Historic Town Hall and Rail Station Update

At the Council meeting of August 28th,  Staff was directed to explore the feasibilitiy of relocating the Old Town Hall to the rail station site with ancillary benefit of  having some of the foundation costs shared with the funding partners of the Northstar Commuter Rail - as part of the boiler plant portion of the larger project.  Additionally, the building may serve commuters (and others) in any number of ways.

During the above discussion, two sites were proposed, and are shown in the exhibit entitled Historic Building Location Options.  One aspect of this case is to develop consensus on limiting the unfolding discourse to Option #1.  There are several reasons why Option #2 may not be worth pursuing, and in summary are as follows:

• City staff has indicated to the rail project team that either the boiler would be need to be in a building architecturally compatable with the COR design guidelines,  in a basement, built for the Old Town Hall, or in an underground vault.  At the conclusion of the discussion, a vault suitable for setting the Old Town Hall upon was agreed to with the Regional Rail Authority and Metropolitan Transit agreeing to pay the estimated cost.  The City would need to dedicate the land and pay any additional cost to put the building on the foundation.
• However, if Option #2 were selected, there would be significant impacts to the existing investment in landscape and hardscape in locating the building there. And if for whatever reason the building move did not occur, the vault would remain there with much of this same negative impact having occurred - now with vault stacks protruding main area of the Municipal Center's campus.
• The two structures (i.e., the utility building, and the historic town hall or substitute structure) could be located independantly on different sites to allow each to proceed on its own schedule.
• In any event, as relocating the building appears to require a Environmental Assessment Worksheet (EAW), as well as other steps, notifications and fact-finding, it appears that some months may pass before the structure may physically be moved and direction is needed for the boiler plant infrastructure.  A structural evaluation and construction estimate will be a part of further study.

The other point of discussion for the work session is to communicate the update costs of physically moving the building ($36,000) which are identified in the attachment and to determine whether the Council still wishes to pursue this option, or another alternative.

The project design engineer (Kimley-Horn)  will be at the work session to discuss more detail about the various options.

None required at this time/pending discussion.  Land proceeds from the historic town hall site could be available upon sale of that property.  The City's portion of rail station project contingency money (projected balance $294,000) could also be considered.

Provide direction on the various aspects of relocating the Old Town Hall to the Northstar rail station site.