If you’ve been watching this, I suspect the new Sioux Falls City Administration castle that Democrat prince Mayor Mike Huether is attempting to build is going to continue to unravel the more that people continue to talk about it.
Here’s a facebook post from City Councilor Greg Neitzert that was recently noted by the Minnehaha County GOP:
Add to that what the Argus is saying this morning:
Back in April, after Mayor Mike Huether broke a tie vote to move forward with the new building, council members took it upon themselves to investigate the possibility of converting the 300 Building to a government office building. Following that, the city hired Koch Hazard Architects and construction company Henry Carlson Co. to assess the building’s viability. They determined the cost of turning the 300 Building into the type of facility that the city needs would cost about $21.6 million, about $300,000 less than building new.
Which would be all well and good if Kock Hazard and Henry Carlson were not the same businesses the city has contracted with to design and build the proposed new admin building.
Yep… I think it’s coming undone.
Three Comments:
First, Carlson and Koch Hazard are getting slimed by just doing their job as hired.
1) They were asked to design a building as per the customer’s request (City). It is not their fault the specs of the City are excessive for an administration building.
2) They were asked to estimate the cost to retrofit an existing building to an “as new” and comparable to the above design. It is again not their fault the specs are excessive.
Second, the advocates want a new building. Period. End of discussion. Any and all alternatives have not only been rejected out of hand, they didn’t even go through the motions of analyzing alternatives to give the impression something other than a nice, new building was considered.
Third, the advocates want it to be extremely nice and well-fixtured and for that are willing to pay a per square foot construction cost higher than any other office building of comparable size ever built in the City of Sioux Falls.
Oh, I agree that the business is simply doing what they were hired to do. It’s the administration that’s a bit tone deaf on the whole thing.
City Hall is awful, but, the 300 building will be a worse money pit, in no way is it designed for a high traffic public administration building. Let’s hope the new councilors look beyond the “because it’s there” option for 300 and lead on the issue. Best option: chuck the entire process to date and start over with a real space needs assessment. Lincoln County did a very accessible, cost-effective design not that long ago with lots of input from lots of stakeholders: nice process with a good result for the need.
If it were me, I’d build new on the new site, but, partner with a developer. Go up ten floors, not three, condo three floors for the City and put apartments on the rest. Then, develop the surrounding properties with mixed-use. You’d have a solid neighborhood then, instead of a government campus that’s a ghost town nights and weekends.
Government always groans first and grabs second and the people end up paying the bill. It may be time for a politician with Huevo’s to begin again the phrase; “No New Taxes!”