How to cut back the IB School/Town Hall plan to something workable...

The previous post showed the 10,000 ft view if how to get the proposed public facilities plan down to a passable number. Now, here are some specifics based on the detailed estimate put together by Edifice, the construction engineering firm for the project.  This detail was obtained by Save Davidson and posted to the group's website.  You can find it here.

The first thing you will notice in the estimate is that many of the line items for the proposed IB School renovation are based on the overall square footage of the project which comes in just over 34,000 square feet.  The costs are peanut buttered across all square feet, but in reality not all square footage is created equal.  Some of it is not needed at all.

Take a look at the proposed drawings of the IB Building.  Ths first show square feet per room.  The next three show proposed options for using the space.

Option 1
Non-Town Use or Unnecessary- CMS uses 2285 + 4722 for Auditorium/Lobby/Stage = 7007 sq/ft or or 20.6%

Option 2
Non-Town Use or Unnecessary- CMS uses 3519 + 4722 for Auditorium/Lobby/Stage = 8391 sq/ft or 24.7%

Option 3
Non-Town Use or Unnecessary- CMS uses 5456 + 4722 for Auditorium/Lobby/Stage = 10,178 sq/ft or 29.9%

What the above numbers tell you is that the cost to the Town for the Town Hall renovation could be reduced 20-30% for at least the items internal to the building that are peanut buttered across the project.  This would depend on which option was chosen and having CMS pay for its portion of the cost.  If Option 1 or 2 is chosen, the Town needs to reduce the amount of conference/general purpose space that is renovated.  The amount of this space seems excessive for the number of Town employees.

How to fund/use unrenovated space:

• Keep a couple of the classrooms as actual classrooms for something like Davidson Learns would be an interesting use and pay homage to the history of the building itself.

• Sell the location used for Davidson Community Players and use the money to refurbish the auditorium/stage area.  Have DCP pay rent as they do today.

Cutting these costs is doable, but no matter how much it is cut, the project will still be expensive for a facility the Town won't own.  To address that, there needs to be an irrevocable right to purchase the property from CMS at some point.  This should be formulated to be something like a sales price equal to market value minus any lease hold improvements the Town has made. Another option would be to have the Town be reimbursed for the lease hold improvements based on the depreciated value of those imprpvements if CMS ever has the Town leave the facility.

With some creativity, the Town could get this done. However, they must get the cost down significantly, and they must remove the risk to the taxpayers.

Without doing those things bond funding will have a hard time passing voter muster.