Well, it's the it's the witching hour. So let me call the meeting of the Monroe County Capital Improvement
Board of March 25th, 2026 to order. And I'll ask Mr. Paris to take the role. John Weichardt. Present.
Doug Bruce. Here. Jim Silverstein. Here. Joyce Pulling. Adam Tease. Here. Galen Cassidy. Here. And Jay
Baer is not here.
Did we hear Galen? Yes. OK, good. OK, thank you. And if Mr. Baird joins us, once again, he's in that
position where because he's missed several meetings in person, he can't participate or vote. But we
would certainly welcome his comments at that time during public comment if he would like to share wisdom
with us. So approval of consent agenda is item number two.
You have received, um, the minutes of the board meeting of February 18th, uh, claims and the financial
report. So is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? It's moved. Is there a second? Second. It's
been seconded. Are there any questions or discussion about the consent agenda? Right. So maybe we Mr.
Whitlap. Would you take the role? Yes. John Weichart. Yes. Doug Bruce. Yes. Gail and Cassidy. Yes.
Joyce Pauling? Yes. Jim Silberstein? Yes. Adam Teese? Yes. Thank you. Item number three, Treasurer's
Report. Mr. Silberstein, anything? Treasurer's Report is that there's nothing to report. Excellent.
President's Report. I want to report that we have had two change orders since we last met.
that are under the $25,000 threshold, which I'm allowed to approve. The first one is for $8,644. It's
for duct work in the existing building to exhaust the first floor restrooms up through the second floor
and the roof. It's a coordination issue that needed to be resolved when the alternate bid for replacing
the HVAC units has not yet been taken. We signed off on it. It's possible that when we were able to
move into the alternates,
and approval of alternates that we would come back and say we didn't need to do this. But that was one
that was approved. The second one is for $3,263 for rerouting a private sanitary line from the existing
building that was in the way of the foundations for the connector. So those were the two that have been
approved since our last meeting. So happy to answer any questions about those that you might have.
All right, thank you. If not, we'll move to item number five, construction update.
Wettle, Mr. Sherry. Perfect. Thank you, John. Andrew Sherry, project manager with Wettle Brothers. Share
my screen. Show some pictures here. Okay. Starting off with safety. So just some high points here. We
currently average around 45 employees on site daily, which accounts for around seven to 10 different
contractors.
This will continue to increase as we progress around the building. We've talked previously that we've
had a lot of excavations and underground work that has continued around the building and inside the
building that is decreasing now with overhead work increasing. So we've kind of shifted there from a
safety standpoint. We have fall protection at all elevated decks with access being installed currently
for stairs, temporary stairs.
Roof work is underway, which has leading edges and fall protection. If anybody's looked out there and
seen the material staged on the roof. And then the different types of lifts along with scaffolding are
in use for both interior and exterior work. So we kind of got away from the skid steers and excavators
and everything. And now we're at boom lifts and hydro mobiles and different types of working platforms.
Here's a note for our safety AI walks. The screenshot on the right hand side,
is all of our routes that our team does. This one's from December to today. So we average around four
to five walks with our superintendents and our management team that with an AI camera. We go around
that is in addition to our onsite safety inspections. It creates it automatically generates additional
safety reports.
any potential corrections that are needed. And then we track these on Autodesk, which is our project
software that is utilized for all of our drawings and everything. So if we have a hazard or anything
that's identified, we can assign a contractor, address it, track, document it. So again, it just shows
all the walks and at any time in our meetings, our owners meetings and different things, I can click
on this and it'll do a virtual walk through the building of the actual conditions. So again, it's just
a neat feature that helps us with our, our safety.
Um, construction progress update. So our structural steel update, um, structure field detailing continues
on the main portion of the expansion. Um, when I say that we have just in the main exhibit hall, 52,000
pounds of supplemental steel that goes in the exhibit hall for, uh, partition walls, um, all kinds of
different things. Our last sequence, which is sequence seven, this is the back of house area near the
loading dock.
starts next week. Our crane is planning to mobilize Wednesday, so we'll have a crane back on site down
there for a week, week and a half, set all that steel, and that'll be the last crane that we utilize
for structural steel. All roof deck has been installed over the main portion of the expansion, again,
excluding the back of house area that has not been erected yet. And then our elevated decking is completed
on all interior surfaces in the building, the second floor. So we're working towards pouring those elevated decks.
All building foundations are completed, including the 12 foot deep foundations on the south portion
of the project near the loading dock. The remaining foundations that we have are for the exterior features
on the south side of the project. So the screen wall that'll be there along college, the trash enclosures,
the ramp into the building, just some minor things there. That's the only excavations we have left for
foundations. And then a slab on a grade update. We've had five sequences we've discussed through these
updates. Three of those have been poured as of this Monday. We expect that the remainder will be poured
and finished in April. So on the right hand side here is a picture looking at the northwest corner of
the project, the main entrance with the second floor. That's the patio area. It's hard to see here,
but the floor looks really good. Here are some concrete progress photos. Again, kind of hard to see,
but in the top pictures, this is the north side of the building looking north.
The bottom right is the exterior foundations on the south side of the project. Again, these are the
12 foot foundation walls. And then on the left hand side was all the rebar form work and everything
that was placed prior to the pour that we did this Monday.
Our building envelope here is a picture at the Southeast side of the project. The masonry wall, the
brick wall is a complete. So we will frame off the top of this. And then on March 31st, they're going
to come out and start scanning for our metal panels for us to install. So we'll have around an eight
week turnaround on that, but we'll see sheathing and framing go up, start to enclose the building. And
then our metal panels start showing up in a couple of months. Column wraps have been framed and are
currently having brick installed on the interior side. Roof work is in progress.
Go back here. Roof work is in progress. The main portion of the east low roof is going to be completed
today. They will progress to the north side. They're going to finish the low roof and then they'll jump
up to the high roof here in a week or two. Uh, and our curtain wall systems start installation in April.
So our material is procured. It's on hand. I'm actually trying to hold them off from bringing it here
to be closer to our installed date around April 6th. Um, but they're, they're chomping at the bit and
we'll be able to start taking shape in all of our curtain wall systems.
Interior progress on the right hand side here. You'll see the brick. This was a yesterday photo. This
is probably two or three feet high at this point today. I'd say they're eight to 10 feet high. Um, so
our column wraps are progressing towards the roof. Um, interior walls are underway. That includes our
metal studs and our masonry walls. Our in-wall rough ends have started with electrical and plumbing
and our door frames continue with our wall progression. So we're starting to build the building out. Um,
Interior works are interior framing continues mechanical plumbing and electrical will continue for upcoming
activities. Our fireproofing on the structural steel is going to start next week. The remainder of the
slab on grade is to be poured, which means that our underground will be completed, including the kitchen
area, which is pretty extensive. And then preparing to pour elevated decks at the second floor late
April is the timeframe.
Exterior work as far as upcoming activities, our exterior foundations near the loading dock will be
completed. Our column wraps and exterior framing and our masonry work will be completed or well underway.
Curtain wall systems to start our roof work over the entirety of the building. And then our exterior
canopy will start seeing take shape. They actually started framing on this this morning. So we'll start
to see that overhang around the building. And that's the construction update that I have.
Thank you, Andrew. Any questions for Mr. Sherry? Thank you. Item number six, working group updates.
Let's begin with wayfinding. Sarah Hempstead from Schmidt. Everybody, Sarah Hempstead from Schmidt.
I've got a very short report for you today. Our signage and
wayfinding package goes before zoning tomorrow night. So if you have nothing else to do tomorrow night,
you want to join me in the zoning hearing. We are requesting eight different variances for our exterior
signage. Just like the building, the zoning code cannot be written around a convention center. And so
things like the height of the sign as well as their locations will all go up for zoning appeals. We've
had a great working relationship with Citi. We've talked to them
talk to them through this process and will be heard tomorrow night. Our detailed signage review then
with the committee happens April the 20th. And so we'll be going through each and every signage detail
at that time, including the final material selection pending our approval tomorrow night. We should
be ready to put everything out in the street by the end of April, beginning of May. OK, thank you.
Next item under working group updates, furniture, fixtures, and equipment. JS Held. Good afternoon.
Mary Kropinski with JS Held. As you may recall, back in January, we hired Reload Strategies, the CIB
hired Reload Strategies, to work through phase one of the furniture, fixtures, and equipment packages.
The purpose of this was to identify budget and scope of work.
does not include AV and IT. So I just want to be clear about that. We'll come back another day on those
items. But today we have Julie Hutchison and Melissa St. John from Reload Strategies who's been working
through the process to note that Schmidt's been involved as well as deeply Talisha and her team. But
at this point, I'll hand it over to Julie to give a presentation on what they've come up with to date.
and we will be back at the end of this to ask for a recommendation for moving forward. Hi, I'm Julie
Hutchison with Relocation Strategies. Is your microphone on, Julie? Yeah, I think it is. We just need
slides. Do you have any slides?
There we go. OK, so the first slide is phase one, which is a furniture fixtures and equipment budget process.
where we started with the programming and coming up with the different categories. We met with Talisha
and her team to discuss all those categories. Then we did a room by room list with commercial industry
standards in preliminary quantities. We did budget quoting and got used some cooperative pricing to
come up with our budgetary pricing. Then we did some cross checking pricing from different manufacturers.
And finally, we came up with the consolidated all the data into the FFNE budget spreadsheet to get ready
for the procurement and planning for process in the phases for plan two. The next slide, we have the
FFNE budget summary. So we took a three page spreadsheet. We consolidated it to this one form for you.
Just wanted to show you that we have outlined our hard costs
We've put in an allowance in for shipping handling and install. We've also added a 5% contingency to
that. And we have our fees added in. We are still under the $3 million budget at 2.954. The next slide
is the procurement methodology. So we know that we will have some direct purchasing for any items that
are 25,000 and less.
We will obtain three quotes for any items 25,000 to 150,000, and we will put out to bid and give a summary
of bids and awards awarded for the vendors of any of the items that are 150,000 and over, and then also
for do an RFP for install services. Phase two will be then confirming quantities
and getting into the specifications with Talisha and her group so we can send those out for apples to
apples quotes and bids. We will manage the bid process for all items. We will work with Schmidt and
all the other groups to select finishes and fabrics for all the items. We will do punch and close out
materials and help with the delivery install and keeping track of all the lead times for all of the
furniture items.
And the last slide is just a timeline kind of showing the process. We started in April. We'll try to
get the bids and we're going to get the bids and RFPs out and get those quotes, compare them all the
way through to punch and project close out January, February. So be along the whole process.
Thank you, Julie. At this point, we'd like to know if there's any questions that you might have of Reload
Strategies in the process. I also wanted to note that the CIB FF&E committee has been involved in this
process. That includes Jim Silverstone, Joyce Poling, John Weickart, Talisha, as well as Schmidt
representatives, Liam Kiesling and Sarah.
So do you have a recommendation as to what you want us to do at this point today? Yes, we absolutely
do. At this point in time, we would like to make a recommendation through phase one and the dollar amount
that has been presented here today with that budget not exceeding three million dollars.
We would also like to ask within that approval to move forward into phase two, to move into the actual
procurement and purchase delivery and installment processes. We will come back and ask for a second
approval for contract agreement for that work. But right now we're asking for approval of phase one,
what's been done to date and moving into phase two.
Okay, so do we have a motion to approve the phase one scope and budget and the phase two agreement?
Okay, so it's been moved. Is there a second? Second. So we have a motion. Is there any discussion or
are there any questions for Mary or for the committee? Seeing and hearing none. So Mr. Wilmich, if you
would take the role. John Weickart. Yes. Doug Bruce. Yes. Galen Cassidy. Yes.
Yes. Jim Silverstein. Yes. Adam Tease. Yes. Thank you. And now you have a second recommendation. Yes,
we have a second recommendation to approve contract with Reload Strategies for that Phase 2 work. Their
Phase 1 fee, which has already been completed, was $48,600. To complete Phase 2, we would be looking
at an additional $195,383.
for a total commitment of $243,983. This will take us from this point forward all the way to close out
of the project. Okay, so is there a motion to approve the contract? So moved. Second. So it's been moved
and seconded. Are there any questions about the contract? Any discussion? Mr. Wentlatch, would you take the role?
John Weickart? Yes. Doug Bruce? Yes. Galen Cassidy? Yes. Joyce Pulling? Yes. Jim Silverstein? Yes.
Adam Tease? Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Next item, Working Group Update,
the art installation. Beat Advisory Galen, do you have an update for us, please? I do. Can you hear
me all right? Yes.
All right, so yeah, so far we've concluded artist visits with three of the five finalists taking place,
and that should be all for now, as we're just over two weeks away from the final proposals due on April
10th. After proposals are received, we'll meet simultaneously with the finalist for them to present
their proposals to us with the recommendation committee, and then we'll also start another round of
public feedback at that time on April 20th.
Then we hope to have the recommendation committee presenting a final recommendation to the CIB at the
May 20th meeting. Thank you. Any questions for Galen about the work of the arts installation group,
Mr. Tease? I just want everyone on the board of managers here to know how hard Galen has worked to do
this. A lot of this has fallen right on his shoulders. He does not get paid a dime and he is doing a
tremendous amount of work.
to push this forward. Yes, thank you. Thank you. And I certainly agree. And Galen, if I understand correctly,
is it a pizza conference today? That's right. It turns out there's a conference for pretty much anything,
which is why a conference center is so important. And where did one have to go to attend a pizza conference?
I'm in Vegas. And at the same time, there's a spray foam
convention going on too. So anything can be a convention. Well thank you for your report and to echo
Mr. Tease's comment I want to thank Galen for all of his efforts and for all of his hard work. He's
taken over a major coordination role especially of these visits. We had three visits artists from Los
Angeles, from New York, from London. So three of the five and they were here for various various periods
of time. I also want to
recognize and express appreciation to Mike and Rachel McAfee, Jim and Beth Silberstein, Jane Coopersmith,
the B group who met with them while they were here, Talisha, obviously. Linda and I had the opportunity
to take one of the artists to dinner. So I want to thank everybody who stepped up and helped Galen,
but Galen's
been very much in charge of all of this coordination. And it's been much appreciated. He thought when
he went on the board, he might be able to get out from under this. And that was not to be the case.
So thank you again, Galen. Next item on the agenda, old business. Let me simply report out that I've
been advised of dates for the various governmental units to act on our request for them to identify parcels.
of land that they might be willing to donate to us for our project. And so what I've been advised is
that the city process, the Redevelopment Commission will meet on Monday, April 6th to determine what
actions they want to take. The Board of Public Works then will meet the following day on Tuesday, April
7th on what actions they want to take.
The city parcels, some are owned by the Redevelopment Commission, some are owned by the Board of Public
Works. So that's why there are two meetings. The county commissioners are tentatively set to act on
Tuesday, April 2nd on our request and the county council on, I'm sorry, that's Thursday, April 2nd.
The county council will meet on, tentatively scheduled to meet on Tuesday, April 14th.
the county council meets on the second and fourth Thursdays. So that's why there's a delay between the
commissioners meeting and the county council meeting. So by April 14th, we should have the information
from the city and the county about what parcels they intend to donate for use in the project. And so
I would ask that you put a hold, if you will, on your calendars for an executive session of our board
at 1.30 p.m.
on Wednesday, April 15th. So just prior to our scheduled April meeting so that we can meet an executive
session for the purpose of discussing real estate. So we'll be able then to have the information from
the city and the county and to meet an executive session to discuss that. So that's my old business
update. Any other old business from any other members? New business for many members? Seeing none.
comments from board members and I want to allow Mr. Teese to go first with comments. Thanks, John. Today
will be my last meeting with the CIB. I've resigned my position to the mayor of Bloomington who appointed
me to this position. It's been a real honor and pleasure to work in the context of the CIB.
Many of you know that in February, I left a position at Indiana University where I had been the associate
vice president for capital planning and projects. I did that job for 10 and a half years and have recently
moved on to a position with ratio design.
That position operates in the private sector. And in the private sector, there are conflicts of interest
when you deal with public boards. And I'm not a fan of public conflicts of interest. So stepping down
takes me away from any kind of potential conflicts of interest. And that's the kind of guy I am. And
I am really proud of the effort that has gone into this. Every single one of you have played a big role.
All the consultants have been very, very impressed. Contractors,
architects, you should all be very, very proud. My family lives here in Bloomington. We drive by the
center almost every single day. We plan to live here for the rest of our lives. So I don't plan to not
look at it in the future. And at the end of the day, very proud of all the work that all of you have
done and look forward to seeing it come out of the ground. Thank you, Adam. And I want to mention this isn't
Adam's first rodeo. He and I were on this board or an iteration of this board in 2017, 2018. That work
was suspended for a couple of reasons over that period of time. One of the good things that came out
of it was Schmidt Associates was selected to be the architect for our project. But I want to thank Adam for his
insight for his advice for his expertise and for his friendship. It's been a pleasure to have you on
the board and I thank you for your service. Well let's give him a round of applause. I will say that
I'm going to miss having a name card that has my name spelled right but on the other side it has it
spelled wrong so it's
It's quite fascinating to have your own name card with your name spelled right and wrong on the same
card. And you know, I don't and I don't think it would be a financial problem for me to award you that
so you can take that home with you. Very good, very good. And then you can pick whatever you want to
be at any point in time. Yes, yes. So any other comments from board members? Comments from the public?
and we have a 10 minute period of a lot of time with speakers a lot of two minutes within that period.
So do we have any members of the public who would like to say anything? I know Mr. Baer has joined us
and this is your opportunity if you'd like, Mr. Baer, if you'd like to share any wisdom with us, but
you got to hold it to two minutes of wisdom. No wisdom today other than I will miss sitting next to
Adam when I'm there in person. Thanks for your hard work. Thanks for giving us hard work.
Uh, love the progress that we're seeing. Uh, and indeed there is a conference for everything currently
dialing in from Kansas city on the conference of 2000 independent grocery store owners. So you never
know. Okay. Thank you. And, uh, we have Audrey, uh, who is, uh, uh, joining us remotely who has, uh,
wants to make some comments. Audrey.
Apparently your microphone is muted, Audrey, if you could unmute. She is still muted. Audrey, it appears
you're still muted on your end.
Well, I'm sorry for the technical difficulties. Anyone else who would like to make comment? Let me come
back to Audrey to see if we've been able to reach her. Apparently not. Again, my apologies, Audrey.
Next board meeting is scheduled for April 15th, 2026 at 3pm here in the Convention Center.
And as I said, perhaps we'll meet in executive session at 1.30 that day and we'll get notice out prior
to that to firm that up. So the last item is adjournment. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay
here and we are adjourned.