 the Department of General Services for the City of Durham. So I want to welcome you to the community visioning for the new Durham Police Department headquarters complex to be designed and built on the former Carpenter Chevrolet property on East Main Street. So before we proceed with the agenda, I want to recognize special guests who are present if there are any officials, elected officials from State County or city offices. I invite you to stand and be recognized. Being none, they might be here shortly. Who knows? Okay. So thank you all for joining us tonight. I also want to introduce our development team, which includes a design team of O'Brien-Akins Associates and their team. So members of the O'Brien-Akins team, would you please stand to be recognized? And our construction management team is Lynn Lease-America's and members of Lynn Lease team, would you please stand to be recognized? Thank you. And the owner team consists of members of the Departments of General Services, Police Department, Emergency 911, and other supporting city departments. So city staff, would you please stand to be recognized? Thank you. So our agenda and purpose for this evening's meeting is shown here on the slides and includes project overview, program, budget, schedule, site and context, design considerations, and then discussion and giving you an opportunity to talk. So as the City Council was deliberating the purchase of the East Main Street site, we committed to have an open dialogue with the community on the opportunities that may exist for this site as a police headquarters complex and also discuss implications for development of adjacent properties in the sector. We've heard from neighbors and interested members of the community via email and also in the public media in articles written that this site is one which may offer special opportunities for the sector of downtown and offers not only opportunity design and build a new public building on East Main Street but also a chance for Durham to plan the complex in a way that complements the dynamic growth and balance development of downtown. So this session is intended to be a way for us to have an exchange of information and dialogue and we believe that this is an appropriate time to be sure that you understand the project purpose and that we obtain and document any ideas, suggestions, and goals that you may wish to share with us. So let's first review some data that could help everyone understand the parameters of the project. Okay. First of all, a little bit of history. The Durham Police Department occupied the former home security life building beginning in 1991 and the police department's occupancy of the 1958 building has been one of adapting to the open plan design for the building and performing numerous renovations over the years including many repair projects and spending more than five million dollars over this period on air conditioning, plumbing, heating, roofing, etc. Also it may not be commonly known that the building accommodates emergency 911 functions on third floor. The departments have outgrown the building without question and have no plans to keep any functions at this location in the future perhaps making the way for future owners to deal with opportunities that this property might have to offer. In addition the police department has leased space outside of the building both with headquarters components functions that will nearly be in the building and then also for the district offices as well and this leasing activity has increased over the years to a point to where we're leasing about 62,300 square feet of space outside of the headquarters and then this costs us about $934,000 per year on just leasing. So it was evident along the way that we were running out of space for the past several years the police department provided a number of studies both consulting studies as well as internal and this has been well documented in the space needs that were published in 2010 by CGL associates. They did an assessment of the operations of the police department as well as all of its facilities doing an analysis of the facilities and how well they were being used and so forth. CGL was selected though from a nationwide request for qualifications competition among firms that were specializing in justice in police facilities. So they worked diligently within the department spending a lot of time with the various divisions understanding the purpose and function of the divisions the amount of space they had what they needed what they did not have that they needed and what the future forecasts were. CGL provided an analysis of the police operations and concluded that the current facilities were undersized both undersized and not designed for police operations and they were inordinately inefficient. This analysis and recommendation by CGL were presented in their 2010 report and summarized in the consolidated space program that was provided to us. Functions in the new complex included assembling the following divisions together and planning for facilities for the year 2025 so it's not just to replace to place what we need in the building but also to have somewhat of a forecast for future needs. Many of those functions are included in the listing which includes office of the chief, professional standards, personnel and recruiting, community services, criminal investigations, special operations, crime analysis, planning accreditation, training, records, supply, administration, et cetera, property and evidence. District five offices. District five currently is on Rigsby street it's not in the headquarters it will be in the new headquarters facility location. Also Bicycle and canine patrols those are currently at Rigsby they will be incorporated in the new headquarters complex. Emergency 911 will be a part of it it was considered as a separate building at one time we believe it's much more efficient to bring that along with the new head of quarters complex and then parking. So as these needs were assembled and they were studied and forecasted areas Carter Goble recommended purchasing a site of about eight acres along with surface parking on a site that would be centrally located within the city and this was quite a challenging prospect and land search so general services department began looking for sites in 2012 and reviewed numerous options and various locations. So in 2013 though three locations were identified as the most preferred and began receiving consideration and some amount of due diligence were culminating with the actual purchase of the main street property the Carpe Rechivallet project property it was completed in March of this year and it consists of about four and a half acres about 4.4 acres are in that site and then we also were successful in purchasing the little triangle triangular Wilkerson triangular parcel which was a smaller piece but vital to completing the block of purchase for the new project. So I want to talk for a minute about the goals of the project the headquarters facility will consolidate many of the critical functions that a headquarters requires into one complex and in broad terms when you do the calculations and you total it up you get about 156,000 square feet of gross building area the offices meeting rooms and district five would be about 92,000 square feet and then the annex which include property and evidence forensics canine bicycle patrol and 911 communications with total about 64,000 square feet in broad terms also we have need for parking and on the site that we have purchased would need a parking deck and visitor parking about 535 spaces total and this will take about 200,000 square feet of area to build so here are some images showing the various types of space that we will have in the facility and these are brought from similar projects. The budget for the project is 62.4 million dollars and that's an all-inclusive budget which includes purchase of land, hiring of professional firms, furniture fixtures and equipment, construction management, pre-construction fee, actual cost of the work including overhead and profit and then also some contingency and that covers the budget part and there'll be further budget reports as we progress through the design. At this time now Julie McLauren will discuss the sequences and schedule for the design and construction of the headquarters complex Julie. Good evening. Our team is is very excited about this project and I'm excited to get your feedback tonight and hearing from tonight along with your feedback from the police department and 9-1-1 staff that will enable us to start getting going on some design options soon. This project is going to take some time over the spring and summer we will be progressively developing the design working back and forth with the police department 9-1-1 our construction manager Lynn Lease and the city and by the end of the summer we will move into construction documentation preparing final detail drawings and specifications. So by this time next year we will be achieving final approvals and Lynn Lease could be sending out some construction packages for bids and then we're estimating approximately 16 months for construction activities to take place and then there's final commissioning furniture installation the coordination of the move in all of that's also going to take a few months to get coordinated. So next we are going to talk a little bit about the site and context of the complex and discuss some design considerations to think about before we move to an open session where we really want to hear from you. I'd like to introduce a few others from our design team Pat Harris and Jay Smith will speak tonight about site and context. Pat is an architect with the Harris Collaborative and is extremely familiar with the neighborhood of our eastern site and Jay Smith is our director of landscape architecture and lastly you'll hear from Jeffrey Bottomley our senior design architect so I'm going to hand it over to Pat. Thanks Julie I haven't been here for very long I've only been here for about 25 years so I ask you to bear with me a little bit as we go through this but I'm very glad to see all of you out here tonight because it shows how much interest there is in this site and this area and I want to talk a little bit okay I'm going to have to sort of do something like this. Can you still hear me okay? All right all right I want to talk about Main Street. Main Street is where the site is located. Main Street in Durham travels from Hillsborough Road all the way out to Highway 70 over past Wellins Village. The site is located just a little to the east of downtown and it is in an area that when we were doing the Hope Six Project some of you may remember Hope Six yes when we were doing Hope Six we called it the Gateway the Gateway to East Durham and into the Hope Six Project. This site is located in what was called the Gateway Area and it is you can keep going it is now a part of what we would call the downtown area. The downtown area consists of Brightleaf, the Warehouse District, Central Park, City Central, the Government Services Area and the newest addition to the downtown area Golden Belt District. So it is both within what would be the Hope Six District and Golden Belt District and you can just keep going. It's also in the midst of three of our major historic areas we have three National Register Historic Districts close by the site. We have the site here which encompasses Golden Belt we have the National Register District up here which is a part of Cleveland Holloway and we also have the whole downtown National Register Historic District. Now we also have local historic districts which are you can see whether the dotted blue lines are those are local historic districts and while the site is not in a historic district it has to be it has to recognize that these districts are around it we recognize that and we recognize that it's also a part of the gateway between what is mainly considered our downtown area and East Durham. Keep going. The site also sits on major bus lines that connect back all the way down to the Durham bus depot and rail lines and I almost said I-47 147 and also our future rail lines our future transit area and to the south of the site there is actually a plan for a stop on on the rail line. So we have major streets crossing main street we have Roxboro we have Mangum and we have Fayetteville. All of these sites all these streets bring pedestrian an automobile rail and bus traffic to the site and pass the site so it's a very very busy place or will be a very busy place in the near future. Durham is a city where we talk about live work and play and what this is is not alphabet soup this is showing you areas of of living Oldham Towers here we have another development housing authority development we have Cleveland Holloway here we have part of Golden Belt here and we have work areas and municipal areas we have the courthouse area we have the human services building we have commercial areas those are in yellow those are commercial buildings we have the arts we have I forgot the name of it American tobacco thank you very much and the ballpark and we have Golden Belt here so the site is located within a lot of activity in our town and we look at it in terms of housing we have senior housing we have market rate housing that surrounds the in the in the belt district historic district and also up in Cleveland Holloway and we also have subsidized housing so we have a really good mix of housing around this site and we have major attractions that are easily easily accessible you can walk you can take the bus you can drive to almost any of the major areas of downtown from this site so it's located in a very it's a very centrally located site for what we're going to be doing here in the future there's future development planned at the south part of the site and also throughout other areas of downtown so the density is rising and and there's been a lot of talk about how density helps cities like Durham because as it becomes more dense we have more opportunities for pedestrians and for other means of transportation to be meaningful here and also with the human services building here this is the very busy and going to become even busier street and the site will be an integral part of it then police headquarters will be an integral part of this area and we have more opportunities for live work and play as this area develops and as it melds more with east Durham and with downtown central district and i'm going to stop now and i'm going to turn over to jay for a little bit more detailed focus on the site itself thank you pat my name is jay smith and i'm a landscape architect so i look through a little bit different lens but needless to say i'm excited to be part of this design team so as you might imagine i look at the site a little bit differently than architect or an engineer and as you listen to pat talking about the the broader context of this site we need we pay a lot of attention to that we'll also pay a great deal of attention to sort of our immediate neighbors around our site because we want to be sensitive to that we want to be a good neighbor and so we'll draw cues from those objects and those buildings and those spaces around us so let's talk a little bit about the site specific so the purple line which joel described is about four and a half acres such right about here a wonderful address on main street and i like the term that pat used when she said gateway because you think about gateways when you think about entering into east Durham as we project into this direction and we have key corners in which we're going to pay a lot of attention to and how we can make the appropriate statement at these gateways into uh into uh Durham and into further into east Durham we want to pay attention to views from this high point of the site we have a wonderful view back to downtown we'll look for ways to maximize that we'll also be sensitive about the views that others have and how we won't be careful about not impeding those or being respectful of that i really like the last slide that pat was showing about all the energy which seems to be coming in this direction in east Durham and so there's lots of opportunities i think that in time in addition to our site we'll continue to populate this area in a respectful and meaningful way so the site has a crown about here and it tends to slope off in each direction we'll we'll work with the existing grades trying to not over manipulate the site but to do it in a cost effective manner a great deal of the site is hardened it's a great deal the site is built now so we'll need to make room for our program that joel was describing which is fairly aggressive so there's a there's a great deal of pounds that need to fit into this bag if you will and we look forward to to coming up with schemes as julie mentioned in the coming spring and summer that address that so let's go to the next slide as we think about our neighbors and of course the the objects that are there today carpenter chevrolet next some of the buildings on here and you might be asking yourself why is this team telling me about this kind of stuff well it's important to us because we want to bring forward designs which are reflective of perhaps or borrow from or abstract the ideas of the site around us and not just ignore them let's go on we think about materials great expressions of things that we identify with Durham hope six golden belt yep next across the street one of the things will be keenly interested in is the size and mass of our neighbors and then so forth and how we will as jeffrey brings forward you'll hear from him in a moment designs not we're going to show you any designs tonight don't get me wrong but how we will think about our massing and being being respectful of our neighbors around us okay what's the next slide okay we have the residential units that pat talked about and there's a residence on our site we also i pointed i should have mentioned the dialysis center which says about here and some other residential units we have a new emerging brewery right here large parking lot as it relates to the social services general services building and of course hope six right here so i think the next slide is a segue for or there's the services building and the dialysis center thank you next okay so now you're going to hear from jeffrey bottomly jeffrey is a senior design architect with our firm and he's going to talk to you about some opportunities and then we're going to soon want to open the floor to hear from you thank you jay good evening um in an effort to start that conversation that we want to have with you with these next few slides we just thought we'd share some of the topics and things we've heard from the community to date and just again try to engage with you in some conversation about what you'd like to see at this site with this facility next slide um we heard a lot from jay i'm sorry can we go back we heard a lot from jay and pat about the context but what we didn't hear is directly from the community we want to understand your feedback and your thoughts about the context of this site we want to talk about the architectural expression um there's a lot of history in this area on this site we also want to talk about the future of Durham and the impact of that on um things that we should consider main street uh how should this building approach main street or address main street what are the thoughts that we might have there pedestrian experience um we want to look for opportunities to use landscape and open space to enhance the pedestrian experience and make a main street and other pedestrian corridors vibrant um and enliven them in any way that we can we want to talk a little bit more detail about the site in the neighborhood and the impact of future retail development and connection corridors that are planned within the community there are other issues parking as we talked about security there's significant programmatic elements that we want your feedback on we want to understand your thoughts about those things and your concerns so that we can address them appropriately other issues such as entry and connection um are things that might want to have more conversation how do we engage the community um and and we want to have that conversation again so that we can understand what those things mean to you and what they can what we can do to help you um just you know enliven this space and be a good neighbor so i'm going to open it up with Joel's help to discussion and consideration with the community thank you thank you j as the city council was deliberating the purchase for this property we committed to have an open dialogue with the community um on the opportunities that might exist for the site and also the implications for development of adjacent properties i'm very pleased to see mayor bell came in thank you for coming mayor and uh don moffat i saw don a second ago and then also councilman eddie davis thank you much for coming diane thank you diane catati appreciate that so in the course of events we've heard from neighbors and and interested members from various parts of Durham's community and the public media pointed out this site is one which might offer a lot of those opportunities that that jay and jeffrey mentioned pedestrian open space gateway um collaboration with adjacent properties and so forth now we want to hear from you though what do you want to see in connection with this site and the project um that Durham has as a asset to the sector of downtown what is a successful project look like to you in other words what's your vision so at this point i'd like to open it up and for you to give your ideas and thoughts to assist you just raise your hand and we'll bring a mic to you if you wish to use comment cards that's fine we'll collect those as you leave and also we have posted notes that you can leave on our boards so and we're recording this session so and we'll document your comments and so that you can give us uh any your ideas in any form that you'd wish so um like to open up uh who's first raise your hand please gentlemen right here minimizing negative impacts headquarters is to be located at the end of the street where i live when i went to a previous community forum for possible fatal street plans a cop snatched the book right out of my hands and would not let me see it so planning must include embarrassing considerations like proactive non-productive search it's an expensive deterrent to pedestrian traffic between east Durham and downtown Durham you don't belong here boy is one of the segregationist cops favorite sayings here threatening me and others for violating cops racial and social segregationist profiling rules so probably one of the main reasons for the site between halloween east main is to keep those people out on the other side of the tracks over there especially teenagers and young adults by making it clear that to go downtown you have to walk past a gauntlet of armed paramilitary officers whose job is to keep people in their place i'm quoting them in what they themselves call a target area quote our job is not law enforcement it's social control a former city councilman said we don't want all those poor people downtown and the city spent millions of dollars downtown for gentrified pedestrians and removed bus stops from downtown and men from both the chamber of commerce and downtown Durham Inc said they spent millions to move the bus terminal with all those poor people in the lowest decil of household income away from downtown on the other side of the tracks near the current police headquarters because we only want beautiful people downtown quote unquote all part of the gentrification of downtown and the goal of keeping all those poor people out of downtown Durham millions already spent gentrifying Durham so more millions more spent to keep them out of Easter out in east Durham out of downtown Durham is likely one of the main reasons for the east Durham site segregation is expensive but you've demonstrated a willingness to pay the costs of gentrification so how can you make evil intent seem less blatantly evil when you build a fortified castle at the gateway between downtown Durham and east Durham target areas get smiley face band-aids to put on the faces of non-gentrified pedestrians slammed down impacted on their faces in usually undocumented investigative field interrogation catch and release phishing expedition stop and searches and when there are pubic public pubic anal script searches you can put your happy face stickers where the sun don't shine teenagers are especially at risk of such treatment you don't want to hear about it then don't do it thank you sir and gentlemen in the back hey there thanks i think maybe i'm echoing some of the same sentiments but in slightly different unless um flowery language um so i don't have that gift the um i think what i'm mostly concerned about is that the municipal buildings along main street at about five o'clock the staff empty out and go home which creates sort of an an empty sidewalk feel for people who want to come from the center part of downtown and maybe walk towards golden belt in into the neighborhood so it's just sort of a things tend to go dark the opportunity there is that you know the county does have a lot of parking need for those office workers and that could then serve businesses that do want to be open after five and you know add some nighttime life so that that could be kind of cool if you would do that so it's another way of looking at the county buildings and the city buildings not becoming a visual or a practice or in terms of habit barrier and then the other thing i just i think from an art standpoint that we can hopefully do some things that make that street front encouraging and feel less like an armed barricade i know the police have a lot of security issues but i think there is a way to to make it sort of very civilian and pedestrian friendly for families who are visiting as well as the officers so and i'm some of this is there is a public art committee that's going that's taking a look at this so and i see some of the representatives from that project here in the room too so there you go thank you sir a gentleman in the black hat in the center center quarter good afternoon i know many y'all do not know that our new building downtown it rains in it that's the county building it rains in it i hope whoever's going to put this building together understand that we taxpayers still got to pay even though it's raining in the building okay so one of the problems i've known and i've asked about it's too much glass around that building so somewhere in some place water is seeking in but when you tell them to look into it you get no answer i'm just like the man spoke with first our councils and county commission does not work in the best interest they claim to be working for the people so i hope you will have many many opportunities for the citizens to speak out about this building before you start and one of my last comment please make sure the dermis get some of those jobs for that amount of money we are paying to invest in that building i know they're going to tell you they cannot write into the contract but the federal government have talked says it's not if you negotiate right it can be written in the contract but when you do not negotiate it we will be left out again just like the soccer man said separating one side of the city against another side of the city will that be fair because the east side will be paying for it while the other side be enjoying it thank you thank you sir miss peterson next um yes my name is mrs peterson victoria peterson and i i'm one of the activists here in this community and for quite a few years um many of us have gone down to the city council and to the county commissioners to talk about the crime and i've been saying for years that crime is big business uh we're talking about building a 62 million dollar police station yes the police department probably does need a new police station but i also think what is really needed in this community i would love to have some more meetings like this to really address the crime problem particularly what is going on in the african-american community over the last several years since about 2000 and the other day i went back and i did some research we've had over 200 murders in this community since 2000 since 2000 to the presence now i know you want us to talk about this building why can't we use some dollars in this community to stop building courthouses to stop building police stations and really deal with the problem and the problem is we have a lot of young folk black Hispanics white men that are caught up in this criminal justice system cannot get employment cannot get jobs and they run rapid shooting and killing our citizens in this community so one of the things i would like to ask and i know time is moving on the five million dollars that we are spending on to purchase for the acres of land was at 4.5 acres five million dollars i think is a lot of monies to buy land downtown dirt too bad over the last several years we could not have really developed some good programs to work with these young men and women to get them out of this criminal justice system so i would like to say just like my friend back here stated who is going to be setting aside to make sure that our dorm residents our young men in this community will get jobs in job training i think it's going to take what about what two years to build this facility i think would be a good job training program we have the holton school put some construction training programs there to help these young men and women to get jobs also and i do not want to be racist or prejudiced but i've been out on some of these job sites several years ago that we had in this community many of those persons came in from out of town to get work we've got to make sure and i want to know what company we'll be watching that we'll be keeping an eye to make sure that dorm residents will be getting employment and job training i would like to um get a report a quarterly report on this project to make sure that our local citizens also i do know a little bit about construction so i would like to see a camera some construction sites now you can put a camera and the kids and the young folks can watch the building of this project so i would also like to ask if a camera but overall too bad that this community over the years really have not put some programs together to really address the crime that is running rapid particularly particularly in the african-american community and i live there two and three o'clock in the morning we have guns going off shootings going off young black men being shot and killed on the streets and that's what we need to spend some time on instead of keep building courthouses and jails and thank you very much thank you ma'am who's next howdy i'm going to try to ask a question uh there was kind of some reference to uh some of the developments going on in that area both with the police department and some of the private development going on um and as the current situation in terms of sidewalks and crosswalks and things stands it's kind of a mess and there's about to be a whole bunch more people walking around that neighborhood uh in addition to the police station and the considerations with that construction are there any other plans in that area of town to improve pedestrian experiences i'll try to answer that question very briefly although we want to hear from you but i would say this one of the pre-design aspects that we believe is a requirement is to do a traffic impact analysis in conjunction with the design of this project so that we can look at what the impacts are on traffic both present future and then also to look at pedestrian access ADA Americans with disability acts and so forth so that we are able to respond to those needs specifically as they relate to this project on this site i think it's safe to say that that the connection pedestrian connection between golden belt and downtown has probably not materialized to the to the level that people might have anticipated when that project began um and i i think that there are i think there are some very uh some various obvious problems with that pedestrian corridor right now and i just would like to remind everybody that that's going to happen again if we don't do something thank you very much sir who's next gentlemen the red hat how you doing uh good evening i spoke with mrs. off krita prior to coming into this uh this room today and i was trying to get her to give me her card so i could get in contact with her my my concern is it's getting my hand on the ruckus of decision that was made regarding that site uh i'm a little foundation of what i'm saying i'm a former member of the ciara club environmentalist we recently had a case not recently but back in 89 in north of virginia dealing a site that is similar to this that is lead base and petroleum base i have filled out my common chief of requests i'm concerned about the feasibility study the environment environmental impact study and the statement for remediation cleanup at that particular site in question i know for a fact when i was living in derm cost my father worked at that car dealership they planted petroleum in the earth there was lead placed in that earth and lead is a carcinogen it travels like half guns will travel you probably will find some of those hot spots as we call it in environmental you know uh state way over there on hollow way in liberty street uh i noticed the senior citizen building there's there are no telling the high levels of toxicity that they have right there at olden towers my question that i'm asking is what was the environmental assessment and statement what was the preliminary study to determine the need for an environmental impact statement and what was the record decision what was the environmental article i want to know these things prior to improper disposal of the hazardous waste that was at that site that is in the ground now what was the record of decision and the removal action if any on that scene and in my conclusion i would like to state this lead and petroleum is toxic it is a toxic mellow that is present in the air in the food in the land and in the salt and in the water to go out and build a facility regardless how much need we are in it for the police department without considering the environmental impact in the future on our men women and children a good example we found that people who live on these lead based sites without proper remedial redress there are families who happen to be members of the police department when they get their clothes home and wash them in their machines they are transferring those toxic waste and toxic elements over to their family so i'm asking that we have a clear pure EPA assessment none of these little bow jingles bamboozle clean-ups that you have put forth thus far now i am i'm in the process of preparing a freedom of information act a public information act requesting certain information regarding this site and i am prepared to get to the federal court if necessary i didn't win this route before i didn't want it in north vigenia jd versus the city of postman in north vigenian epa so i don't mind going that route again thank you sir mr jackson next i think that i'd like to say that the environmental investigations done so far to date our public information they can be requested and they can be provided upon request so we'll be happy to provide that so next one mr jackson okay then next next one after that okay hi my name is susan and i live in the cleveland hallway community and i think that touching upon what you spoke about a lot of what's been happening has been a community effort trosa seas garden not so much coming from the city of the county with the police station and the justice system and those big massive buildings you speak about density and vibrance density and vibrance that brings life we're talking about people businesses part of the reason that golden belt hasn't seen the growth is because it takes a long time to have these grassroots effort you show central park as a business district 10 years ago central park didn't exist all those businesses have been open 2009 onwards who knows what this area could be i mean there's aria a sidery there who knows what these buildings could be if you're not destroying all of them and building a police station in the next five years this area could have been the next central park we never know for sure now i want to ask now that you're taking this whole area removing it and an open space is not a surface parking lot lined with trees that's not welcoming everybody here has already mentioned many times that every time that there's government buildings built everybody leaves after 5 p.m and there's no one on the weekend it's a dead zone it's a blight on our city what are you going to do to add back some affordable commercial space that you are clearly destroying with this project what are the plans for that how are you going to connect what will have been part of the downtown corridor with this project that you're now destroying thank you thank you i'm speaking on behalf of the property owners along ramson street i heard a previous valid comment about pedestrian orientation particularly along east main street which is very important but the fact is that you also face ramson street and ramson street is already picking up significant momentum you have a brewery that is about to open a gentleman just purchased building at the corner of dullard in ramson and is going to open an arts and entertainment center and i visualize a lot of those buildings converting over to offices retail entertainment i even visualize some of the tenants that are in the core of downtown that are getting squeezed by higher rents would come to the ramson street area and you may be planning a parking deck fronting ramson street and so i just wanted to put in a plug to encourage pedestrian activity along ramson street and not a cold hard parking deck but one that might be dressed up thank you thanks thank you for having this session first of all it's great to get authentic community involvement i hope this is the first of many that you're doing i would love to leapfrog and echo a lot of the comments that are being made we've got a great opportunity here to have an ugly if you will government building which i trust under obrien atkins would never happen of course because they're a solid company but integration of public art under the city's public art policy which is a percent for arts policy is a great opportunity we have here we can take existing line item budgeted construction costs such as cement paint walls landscaping security measures etc and with small incremental investments do best practice design best practice design and public art so we hope that you can integrate those and a lot of the comments are talking about sort of a we versus us and one of the things that occurs to me is the police is a community they are people that live among us and we are them and they are us but too often it's created as separate and so we have a chance here to bridge the various people using this building whether it's the employees themselves whether it's victims victims families the perpetrators city officials that are coming and other people having various meetings at-risk youth and then of course all the community around and so with intelligent design starting now in the design process not just plunking down a statue in the front but connecting and integrating that art from the get-go for small incremental investments it can make a world of the difference to create what we keep talking in Durham is a progressive new and vibrant city so please like to advocate for considering public art and best practice design thank you thank you for your comments next next lady in the back go ahead she's be after you I'll go ahead I just want to speak for urban design and I guess I have a couple of concerns one is the any building here needs to be integrated into the urban fabric of this part of the city now unfortunately over time the urban fabric of this part of downtown has really been messed up very badly and you can see a real great example of it right to your west with a huge parking lot and the government services building which does not integrate with the pedestrian realm in any kind of way there isn't anything there to attract a pedestrian to come into the building unless there happen to be a client if you're walking by there it's it's just it's it's part of the the urban wasteland that we have so much of in in Durham as you walk along our sidewalks you have some interesting buildings you have some nice shops and then you'll have a block of blank wall a block of surface parking a block of parking garage that it does not relate to the urban fabric you have a wonderful opportunity to recreate the urban fabric in this area here I would strongly encourage you to consider ground floor uses that have nothing to do with the police department and would contain retail uses this could make money for the city I know there are some of our political leaders who have a lot of concerns about laws that make this kind of thing difficult I think that just calls for some creativity and some innovative thinking on the part of our leaders I think that's what's called leadership I believe that particularly along Ramzer and Main Street there needs to be ground floor non-office commercial type uses retail uses restaurant uses uses that will bring people to that area after five o'clock and during the day I also would like to suggest that the design of the building itself look as less as little like a fortress as possible I think it should look like any other office building in the city except well and with ground floor retail I understand you know I guess the whole question that that my whole thing with security is you know I hear people talk about that you know they have to have to build security is a concern who are you trying to secure yourself from would that be the city the people of the city of Durham those are the clients for this building those are the people who you're building the building for and not building it for the police you're building it for the people of the city of Durham so it should be something that they're proud of that they're not afraid of it should be something that's not there to scare them away so again I would encourage you to look at designs that make it look like any other office building or a hotel or whatever that would be built downtown I think that the police can do a lot to address their security concerns by perhaps looking at the way that they interact with the people in the community now if they can improve that if they can stop some of the practices that that they say they're not doing but everybody else in the community seems to feel that they are and I think feelings in this kind of thing have as much validity as whatever the police chief says in the statement about about all the you know the kind of activities that the people are concerned about profiling and those kinds of things not saying that it happens but there certainly is a perception and if you can deal with those perceptions then you know you don't need to make the place a fortress it can be just another building downtown so I would really just like to encourage you to integrate this into a future urban fabric that is developing very nicely on the western side of downtown it's not happening here again it's very disappointing that the county couldn't have done that with their buildings and with their surface parking if there's any way that we can not have surface parking or structured parking at the edges of the property so that they're right out there in the public realm but can be maybe more internal to the building I think that would be very advantageous don't build a building that turns it back on its people please build a building and develop this site in a way that welcomes the people of Durham into this area encourages them to come down if you want to make this if this is a gateway make it a gateway don't put a block at the gateway put something welcoming that will encourage people to come in and and again it's integrated with the urban fabric and makes it a nice place for pedestrians the pedestrian realm would be much more improved in my opinion by a well-designed building that held the street wall as opposed to a building that is has a setback that allows for security additional security along in between the building setback in the street it's nice to have little patches of open space but in this you know there are other opportunities for open space here this won't be a part it's going to be a building I think that train has left the station a long time ago whether or not this is more money than we should be paying for this kind of a project that train has left the station a long time ago this is going to happen so let's work together and try and build a building that all the people in Durham can be proud of that when you walk by in the future you'll feel comfortable walking by not just because I'm safe the police are here but because there's an interesting shop window that I can look at as I pass there's activity in the building after five o'clock there's something that relates to me as a pedestrian who may not have any business because fortunately I don't have a lot of business with the police department and quite frankly I'd like to keep it that way but but still they're an important part of the community and I realize that and they if they're going to occupy a piece of land on a street like Main Street and a street like Ranser they need to respect that what those streets are really about and they're about in part is moving pedestrians through and give us something that that we want to interact with and not just another wall with a couple of statues and some planes thank you thank you sir for those comments in the back next person I really want to reiterate the beginning remarks of that gentleman when this building is opened I hope we can stand there and say this is truly great urban design and so I do hope I have great confidence in Pat there and again just make sure that it's a great urban designed building that is welcoming and not a bunker I understand the security needs that the police have they are a part of our community I totally agree with the gentleman who made the remark that we are them and they are us but let's not have a bunker on Main Street thank you thank you next over here hi I wanted to thank Pat for the context analysis that I thought was really quite good and identified so many of the different things that are happening in and around this site the one thing that I felt was missing from it was any redeeming qualities being pointed out in any of the existing buildings that are on the site in particular the one that's painted white with blue trim on it right now if you look at preservation Durham's website and I will admit I'm the executive director I didn't want to lead with that and have you assume what I was going to say we posted just today a picture of that building taken in 1923 along with a bill a picture of what it looks like now and you can see the changes that have been made to it it's been painted it has a new storefront on the ground floor the windows are smaller but what really struck me about it is how much it looks like the buildings in golden belt and it looks like American tobacco and if you're talking about linking things and you're talking about being contextual and you're talking about an architectural expression that kind of connects all of these things I think that's a great place to start and that keeping that building is actually a really great opportunity to address so many of the things that people have brought up tonight things like multi-use on this site or having offices or retail having some kind of human scale and walkability so I'd encourage everybody to look at that picture it looks much more redeeming in that 1923 photo than it does today it's actually quite charming and how that could possibly be incorporated as a corner of this site to kind of show it off and tie it to the history of the site and the other pieces of downtown thank you who's next up here in front I would just echo some of the things that Wendy said I've heard a lot of concern about jobs how this project is going to address the street how it's going to respond to the context of a part of East Main Street that has really suffered over the years from a cycle of tear down and construction of acres and acres of surface parking there really is very little context left to respond to unfortunately and I think one of the the ways in Durham that we have successfully navigated our way out of a very bad economic situation over the past decade and a half is through historic preservation it's been a very powerful economic development tool you don't have to look very far to find all kinds of examples of buildings that are in far worse shape than the 1923 carpenter building and the 1948 GMC building on this site these are at least as interesting and at least as good a condition as many of the most beautiful places in Durham Central Park and downtown Durham I would hope for this project that we would study and try to find a way to incorporate those buildings in particular the 1923 building which really could it could when combined with modern adjacent construction could really be a very special police headquarters facility that would be uniquely a Durham project and a great public building thank you sir appreciate your comments who's next I just two other things I wanted to comment about in this regard process one is I want to thank you and particularly general services for having this meeting tonight I think this is very helpful I hope it's helpful for you it's certainly been helpful for me to get up and make my comments and I'm sure these other folks have been as well and that's nice to be heard and as the other gentleman mentioned I hope this is is not the last I hope it's a first and then the other part the other thing I would and that you have these during the process you know when you when you're through your visioning and you've got something to show us come back and show us and let us comment on that the second thing I wanted to say was Durham is fortunate to have a lot of very good human resources in the design area and I'm actually a member of a group called the Durham area designers which is architects and planners and whatever in the area I would like to encourage the team to work with some of these local folks and see if you know maybe bounce some ideas off of them and use all the local resources that you can to make the project as as good as possible thank you thank you sir lady in the back back there I just want to echo some of the things that both Rob and Wendy said too that I've been here in Durham as many many of you have long enough to remember what it was they tore down to build the current police department headquarters and we would weep to see photos and I wish I had some of those buildings because they would have integrated perfectly in that whole corridor that extends to Duke and downtown if we go into this believing that we cannot look at incorporating what is under that 1928 building and utilize it in this construction then we won't do it we have to go in with the notion that we will do it that we will figure out a way to do it because there is a way to do it there's always a way to do it and it doesn't necessarily mean that it is at a higher cost either thank you thank you ma'am who else I have two just two quick questions I was hoping that you were going to be able to answer some of the questions that have come forth particularly the gentleman that asked about the environment study I would also would like to know because if there's a lot of lead-based paint in some dangerous stuff under that ground I would like to know so can you please tell us this evening I heard you said that there has been a study done but you didn't tell us is the ground okay or is there the person here because I'm sure you didn't do the study and I'm not trying to be rude is the person here that that handled that that took care of that can they speak on that and I would also like someone to speak on about the plans for how are you going to go about to make sure that Durham residents will be able to get employment what's been put in place to make sure I know a project and if I was to mention yes I will mention it of the American tobacco project a lot of us was very involved with that project when that project was going on I went to them because I worked with ex-offenders heavily at that time and I went to them and they told me well Mrs. Peterson we don't have to hire these folks because there was nothing in writing to make sure that Durham residents got employment and they were right when I went back and checked there wasn't anything in writing so I would like to make sure and I want to I want to hear something tonight I want to hear some commitments here to to make sure that our local people are going to our our our brick masonry our folks who lay the sheetrock you have to contract and you have to subcontract a lot of that workout and I want to hear some I want to hear some talk I see a lot of folks up here in suits I don't know why they're here I want to hear something from them this evening before we leave out of here tonight because that's what this is really all about not to just to make comments but to hear some statements from you folks so there's two issues right there that I would like to get some comments let me try that briefly from this evening just to inform you and since I don't have a copy of the full environmental report investigation with me I'm going to speak from memory on it it is my recollection on that and we will make it available upon request but it's not my recollection that we have any lead in the ground there may be some lead paint incident around some of the windows and some of the sealant or caulking around that but none in the ground that I'm aware of in the ground the environmental effects that we've seen so far are former locations of tanks which have been removed and then there is a current automotive operation on site and we have done additional investigation on that and that's included in the supplementary report which was provided that we contracted Ms. Creighton though she's our project manager who gave you her contact information anyone who has additional questions about documents that our public record will be more than happy to provide that and since it was submitted to us and contracted by us that is a public record with regard to the employment question all I can say is that we are not that point yet to be able to construct do a construct on the percentages of participation however we have asked for the EOEA department Ms. Deborah Giles director to provide her recommendations on this one of the reasons why we chose the construction manager approach to delivery of the construction is so that we can engage the construction management firm early on to work with the designs and so that we will have influence over the contract methods and means on the on the construction on the construction management team we have Mr. Jesse Callas who's here he's part of that team and one of the things that will be provided is a very robust participation plan on the project and a way in which to provide the local jobs in Durham that I'm hearing that you're interested in so it's about as far as that can go tonight but we'll provide more information to you as we go along through are there any other questions from the audience anywhere gentlemen who spoke first wants to speak again could you just limit it to a couple of minutes sir one small public safety security item one of the reasons why the existing building is scary is because a few years ago some guy being interrogated wound up going over the rail at like 38 feet above the cement I was there moments after he was all the way he survived but I would ask for no balconies for people to hit the pavement from no about whatever that happened anyone else gentlemen red hat please just two minutes I can do this a minute since you mentioned storage tanks and all the slush fund ran out in 1986 expired in 2005 what did you use for the required cleanup of the leaks from those petroleum underground storage tanks since you are from that was left there by the solvent owners sir I don't have that information but we'll note that and it's probably included in the environmental investigation that was completed thank you anyone else gentlemen in the back center row good evening thanks for hosting this tonight my name is Matt Gladick and now with downtown Durham Inc. I just wanted to again reiterate with some of the people here have said this is a corridor that we have marked since 2000 I believe in our master plan then and again in the 2008 and again it's been coming up in our update to the master plan which we're working on right now the importance of this corridor to connect golden belt in east Durham so I would hope that we can have future meetings on this to talk about the design of how we could better tie in that frontage of the building both on main main street and as Marcus Jackson said on Ramsor street to help encourage the street the street activity and that pedestrian life and again as our ponysaurus brewer here has mentioned the importance of a better street amenities there for tying in pedestrian activity in this area it's a lot of great vitality here and we hope to encourage that and we hope that this police station can be a part of that thank you thank you so if there's no one else I want to mention one thing a lady in the back before I close hi my name is Leslie Frost and I came tonight just to express my support for the preservation of the historic buildings there and having just followed Mr. Gladick I would also like to encourage the city to think about the really really important function this can have in linking um east Durham with the downtown area I think that's crucial and so thank you thank you very much so we we are intending to keep the comment period open through May the 1st you have a comment cards that are if you've not received one if you wish to make an additional comment or thoughts that you have your well we're welcome to do that you can send those comment cards in the contact information is available here Trish Krita in general services is our project manager for the project you can send any information into her either via 2011 Main Street via mail or email or telephone and so um and a recording of the meeting of course will be available on the project website that we are designing and on the city's youtube channel updates will be provided via these communication vehicles throughout the course of the project and also will be available on the project website so what I like to say is that we plan to organize the input that we've received tonight we're going to document that and we're going to begin the design phase shortly giving to consideration the comments that have been received this evening and any uh other additional comments that might come in we have also assembled all the articles written uh and published in the newspapers and in the online media and we're printing those to make sure that's part of the public comment pre-design period so thank you all for attending this evening and for your participation your input and your ideas and um what we will do in the future as the design progresses is that we will announce ahead of time the presentations that will be made to city council we have committed to city council that they will receive uh progress reports in addition to that we have established a project steering committee the project steering committee will be meeting monthly they'll be receiving progress reports on the project and those meetings will be allowing us to give feedback to the design team as we progress through the various phases so uh there will be additional opportunity to see the design as it progresses it's not our intention to complete the design start construction and and then show your rendering that's not the way we intend to do this so thank you again for your participation and thanks so much to the design and construction team for collaborating to make this meeting possible tonight thank you good night