 Hello, my name is Kevin Dorn. I'm the city manager of South Burlington, Vermont. I'm here today to talk with you and my guests about a new project proposed for South Burlington's Market Street that we refer to as the Community Center, a new library, city hall, city clerk's office, auditorium, and senior center. With me today is Helen Realy, the chair of the South Burlington City Council. Patrick Leduc, who is the chair of the Library Board of Trustees, and Jennifer Cookman, who is the chair of the Recreation and Parks Committee. Each of these folks have a leadership role in providing information to the public about the vote on November 6th. So with that, I'm gonna turn to Helen to talk a little bit about the background of the project, the scope of the project, and how it fits into the community's plans for City Center. Okay, great, thank you, Kevin. And thank you, audience. And I hope if you have questions, you'll call in during this taping. You may or may not know, but the city of South Burlington has been talking about a city center for about 40 years. So this is a long time coming. And the library has been talking about and gathering some money to support building a new library for, I think it's 30 years. So this is really the culmination of an awful lot of conversation, hopes, and visions for our city over the past 40 years. To me, this is a really critical piece. Unlike other communities who have a city center that was built originally, since we broke off from Burlington and then are also intersected by major highways, South Burlington doesn't have a city center. And so through lots of conversations and visioning with the public over the last couple years, we really got excited about and invested in creating a city center. The state also then, thankfully, awarded us the designation as a TIF district, which will allow us to help create a city center on open land at this point, which is rather unusual for the state and the country. There are TIFs all over the country. But so we get to start from ground zero and think about how to envision and grow a city center. And this building that is on the ballot November 6th is a really critical key piece, encompassing four really important public services, I guess, the library is the largest piece of the building. Then a very important and needed senior center, as well as relocating the services of the town hall with a clerk's office, very accessible, and then city offices. And then importantly, something that we envisioned and included in the design is an auditorium that can serve all of those entities, as well as the public. So it's really a critical gathering place and draw to our city center that's in the TIF. Helen, the land that has been acquired through an option by the city was not adequate really to provide space for the building that has been designed. And the city council and the school board have gotten together on a land swap. The public may, we will show a slide that will indicate where this facility is planned to sit, but it is right behind the Marcot Central School. And the school board and the city council have been able to work out an agreement to swap some land that can allow for the full building to be built and parking. Can you speak a little bit to what that agreement is? And there are two parts to the agreement. What the city has been provided by the school district and what the school district will be provided by the city. Can you go into that a little bit? I certainly can. It was a wonderful collaboration. And I think from most people's perspective, it's a win-win. The site, we will be in agreement and this will be on the ballot in articles one and two on the school side and one and two on the city side. This land swap as well as agreement for part of the swap. So the first piece is a land swap. It's a small piece under an acre right between or what we hope is the new community center and the school. And what this provides is really important space for parking, space for the utilities and stormwater. In fact, part of this, and you can see on the picture the yellow section is this piece of land and a little bit of the green, I guess, that will, is part of the swap. And it allows us to build our community center in a cost effective way on a small piece of property by having this right of way and easement for the utilities and the parking as a swap from the school. What they get in return is really one, having a three story public building overlooking their school. The blue portion in the picture is a new access to Marquette school, Marcot school, excuse me. Right now it's a handshake and an agreement by the current owners that the road that they use, they can use. This will guarantee access to that piece of property forever. It also improves the safety aspect of the access to the school. It has a bike path and sidewalks and parking along the blue section that is not there now, so children and their parents can't walk safely to one of our elementary schools. It also will include the city building for the school, a new access or approach for the buses that is safer and really increases the safety of drop off and pickup at the school. The other part of the agreement that's in I think article two under the city and article, I think one in the school section is an agreement that if this comes to fruition, if the voters vote yes on the first four items on the articles, article one, two and one and two for school and city, then the city hall will be moving to the new building. And when that happens, we have a wonderful building right across from the high school and the middle school that we've agreed we would first lease to the city, to the school district if they so desire, and they can move and consolidate all of their administrative services and offices under one roof into a sort of a modern roof. And then the, at the end of three years, they can renew that for a couple years and eventually if they so choose, they can buy the building at the hefty price of $10. So I think it's a win for both sides of the ledger in terms of our taxpayers since it's a city-owned building and this would be a way to address some real needs that the school district has without necessarily increasing their taxes by having them to buy a new building. So we feel it's a win-win, they feel it's a win-win and I think it's an important aspect of making this both wonderful new space for the community in terms of recreation and library and consolidation of municipal services, but also really improving the safety for central school as well as addressing some of the future needs of the school district. Thank you, Helen. This is a great example of collaboration between the school board and the city hall. As you know, both entities get something really beneficial out of the agreement should the voters approve. Patrick, I think the viewers today I really want to know more about the footprint and the floor plan, what they're going to be able to find by way of services and programs representing the library board of trustees. You've been intimately involved in the design and layout of the library portion, which as Helen noted is the largest component of the community center. Talk to us a little bit about the vision that the library board has had over the many years for a new library and a little bit about the footprint, what programs and services you expect to be provided. Sure, happy to. So the library board has had many years, as you pointed out, Helen, of talking about a new library for our community, and it's really a powerful opportunity for our community to come together and have the resources that some of the larger communities across the country and even in Vermont have that we don't have access to. So there's been a lot of effort by the public as a whole, as well as the library board of trustees, the parks and recreation and the city to design the space that we think is the right fit for South Burlington. So I think we're going to throw a picture up on the screen of the first floor of the library. As you'll see on the bottom of that screen, there's a vestibule where you'll walk in and you'll have your first entrance into that building. And that'll be a large lobby space right there where you'll be able to kind of be welcomed by the city, Paul, clerk staff, wide open space, they're very bright and airy. And then as you turn right, you'll turn into the community library or the public library, I should say. And that first spot, as you walk in, you'll be presented with the circulation desk right there in front of you, as well as a stair case to go to the second floor. And then to the immediate right, there's a library living room. So a very comfortable seating space where the community can come in and read the paper, talk to the neighbors, grab a good book and sit and relax on either cold winter's day or on a sunny summer day. And as you go around that first floor, there's an early learning literacy room on that first floor where young children come in with their parents, toddlers and infants and have access to lots of resources and programming from the library. There's a larger children's space and then a number of stacks of resources, whether that be books, DVDs and other resources that our community utilizes. And when we talk about the stacks and the resources for our community, we've been looking at this from a 30 year perspective. So we're looking at population trends in South Burlington as well as the community's use of the current library where it is now and where it was at the high school to predict the future needs. In addition on that first floor, there'll be offices for the library staff themselves as well as lots of activity rooms that are set aside for maker spaces or other activities that the programming will utilize as well as specialized rooms for different age groups. So we've talked about kind of the infant room, the children's space, there's a tween space that is also kind of anticipated there. And then we also have on that first floor an auditorium that we've already spoken to a little bit and we're anticipating that auditorium will seat about a hundred people and we're thinking that it may have a raised stage a little bit on the front and we're still working that through but it should be a great space for both maybe city council meetings, public performances of all kinds and public use as well. And in the library, there's lots, there'll be lots of public use spaces so that our community can come together and have meetings in that, have conversations, have nonprofits meet there and work together. So that is primarily the first floor, Kevin. The library spans into the second floor but before we go there, I think we'll turn it over to Jennifer. Jennifer, the city of South Burlington like most communities in Vermont is experiencing a gradually aging population and the city has not had its own dedicated senior center to date. Tell us a little bit more about the recreation and parks committee's commitment to seniors and why a new senior center dedicated to seniors and their needs is so important in this new community center. Well, first of all, I am a senior so I'm somewhat familiar with what my friends are doing and what people need. As Kevin said, seniors are a growing demographic in Vermont and in South Burlington. I think that the seniors today are not what we were when my parents were aging or the generation before that because we are staying healthier for a longer time and we are staying more active for a longer time and I think for a lot of us what we wanna do in these years after we retire or when we're in semi-retirement because some people are working later, we want to explore the kinds of things that we weren't able to do when we were so busy with our careers and raising families and so it gives us a time to explore literature or art or music or science or whatever it is that is of interest to us. I think that the challenges for people are also not what they want. I think that a lot of us live away from our families of origin and so we want to find new communities. We want to find new groups to associate with and for instance, one of the delights of my life is that I have a monthly breakfast with about 15 amazing women and we talk about all kinds of things. I think that what I've heard from some seniors is that as you begin to lose friends, you get lonely, loneliness is a problem and so finding a way to associate, to meet with people, to form new groups is really special, it's really important. Some of my friends go to the senior center in Charlotte or in Burlington but for seniors I found that we don't like to drive to Charlotte in the winter, we don't like to drive in the evenings and so being able to have a facility in South Burlington is really going to make opportunities for us. A facility creates opportunities for us to be able to gather and to be able to use that facility in ways that everybody's imagination can come up with. Can I talk a little bit? I'd like to talk a little bit to what is going to be included in the senior center. We have a very large meeting room where we can have lunches for seniors. It would hold about 80, 90 people setting up with the tables. Then the tables can be removed and we can do some light exercise classes, Tai Chi, yoga, we can offer those things now every once in a while in the city hall but it will give us more opportunities to do that. Dance lessons, square dancing, whatever people like. There will be an attached catering kitchen so that it will be a lot easier to do more elaborate kinds of rooms than just bringing in pre-made sandwiches and so on. There will also be off to the left there a living room that will accommodate about 12 to 15 people. It will have a flat screen TV so that we can, for instance, watch a movie and discuss it. That's another thing that my friends and I like to do. We like to go to the movies, we like to have coffee and talk about it. So this facility will allow Recreation and Parks programming on a scale that we have not been able to provide before and our director Holly Reese figures that right now she could program about 10 hours a day into that space. So this is a really great addition and we're delighted to have this senior center located in the library where intergenerational programming can also take place. That's an excellent point. With the school nearby and with the population that will be there, walkable to this facility, that intergenerational contact will be great. That'll also occur in the library, Patrick. On the second floor of the library, we have a lot of the adult reading rooms and teen center reading rooms. Talk a little bit about what you see happening on the second floor. Sure, be happy to. So the second floor is, as you mentioned, entirely the library space. So that floor, you go up the stairs we'll have two elevators in the building. One is largely to move to the third floor, but this one in the center will be accessible for all the community to get to the second floor library space as well as the staircase. So the second floor also kind of has a roof terrace as well or a terrace, I should say, at the front. So as you envision Market Street, you could be sitting out on the second floor of the library reading a good book, enjoying a nice summer day as well as being inside. That second floor is also filled if you look to the lower right with a lot more stacks. There's some meeting rooms and study rooms that we have been visioning, as well as a multi-purpose room in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. You'll see that space, along with lots of other spaces for reading and our stacks and our programming that happen. As you look a little bit to the left of that multi-purpose room, you'll see the Friends of the Library space, which is another community organized group that helps out with library services and sells books and other entities or other objects. The multi-purpose room, if you look in the back, has a storage space, so much like Jennifer was talking about in the senior center space, we can set that room up with tables and chairs and other things, and then other times have it wide open for other activities. So we have a lot of flexibility in how we use this space. As you look around more of the tour, the left of the graphic on your screen, you'll see another large meeting space that can be used by the public for meetings, any nonprofits or organized groups. And in the back, you'll see a digital space, a digital lab that we're envisioning with technology for the teens to use as they explore coding and other things, a teen space, and then a raised reading area, which is kind of a cool little spot that's a little bit different than the rest of the library. And that's really just great architectural design. Right below that space is our auditorium, which would have a raised ceiling. So we took the opportunity to have a raised reading area there that's a little bit of a cool spot for kids to kind of hang out with. So we're really envisioning a lot of programming happening in that. I think you can see there the wide open glass that we have there. So we have a very bright and airy space for our community to use right outside that terrace. And I would double up on what you said about the intergenerational work. The opportunities that we have in front of us there to have our youth in the elementary school and our youth just come to our library anyway, as well as adults, as well as the seniors, as well as our local democracy all in one spot. Just a huge opportunity for our community to come together and learn from each other and to grow. What a great statement. What a great way to capture what the overall vision is for this new community center. You know, Helen, the council and the public have expressed their strong commitment to sustainability issues. And in a moment I want to have you talk about the energy efficiency and the design of the building. Before we get there, I think it's important at this point to put the community center in the context of the surrounding area. We have a graphic that shows where the community center will sit in relation to other on Market Street behind the Markott School. But can you speak to exactly, so the viewers know exactly where this will be planned to sit? Well, on this picture, the red outline is our city center Tiff district. And read that far, but I think it's blue, right, is where the site is. If you come into Market Street, the new community center will be just before the curve or just after the curve. Behind us is the school, as Kevin has said. And then directly west of this proposed building is a new senior housing called Allard Square. So there'll be 39 units there of people who will be able to partake of the senior center as well as the library and walk right next door. Farther down Market Street, there's several other buildings that are envisioned. And one is a housing for affordable housing being built by the Champlain Housing Trust. And then other parts along the road are envisioned to be a private enterprise that will be building housing as well as commercial. This is kind of in the center of the Tiff district across the street, of course, is the mall, which we've seen has had some revitalization. The Tiff center goes down and includes San Remo Drive. So the opportunity to really develop this space and provide some of the financing, which I will get to for city center is really important. I think as I said earlier, we're a city without a center. We have lots of great neighborhoods that aren't connected. Well, some are connected by bike paths, but some are separated by a busy Route 7, a busy Williston Road, the interstate I-89. So we are kind of a crossroads and very important to the economic vitality of Chittenden County and the state, but it has left us without a center. So we're really, I really believe that this whole city center development with a centering building that encompasses democracy and activities is really essential for our community. And we know anybody who's driven in the area knows that Market Street is shut down right now. As it is reconstructed, but will be reopened during the holidays and will return to construction in the spring. Let's turn to the matter of energy efficiency and sustainability. I know that the architects and the various focus groups who have been working on this have spent a lot of time seeing how can we make this a lead certified level of efficiency. Talk a little bit if you would, Helen, about the various attributes of this building from the perspective of energy efficiency and conservation. Okay, well I think it's very exciting, both in the design and kind of the delivery of high efficiency and energy conservation. The roof will be a solar array. And while it won't create or generate all of the electricity that the building requires, it certainly goes a long way to offsetting that cost. And that's in perpetuity, at least as long as we have a sun. The building is designed with heat pumps which are much more efficient and cost effective. It's really airtight and well sealed and insulated. It's not net zero, which would have been an incredible accomplishment. But it's between the gold and platinum level of energy efficiency. And it was very important to the city council and I think it's important in terms of stewardship and building a building that will last 50 or 100 years to really make those investments to make sure that we can continue to efficiently and sustainably heat it and light it and have it not be a drain on our taxpayers. They're light shelves. There's kind of cool tile carpeting. So if you spill something or it gets worn, you can pick up the tile and replace it. And it looks new again versus waiting till the rug gets crummy enough that you need to replace the whole thing at a high cost. The roof, the design is kind of a stepped design. So it's three levels and the largest footprint is the base. And then second floor is a little bit smaller and third floor a little bit smaller yet. And so some of, we have terraces that people can use, but we've also designed the roof to be a green roof ready. So in the future, if we wish to add to the efficiency, energy efficiency by adding the plants to make it a green roof, we can. It's serviced by transit. So people can take the bus to pay their taxes, to go to city hall for dog licenses, to attend a meeting of one of our committees to do business with zoning and planning, or go to the library as well as using the businesses that we'll develop in this area. There's bicycle parking, the road, the marketplace road is designed to have, excuse me, a really lovely bike access as well as pedestrian. So that's a nice enhancement connecting Dorset Street to Heinsberg Road. And there's geothermal heating and cooling. So we have invested in this building to really make it as efficient as we possibly can. And I think that's really important, particularly given the most recent study of climate change on the planet. We really need to be very careful about how we use our resources for heating and lighting of our public buildings. So we're gonna set a really nice example, I think, for the community. Helen, you mentioned city hall move. The third floor of this community center is designed to house the city manager's office, city hall, planning and zoning, finance, human resources and other functions. Can you tell us a little bit about the floor plan that has been designed here for city hall? Okay, I think as Patrick noted earlier, there's two elevators. One has access to the third floor where most of the city hall offices are. Of note, I think it's important to point out that the city clerk's office that will meet their expanded space needs will be front and center as you walk in, the library on the right and the city clerk's office on the left. So that's very helpful, I think, to the public. And then if you walk down the hall, you can take the elevator up to the third floor. And if you are looking at the screen, all the blue is the new city offices. There are several large meeting rooms. There's a large one on the kind of left where Jennifer's committee can meet parks and recreation or if the library board wanted a bigger meeting room than you already have, you could use that or other public uses. There's a new in the back center is kind of a slightly separated area for zoning and planning. So we hope that this design will improve that efficiency by really having it all in one place. Then the rest of the area is really an open space design for city offices. And we understand that that really lends itself to a great deal more collaboration and efficiency. And then there are several other smaller meeting rooms and a terrace off the back for use of both the public as well as just city hall employees to go out and have lunch in the sunshine. Clearly a lot of time and effort has been put into the design of this. The various committees have collaborated on the design and found a way to all integrate their interests and their programs into one facility. I think all of our residents are interested in finding out how are we gonna pay for this? And probably the biggest question is will this increase property taxes? So start with the answer to that, if you would, Helen. And then tell us about how this project is gonna be financed and the funding sources. Well, the project will not increase your property taxes. Already embedded in your property taxes is a portion of dollars that the city council over the last six years has set aside into a reserve fund for the very time when it comes to financing our first, well, this is actually the second, public development in the TIF Center. And so we have a large city reserve fund and those dollars to fund this is about $736,000 a year. And that is already embedded in your tax rate and that is projected to be saved and set aside at every budget, I mean, the community has voted five times already to support that and that will pay for the largest portion of the project financing. If you see, it's the blue part of the pie. Then the other significant piece is the TIF portion and that's tax incremental financing and this is the added valuation of buildings built within the TIF district and 75% of that additional value which drives their property tax bill. The state will allow the community of South Burlington to retain 75% of that and use that to help fund the public infrastructure and buildings in TIF centers. They do this all over the state. It's a wonderful incentive that it really encourages and allows a community to make these kinds of investments and utilize those dollars to assist. We also have impact fees that will help fund this. We have the Blanchett fund monies that have been gifted to the city or the library board and can be used to support this. We also have a solar array built on the landfill and the income from that that goes to the city, about $70,000 a year. We have set aside for the next 30 years to help support or pay for and fund the solar array and the variety of energy efficiencies that the building encompasses. So those are the big pieces. We haven't included in this bond issue any future fundraising that the library may do. So that may in the future, depending on how successful you are, will offset the amount of city reserve fund that would be needed for this. Patrick, do you wanna address that a little bit? I know that you've been working with the board on developing a fundraising plan from private contributors. Yeah, so we've got, there's actually a nonprofit foundation now that has been created so that the board can go off and do fundraising and have those donations be tax deductible. So we're gonna start right after the vote, hopefully a positive vote on the six and then we'll start after that with a capital campaign to raise as much private funding as we can. So naming rights are a possibility here? Absolutely, there'll be some naming right opportunities from small ticket items all the way to larger ticket items. So the sooner they call you and let you know. You're right away. Let me know how much you'd like to donate. Absolutely. The better. And so there are a multitude of different funding sources here. I think a lot of people are pleased to know that the council has planned ahead and embedded and created a reserve to help pay for this. We're starting to get down to the final moments of our program today. I wanted to go start with you, Jennifer, to give us kind of a broader perspective on the integration of all these services in one building and what you're hearing out on the street from people. Well, I'm hearing that people are feeling very positive about this. I go to the dog park quite often and I ask people if they're from South Burlington and have they heard about the community center and sometimes they haven't, sometimes they haven't, but the responses have all been very positive. People want to know more. They take the literature, I give them. My friends, as I said, are excited about this, that we will have a place for seniors to be able to do programming in the daytime. And Recreation and Parks will be able to expand our program up to this point we haven't had any kind of program space to call our own. So this will allow us to do a lot more programming than we have been able to do. And I just think that the whole synergy of the whole idea of having the library serving everybody and the seniors and City Hall and the school across the street. And then one piece that hasn't been mentioned is that in a very short distance away there is a city center park that was also envisioned by the citizens of South Burlington. It's mostly a natural area, it's got a playground so that you can do this very urban kind of nicely designed activities in this building and then you can just take a little walk and you can go bird watching and have your kids climb on natural playgrounds. So I think the city has done a very responsible job of planning this whole area so that it's very inviting and people will want to be there and I think that people from other communities will want to be in this area. Patrick, thank you Jennifer. The library has moved recently. It is now in the University Mall. It had been a component of the high school library for many, many years. Tell us what a new library facility will mean. A new dedicated library facility that you have your own space and ability to program. What does that mean to the community? I think it's just powerful. I mean the ability to program all the things that our library director Jennifer would like to be able to do. I mean she's done a great job for our library so far but I mean there's constraints. So within the high school there was constraints because we were really serving two different populations in some form. And in the mall we have different constraints and I think having a public space that is really belongs to South Burlington citizens is gonna be a powerful opportunity. And as Jennifer said, with the great foresight and planning that the city has done so that we can move this forward and not have increase in taxes. Our community continues to evolve and change and new members come to our community and this kind of cornerstone of our new city center. What a great thing, a park, a municipal building, a public library, a senior center. What a great tone to set as we develop Market Street. It's great points. Helen, as we know the election is coming up in a couple of weeks, November 6th. We, unfortunately because of the complexities of the exchange of properties and so on the ballot can be a little bit confusing. It's quite long. It could be quite daunting to voters who are going in to vote if people wanna support the community center. How should they vote? And if they oppose it, how should they vote? Tell us a little bit about that. Well, the first, yes, there are four yeses that need to occur for this to happen. And the first ballot item, if you look up on the screen is ballot item number one under the city. And that, if you want to build this center, you need to vote yes on that. That provides the ability for the city to assume the debt for the building, which is 20.4 million dollars. The second item under the city talks about the land swap and provides the language to go forward with that. The third city ballot item is a wastewater project for $300,000, which we hope you'll vote for because all of that money gets paid through state and federal funds. So, well, we bond for 30,000, that's all paid for. And then under the city or the school center, there are two ballot items and you need to vote yes on both of those. Both of them relate to this land swap and then the potential or their future use of city hall as administrative offices for the city. So we hope you'll come out and vote November 6th, if you haven't already. And I personally hope you'll vote yes on all of those ballot items. I think this is the cornerstone of our city center and really important for this community. Well, I want to thank our panel here today. Each of you in your own way has spent a lot of time and effort working to advance this project on behalf of the community. As Helen notes, it's important that voters get out. However they feel about this project and other things, it's important for voters to get out and vote. Anybody who would like to have additional information can look at the South Burlington website. And we also have Sobu Life is Out, a great publication sent to every member of our community talking about the community center and also our fabulous recreation and parks programs. So please, please go out and vote and thank you all very much for this programming today. Well, thank you for your leadership. Yeah.