic signal there I can guarantee that. It's too close to William Joel Bryan and Texas Avenue. But we are working with TxDOT and Bob Appleton and his people are going see and help us out. This actually has morphed into a project. As far as partners there's us, the County, the City, and TxDOT and actually A&M is getting involved, so it's gotten into a pretty big partnership. Sims: Other questions Gentlemen... while we have John here. McBeth: We're going to leave this here for you and Margie will send her the electronic edition of this if you want to send it out. If you have any suggestions on how to change this route to make it better or more convenient or what you think we need to do, just give them to Margie, and we'll make sure it happens. Vol _l19 Page 0 10 of 21 Sims: Margie's very kind to us, ya know I get to screaming and hollering at her and she just says, now calm down Judge. McBeth: She is very accustomed to being screamed at. It's a good project and we look forward to building it. It's going to be a great benefit to Brazos County and the two Cities. Sims: With what Bryan has planned in downtown Bryan off and on, this is going to be a great facility to be able to accommodate the people that are coming to downtown Bryan. McBeth: Particularly the development they are about to do in the far north end of downtown Bryan. This particular facility is a key component to that particular development and that's where a lot of the parking is going to come from because they're not going to have very much down there. So this is going to be a generator. And, of course, anything that is in that circle is eligible for anything that upgrades or makes it more simple for transit... is eligible for Federal funding so we're working that. All the little red things on your maps have already been qualified for federal funding; those are curbs, lights, lamps, and things like that. Everything in this garage will match the master plan for the development of downtown Bryan as far as streets scape and signs. It's going to work out very very well. It won't look like a parking garage. Sims: Other questions Gentlemen? John, thank you I appreciate you coming. McBeth: Thank you. I appreciate it. Langley: On the shuttle buses that are going to be coming to the courthouse, what is the bus capacity on each bus? McBeth: Each of the buses can carry 22 people and 2 wheelchairs. At peak, if we have too many people we will have to put more buses on that route. So, at peak which is early in the morning, there may be 3 buses all together so we are able to transport all of the people. Langley: You are going to be moving 22 people every ten minutes? McBeth: That's 22 seats and then another 10 standing. Langley You run the front door, is that going to be enough from 8:00 to 9:00 in the morning? Vol Page 1 06 11 of 21 Spradlin: I'm trying to comprehend everything at one time here. From 8:00 to 9:00 is our busiest time.... Langley And then lunch time, then quitting time. Spradlin: Right, like today we were steadily backed out the front door for about an hour. Langley I'm guessing at this point that 22 every 10 minutes is not going to be enough between 8:00 and 9:00, between 11:30 and 12:30, and between 4:30 and 5:30. McBeth: We will get with you and figure out what your numbers are so we can put together a plan. We have arrangements with A&M where we can also get buses that will carry 65 people if we need to have that many buses down here. We'll design the plan to carry what we need to carry at peak. McLeod: How many jurors do you call at one time, Judge? Langley There will be occasions where we will have about 250 people coming to three courts at a time, that's eighty per court. The two smaller courts, the County Courts, usually only have 30 show up per trial. The District Courts, I have 80 show up on an average, and the others have around 50. That is just the jurors, that's not District Magistrates, docket, and anything else that is going on. Of courses the witnesses, the attorneys, and everybody else associated with all of that. I'm guessing that 22 every ten minutes is just not going to handle the 8:00 to 9:00 in the morning. McBeth: We will adjust it to the number of buses, the size bus we'll need to handle the peak.. Langley When you were talking about the free transportation with the jury summons, does that mean the witnesses and the defendants are going to have to pay? McBeth: As far as public transportation? Langley: Yeah, the witnesses are being subpoenaed to appear. McBeth: Our issue is what kind of documentation they would have, if they've got a subpoena... yes Langley: What about defendants with (inaudible) notices. Vol Page Yi 12 of 21 McBeth: We can do that. Margie will need to get together with you, Judge, to work out the mechanics of how we want to do that. Lucas: If you could give me an example of what the documentation will look like so we can train our drivers. Langley: Well who do want to have to pay and who do you not want to have to pay? McBeth: Someone that's coming to court, that has to come to court we don't want to.... Lucas: If they're being summons to come here... McBeth: We want them to ride free. Lucas: ...to serve, whether it's a juror, a witness, what have you...those people would normally come here of their own way, so we don't want to make them pay to ride the bus. Langley: And then we've got grand jurors that have to come every two weeks, that don't have pieces of paper but once when they first come. McBeth: And what we can do is we can give all persons fair media and we can give those to the attention of the judges and they can distribute them or give them to whomever ya'll want on your side to be able to distribute those passes. Mallard: If they're driving here, no body has to pay to circle around the Courthouse. McBeth: Right. It's only if you are coming by public transportation. Lucas: To get them to ride the bus here instead of coming and parking, we can just develop a little pass that ya'll can hand them when they come in, then they can use that pass. Mallard: Judge, how many of those folks are riding public transportation? Langley: Well, that's why when you said that I kind of smiled because I don't think you're going to get a big turn out. Mallard: So that may not be a big issue then, other than needing buses. Vol W"I Page 13 of 21 Langley: Texans are just not going to give up their cars. Another question I had was; is there any plans ...you might have mentioned that once and I didn't quite catch it... is there any plans to put a light at the intersection of 25th and Texas? McBeth: No, that's an issue that... Langley: That's a dangerous intersection. You're going to make it more dangerous with this parking garage. McLeod: Judge, there is one at 25th and Texas. Langley: 26th is the one that runs between the garage and the courthouse, so what is the one just to the right? Lucas: 27th Langley: So 27th. Street, that intersection right there is a planned turn for the buses... Lucas: They'll be making a right turn. Langley: And you will not have a light. McBeth: Right, they'll be making a right hand turn there. Langley: And it's also a planned turned for everybody driving out of that parking garage. And we need to get a light there to protect that intersection. McBeth: That's really going to be up to Tx DOT, that's their... Langley: They don't have the excuse of William Joel Bryan because there's one at 26th, so they don't have that excuse for not putting one. Lucas: And originally when it was discussed with them early, in the planning stages, they had turned it down. But that was over a year ago. Now after we get through with those traffic impact studies we're going to have to go back to them and see if they will reconsider that. Male: (inaudible) Langley: That's something I noticed from what you were talking, we've got an uncontrolled intersection with people coming in and out of that parking garage you're going to have to deal with. Vol Page 14 of 21 McBeth: And like Margie says, we're doing a traffic impact analysis right now with the City of Bryan, so once that's done, that will go over to TxDOT and then it will be up to TxDOT to decide what they want to do. As the Judge knows their lights are timed all along Texas Avenue and they're tied into the thoroughfare plan for both the city of Bryan and the city of College Station. That will just be up to their traffic engineers, we really don't have control over what their traffic engineers do. It would be very unusual for them to want to have a light at William Joel Bryan, at 26tH, 27tH and then 29tH Lucas: Another thing is, people exiting the garage, there're going to have to wait for the control arms to go up and down, and that will delay how many cars get backed up there at 27th and Texas, because they will have to wait for that arm to cycle every time someone exits the garage. So that may help if you're concerned about how that's going to affect people exiting on to Texas. Langley: Well I know they rejected us putting a light at Washington Street. Is there a chance we can get a light at Regent on William Joel Bryan? Lucas: That would be marvelous. Langley: People are not going to take this bus, they're going to walk ...a lot of them, you're going to be increasing pedestrian traffic across that busy intersection at Washington and William Joel Bryan. Lucas: Maybe someone can talk to the City of Bryan about.... because they have the ability to put a traffic signal in wherever they please as well, even if it is on a TxDOT maintained roadway as long as they coordinate it with them. Anybody from the city here? Langley: Whenever you begin construction on phase one, the demolition of the parking lot are you going to.... you said you're going to close Washington McBeth: Washington will be closed permanently at that time. Langley: What about the parking lot that's next to the existing..... McBeth: Probation. It will remain open. The people will have to enter that parking lot though in another manner. They'll have to enter either from Regent or they'll have to enter from 271H Vol 119 Page 15 of 21 Langley: Yes, Regent or 27th. Those are the only two accesses that are not on Washington. And the parking spaces are designed for the Washington Street McBeth: Right and they'll have to be restriped. Langley: They need to be restriped so the flow goes through properly. Is that in the plans? McBeth: Right, that's part of the marshalling of the whole project; we'll restripe it before we close Washington Street. Langley: Okay, well that's all the questions that pop into mind. Sims: Okay, anybody else? Yes Sir? Eric. Caldwell: John how far along did you say the design for the probation and retail space is? McBeth: The design for the whole program's 100% which we've got the design for all of it done. Caldwell: We're going to be doing the install of the data and network cabling; we at least need to take a look at that and sign off on that. So I don't know if my staff has been able to get a hold of you, I don't think my staff has been involved in that process. McBeth: In Probation we've worked with Arlene, but Margie's got the plans. Caldwell: Do you know if Bill Holland has been involved in that? Lucas: I gave the guys at Powers Brown Bill's number and I don't know how frequently they've talked. (inaudible) Caldwell: I'll get together with Bill then and maybe have him contact you or confirm that he had Powers Brown's contact info. In addition to doing the network and data telecom cabling in that building, we're also going to need to put in conduit underneath this project somewhere, to interconnect this building and the courthouse with fiber optic cabling. Lucas: Right. Male: And Adult Probation. Vol Pager- 16 of 21 Caldwell: And Adult Probation. Lucas: Well, we'll make sure Phil and the guys at (inaudible) talk again. Eric: Okay. Langley: Are there plans to have either a sun protection or a rain protection location at each of these lots for people to wait to be picked up by the bus in the rain? McBeth: We haven't gotten that far, but we can put passenger shelters at each of those locations. We have passenger shelters we can put there so if people are waiting to...that way they'll at least know where to congregate. Langley: But there's going to be plans? McBeth: We haven't done that yet but we have the ability to install those passenger shelters where you want them installed. Spradlin: Is there any security per say, video or anything watching these lots? McBeth: Not right now, no. We have a private security company that we use that we can have patrol them but because they're all in that general location; we'll probably work with Bryan PD and let them routinely patrol those lots. Spradlin: Because depending on the cases at the courthouse, there's a lot of times we have to take the juries out to their vehicles, and some of those lots look pretty far away to be sending one or two of my guys way over there. McBeth: Margie will get with you and we'll work on securing that. Lucas: There may be (inaudible) because it's the one that's right down from that ATM. But the other is about ...I mean I don't know what the experience at the tax office was. But from the other one...the parking lot (inaudible) Spradlin: Right now we have quite a bit of foot traffic right there at Washington going across William Joel Bryan. (inaudible) Langley: Anyway, that's all I have. Lucas: I think he's through. Vol _ I C Page 17 of 21 Sims: Okay, any other questions? Comments? Langley: Ya'll ready for all the complaints that will come? Sims: Just like always. Female: Where (inaudible). McBeth: I've already told (inaudible) that I'm sending him his directions. Caldwell: Judge if we start now, maybe we can just get out of the way early ya see? Sims: Yeah. That's true. Okay John, thank you very much. Appreciate it. McBeth: Thank you. Sims: Keep us advised, as this moves down because that would be helpful to us. McBeth: We will. Sims: Ok. McBeth: All right, thank you. Sims: Okay, the next item on our agenda is discussion regarding parking at the tax office. Peters: I think the reason that items got on there is because I was a little concerned... we've been hearing that they might put a restaurant in the old Coke building right there which this backs up to. This whole parking problem could get worse if that happens, because if we've got a restaurant right there next to the parking lot, that parking lot belongs to the County and are we going to try to do anything to control the parking lot for people coming to the courthouse to do County business? I don't know. I know we can. We could gate it if we wanted to, we could control who parks there because it belongs to the County. I don't know weather we want to, but I think it's something we need to be talking about and thinking about. Sims How well do signs work? In other words you could put signs up there, saying please... Peters: That you'll be towed? Vol ( C1 Page -6!~ 18 of 21 Sims: Yeah. Mallard: Remember that wrecker ordinance we just passed. That's what works. Peters: I don't know what we'd do, but I think it's something we need to be thinking about, because if that parking lot fills up with patrons of a restaurant and nobody can park that needs to come to the courthouse, we may be dealing with an issue. Mallard: All three of these parking areas are going to be close proximity to this new restaurant so, I would say we were going to have to restrict parking to County business only. I don't see any other way around it. Unless you can hang those parking garages up in the air or something. Probably notify the future restaurant owner and the City of Bryan. Langley: Why don't we just give them tickets instead of towing them? Turn it into a big generator instead of a... Peters: For the County rather than for the... Mallard: Works for me Langley: If the sheriff or constable issues a ticket, the County gets the money. Peters: If we're going to need signs there ...and we are. If we're going to do anything there, we're going to have to have signs up. There's going to have to be a notification, so, that's really what we need to be deciding. If we're going to do it, and if we're going to put signs up, we probably ought to put signs up there right now notifying people now and move on that direction rather than wait until we have the problem. Sims: Give them advance notice. Spradlin: We have 2 '/2 ton box trucks parking in there right now. From business around the area are parking their big trucks there. There're parking long ways which is taking 5 or 6 parking spots. Without a sign we can't enforce parking issues. Peter: Right. So I guess we need to decide what those signs need to say and how..... Sims: What businesses are parking in there? Spradlin: The paper one, right across the street and.... the businesses right across the street from the parking lot on the Regent side, west of the Regent Vol I 1~ Page 5~ 19 of 21 Street, a couple of those trucks are from there. I don't know where the other two came from. I know Carlos' guys came and told me about the trucks parking there and one of them was there for two weeks before it even moved. So it is an issue. There's been a lot of cars parked in there before, that I saw over there for a couple weeks, never moved, never did anything and all of a sudden they're gone. It's defiantly going to have to be signed to where we can enforce these parking areas, defiantly a sign that says no truck over one ton. I know a lot of people have one ton dooleys in the County ...they come to do business so we have to look out for those guys but as far as the 2 1/2 ton trucks and bigger, I don't see why we'd want them in there anyway. You're talking about a lot of weight that's going to probably tear up the parking lot anyway. The only reason I had that knowledge is because the (inaudible) a long time ago. So, I know a little bit about the traffic weight. That is our problem that we're having in that parking lot right now. We don't seem to have it in the one where the parking garage is going, but we defiantly have it in the one across the street. Carlos: Carlos Guitron, building maintenance. Those two trucks that Todd had mentioned earlier, did eventually go over on Regent Street to where that Insite Magazine building's at, I know they've been doing it for years, no ones ever said anything to them, between the 911 building and their building, they'll park their truck right in the middle of the street and they moved one of those trucks into their ...I don't know if they were moving equipment in or out, and then that truck was gone and they eventually brought the other truck into that street also. Like I said, they've been doing that for years. I don't know if it's going to be a problem trying to move these buses around once the parking garage starts. Reason we brought up the trucks to Todd, we know the public parking people were parking there some times over night There's about 22 employees in that JP4 Justice Building, that park around that building, the other 30, 40 people that work at the tax office are parking in that little private parking lot. There's been some demolish to the house that was back behind there and the business the Stars and Stripes Auto Detailing, those two structure are gone, so that owner that purchased that, is moving toward something there and I don't know if he'll eventually kick the tax office out. Hopefully with not in the next 18 months, but that's going to be another 30, 40 people rolling out into that parking lot. Sims: Okay, thank you. Mallard: I guess with a work shop we can't give direction or make decisions but 1, would assume we need to look at something as far as getting signs up and letting people know that, that parking lot is going to be full from folks Vol ) I q___ Page -5 1 20 of 21 using the county facilities. We'll need to set something up or get an item on an agenda to figure that out. Sims: To define what's going to go on the parking signs ...I assume. Okay, any other, comments? Questions, whatever? All right I will adjourn this meeting of the Commissioners' Court, this workshop session. Thank you very much for coming. Tape ends. Vol Page G8 21 of 21 The foregoing minutes of the Commissioners Court Workshop held March 3rd, 2009, have been examined and approved in open Court this the day of 4,2(, - Brazos p~ , in Bryan, Brazos County, Texas. -d e- 01 Randy S'ms Lloyd assermann Count Judge Commissioner, Precinct No. 1 Duane Peters Kenny Mal rd Commissioner, Commissioner, Precinct No. 2 Precinct No. 3 C ey Caul y, Jr. Commission r, Precinct 4 Attest: Kar n McQueen County Clerk % O w Vol ( Page BRAZOS COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT 2 ~ ,d Meeting on 3 , 2009 A @` ' Q )k Name Organization / Department h /t bk'70,~> rd 51r fj"< H~~ JAI,, - J. D. Lan ~e d'.~ Ca~~f s (C~ lz C4L,~~. o'(4 . L\--, ftcAn q~71. 116~k lw,::~ 1-1~,104L cis PAGE of 107, ,