LET TERS
NO BASIS FOR DECISION
I attended a work session of the Eugene
City Council dealing with options for
a new or remodeled City Hall. I had a
career in construction, and owned and ran
a consulting construction cost-estimating
business in Eugene from 1980 to 2003.
The work session was about how to
proceed with the project: Whether to build
new or remodel; and if the decision were
to build new, the old City Hall would have
to be demolished. I understand that the old
City Hall structure is made up of quite a
number of structures, each with separate
post-tensioning. Demolition of post-
tensioned structures can be very complex
and expensive.
No current estimate of construction
costs was presented. Items known to be
missing from estimates — cost escalation,
contingency, demolition and other items —
were not quantifi ed. There was no design
to estimate.
Where the new building would be
located is unknown — several sites on the
City Hall block (and some elsewhere) were
discussed.
The next day the council approved
demolition of City Hall and construction
of a part of a new City Hall.
That is decision making in the absence
of virtually all the information required for
decisions. No budget (that I saw), no site
decision, no design, no recent or accurate
estimates, no schedule. Everything is
missing.
I recommend a halt while all the issues
VIEWPOINT
opted to have a quiet zone — providing for
safety without the need for a horn. A quiet
zone would increase livability in Eugene
by instilling a more peaceful living and
working environment, both during the day
and at night when most Eugene citizens are
trying to sleep.
The Eugene City Council is currently
considering creating such a quiet zone.
Make your voice heard, and let the City
Council know you support the creation
of a quiet zone in Eugene by signing the
petition at eugenequietzone.com.
Since such a quiet zone is already under
consideration, then the support it receives
from citizens could be more than enough
to tip the scales in favor of a quiet zone!
David A. Caruso
Eugene
LAUGHING AT UO
are considered and resolved. The city, by
failing to insist on clear resolution of all
essential issues, puts the consultants in an
impossible position. There appears to be
no basis for proceeding.
Tom Giesen
Eugene
A THOUSAND BLASTS
Eugene is a lot noisier than it needs
to be. By law, trains that travel through
cities without an established quiet zone
must sound their horn four times at every
intersection. For Eugene, this can add up
to over 1,000 horn blasts per day — blasts
which can be plainly heard throughout
the entire city, even though they are only
relevant to one intersection.
Over 600 cities across the country —
including Portland and Salem — have
TROUT VS. AMPHIBIANS
Every spring, ODFW sends hikers and
helicopters to our Cascades lakes to plant
trout in areas where they are not naturally
BY AL A N ZEL ENK A, EUGENE CIT Y COUNCILOR
The Best Option
THREE REASONS WHY A NEW CITY HALL MAKES SENSE
I
fully support the concept of reduce, recycle and
reuse. In fact I remodeled my 1927 house twice,
supported a remodeled building for the police
station, authored the reusable bag ordinance, and
I have been an early supporter of reusing Civic
Stadium. But sometimes that is not the best option, nor
the option that makes the most sense. After hearing and
analyzing the ton of information on this issue, I believe
building new City Hall is the right direction for Eugene
for three reasons: cost; sustainability and energy; and
accessibility, functionality and community.
Cost — It is clear that the latest information about
the existing structure of City Hall shows signifi cant
defi ciencies that will likely add potentially millions of
dollars to the three-year-old cost estimate to rebuild City
Hall. That cost estimate was done by Turner Construction
and was based on a conceptual idea without detailed
engineering evaluations. Turner did exactly what it was
asked to do — a high level estimate of costs to rebuild.
Today Turner says that with the recent more detailed
information available about the condition of the existing
structure, we should not rely on that cost estimate today.
An updated cost estimate by our hired architect,
Rowell Brokaw Architects, shows the net cost of the two
options is $21.4 million to rebuild and $12.5 million to
build new. Rebuild would cost $8.9 million more than
4
Regarding shutting down the life
drawing class at the UO: Only an academic
artist who’s worried about losing a cushy
job with a highfalutin title would shut
down a long-lived and necessary drawing
class. All this move did was make the art
department a laughing stock in the true
art community. So much for diversity and
creativity at the UO!
Annie Kayner
Eugene
OCTOBER 16, 2014 • EUGENEWEEKLY.COM
building new (or about 70 percent more). Even if this
estimate was off by a factor of two the difference is still
over $4 million. But I believe Rowell Brokaw did a
very thorough and professional job, and it’s clear to me
that the build-new option has much lower cost and risk.
In addition, a new City Hall will be the substantially
cheaper option to operate over its life.
Some have argued that when we make this decision
we need to take into account Phase 2 of City Hall, and
when we do the rebuild option gets the advantage. I am
willing to talk about a consolidated City Hall or Phase 2,
but I don’t think we necessarily need a Phase 2 or that it
is a cheaper option. We killed a consolidated City Hall
plan back in 2008 because of its high price tag (about
$120 million) and the lack of support to spend that kind
of money. We decided to refocus our efforts on a plan
that would get us a new City Hall that we could build
within our current means (i.e., no borrowing). That is
essentially the direction we have been heading for the
last several years. So I am not holding my breath for
a consolidated City Hall any time in the near future. I
look at this decision as a stand-alone new small City
Hall project rather than a two-phase project, and from
that perspective building new is the less costly strategy.
Sustainability and energy — A new City Hall is
clearly the more sustainable option. It will use the land
more intensively and have a substantially lower energy
and carbon footprint over its life. An energy performance
study showed that the current City Hall has an Energy
Use Index (energy used per square foot per year) of
about 130. A new City Hall will have an EUI of about 30
(over 4.3 times as energy effi cient), and the best a rebuilt
building could achieve is about an EUI of 75 (two-and-
half times more than a new building). The energy and
cost savings of the new building will last the entire 50
plus year life of the building. A new City Hall can also
be built “net-zero energy” ready.
Accessibility, functionality and community — In
its day our current City Hall was a fi ne building, but it is
not anymore. It is not welcoming, it is inward focused,
it’s not fl exible, it doesn’t meet our functional needs and
it’s not very accessible. The rebuilt building using the
same basic structure won’t be much better. A new City
Hall would be welcoming, with a modern design for
functionality, and will be much more accessible. It would
be a real asset to our city, help create identity and pride
within the city and allow more people to participate in
the new meeting rooms. It would allow us to display and
celebrate our rich history, and a new public plaza on the
southwest corner would engage the citizens of Eugene
with City Hall in new ways. I also love the potential of a
new courthouse on the eastern portion of the lot, and an
expanded Farmer’s Market on the butterfl y lot.
For these three reasons I am in favor of building a
new City Hall.
Alan Zelenka represents Ward 3 on the Eugene City Council. His
email address is alan.zelenka@ci.eugene.or.us.