Parking Ramp Garage

The indoor parking of vehicles and equipment in and around the Municipal Center is very limited.  The purpose of this case is to review an option for parking and storage of items within the parking ramp garage.

Current Situation
Because of the lack of equipment storage space at the Municipal Center, staff is forced to make accommodations that are not the best use of time or space.

Snow removal equipment has been moved into the police sally port parking area due to lack of space in the police garage. This includes the large enclosed snow blower and the two ATV's.  Parking in the sally port area takes up one of the two spots and limits the police to only one squad in that area at a time.  Engineering staff parks their  work vehicles inside at the Public Works facility at the end of each day. This is done for two reasons; so they will start in the morning and because of the the valuable equipment inside the trucks.  These vehicles take up valuable space and are in the way at the public works site. Employees also spend time  traveling from the Municipal Center site to the Public Works site.  City owned vehicles parked outside in the cold ramp have had to be jump started in order to be used.

The city is currently storing vehicles and equipment in the old police garage on Nowthen Blvd.  This space will be gone when the site is sold for development.  The items, which include two police trailers and seized vehicles from time to time, will need to be moved to another location.

Proposed Solution
City staff has met with LSA Design, Inc. (the original architect for the parking structure) to discuss enclosing a portion of the Ramsey Municipal Parking structure.  LSA believes that a garage within the ramp is workable.  They have an overall understanding of the project and  are prepared to determine a reasonable budget for the the project.  To complete Phase One, to include the Building Code analysis, schematic plans and cost estimate, LSA would charge the City of Ramsey a lump sum fee of $4500.  The preliminary "ball park" estimate was $100,000 for the project.

As part of this project, LSA will provide electrical analysis to determine the cost-benefit of removing current metal halide parking ramp light fixtures and replacing with new LED fixtures. The work will include a new photometric analysis to determine design feasibility as well as cost analysis for both electrical energy and fixtures. 

The LSA proposal is attached.

Based on discussion and funding - late 2014 or 2015.  Staff is looking for authorization to allow LSA Design to complete a proposal on construction of a garage with the parking ramp.

Staff included $25,000 in the 2014 - 2018 CIP to be funded from the Facility Fund.  The Police Department has approximately $15,000 in a special account from "lot fees" for seized or forfeited vehicles.  The initial design fees of $4500 are proposed to come from the Facility Fund, however, additional funding will need to be determined.  Staff is proposing that this funding be proposed as part of the 2015 budget, once better costs have been establish through this initial design review.

City Administrator Ulrich will oversee the project with Dan Bray and Jim Way working with LSA on design .

To move forward with the proposed plan for storage space in the parking ramp by authorizing LSA Design, Inc. to prepare Building Code analysis, schematic plans and a cost estimate, plus a cost/benefit analysis of a lighting retrofit, per the attached proposal, for a lump sum fee of $4500.