The Tumwater Public Works Committee will recommend that the city council approve an additional $11,025 for the historic Olympia Brewery Tower renovation.
In justifying the request for additional funds, Capital Projects manager Don Carney told the committee there is an increase in hourly billing rates due to the International Building Council Code changes in the structural seismic analysis.
“The International Code for seismic analysis has changed slightly since the original agreement,” Carney explained, “and there's more work that's going to be required by the consultant to provide us with the information that we need to approve the new seismic retrofit..”.
In 2018, the original agreement with the Cardinal Architecture PC was $170,570. It covered the design of roof repair, secure building opening, clean and restore brickwork.
On Oct. 8, 2020, the city signed another agreement for $194,720 to install and improve the foundation for seismic, seismic steel framing retrofit design and new floor where needed.
During the Public Works committee meeting on April 7, Carney updated the committee on the renovation of the century-old building.
“We have completed the roof renovations,” said Carney.“We have added a couple of pieces of metal to the center tower and new roofs to the fourth and fifth floors.”
The city council has signed three amendments for these projects, mostly to increase the time to work on the project.
Carney said the fourth amendment they are requesting is for structural seismic analysis.
If the city council approve and make a motion authorizing the mayor to sign the fourth amendment to service provider agreement for the historic building renovation, this brings the total project cost up to $323,315.
Self-sustaining project
Tumwater council member and Public Works Committee member Charlie Schneider expressed concern about the project’s sustainability in terms of funds.
“When the project started, we were assured that we would get public monies, grants, and private monies, Scheider said.“But it seems like every time this project moves forward, we keep asking for money from the city. At what point are we not going to ask for money or is it going to be self-sustaining?”
Brandon Hicks, Transportation and Engineering director, said the seismic upgrade would be the last stage where they would likely be injecting city funds.
“We have successfully obtained quite a bit of grant funding so far. There is still intent to make up the difference with private contributions or other sources. COVID-19 has eliminated the opportunity to see people that want to donate funds to this project. Hopefully, that trend changes,” Hicks said.
Tumwater City administrator John Doan explained the project had initial emergency improvements done primarily with donations.
The project, he added, was broken down into a series of phases.
Phase 1, Doan said, was about restoring the brick roof. Phase 2 was about the structural upgrade, including seismic retrofit.
“Those first two phases were essentially about preserving the asset. If we want to have this piece of iconography in our community, phases 1 and 2 had to happen,” he said.
According to Doan, the next phases will focus on utility, parking, protection on wall around the building from flooding.
“It is difficult to decide whether to proceed with the construction work on phase 2 without really knowing what has to happen and the actual design and a good cost estimate,” Doan said.
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