- So it's just a couple minutes after six o'clock, and I'm Liz Fiddle, and I'm calling together, calling
- to order this collaborative justice project working subcommittee meeting. And to my right, we have Carrie
- Thompson, mayor of Bloomington. We have Sydney Zulek, city council rep. We have April Wilson from the
- prosecutor's office, and we have Karen Renvet from the public defender's office. Welcome, and we shall
- get started.
- Let's adopt the agenda. I know it's not a complicated agenda. We're working on the site evaluation and
- we can get a motion to adopt the agenda. Moved. Second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? All right,
- we have an agenda. So let's dig right into it. I think we were the most up-to-date version of the metric
- sheet that includes
- many things filled in and maybe many things not filled in so we need we need to really buckle down and
- go through this tonight so I think there is the larger paper version is the site evaluation metrics
- and then Molly would you explain the smaller version document so all the um so the larger version
- Okay, before added properties from the last meeting, all the properties fit on one page, but North Park.
- But with the addition of the extra properties, we couldn't fit them all on one page. So the first page
- is just the first 11 properties. And then the second page is the next five. I see. And then I tried
- to put the questions so that you could still see them, but Excel was not cooperating.
- So it's just the site matrix for all the properties, just broken down into two spreadsheets. Right.
- So let me see here. So there's three pages on the small sheet, and there seems to be four pages on the
- large sheet, right? It's because of spacing. Oh, it's because of spacing. OK. Now I understand.
- All right. OK. Everybody kind of.
- At least beginning to digest where we're at here tonight and. Take anyone's comments or suggestions
- or maybe. Both of the attorneys or one of the attorneys or any of the attorneys would like to make any
- comments about this before we delve any further into this. This work since I know you've been both working
- on it in your own ways.
- this is the first time we've seen this version of it. So if you had anything to explain as we begin
- to digest it, that would be useful. What do you think is most useful as we begin to look at this? Is
- there any comment on that? I'll just make a quick comment. I think that this does, because of the original
- sheet, blend certain public properties and private properties. The private properties, as we've talked
- a few times, we do at least have
- Two on here that are not named that we took we'll discuss an executive session. I think it's probably
- wise to discuss all the private properties together Just because of very similar Obstacles but also
- steps that would need to be taken for purchase and negotiation of those properties. It's just a suggestion
- There's significant amount of information on the publicly available properties either owned by the city
- or the county, so that might be the most fruitful place to start and we can go down there. To the extent
- that there are blanks still in this sheet, I think we can fill in most of them. I know that most of
- the county properties, Molly and Jeff had worked on and then the city properties I had worked on. So
- between the two of us, I think we at least have some information that we can answer those questions
- as we go as well and fill in some of that information. Does that sound good to everybody on the committee?
- any suggestions as we begin to tackle this. I'm just wondering if there are any properties on either
- of these sheets that for one reason or another a committee member might want to suggest is not feasible
- at all and then we don't have to go through the checklist. Very wise way of going about it. Thank you.
- Yes I like that too.
- is that something you're asking the committee or the attorneys or everybody, right? Yes, I think we
- just asked the attorneys for their feedback. I'm asking the committee if anyone sees sites that are
- not viable. Well, the Bloomington Transit Garage, it looks like the owner is not willing to sell the
- property, so that would pretty much take it off the table. And it's in a floodway. And it's in a floodway.
- We're going to take that one out. And as we go across,
- the next one's okay or not okay. Could we just gray it out so that property on the list but we know
- that we've screened it out. Would it be okay if we just grayed it out instead of removed it from the
- list so that way we know. I think I got a nod over here. Thank you. Yeah thank you. So we'll gray that
- out the Bloomington Transit garage. All right and the next one
- So that would be the renovations of current building with Curry, right? What are we thinking about that
- one? That one's definitely worth discussion. Okay, so leave it, right? Everybody agree? April and Karen
- agree? Okay. Yeah, yes. Fell iron, been the lumber. Did we discern whether that property has been sold or not?
- It looks like, so in just in April of 2026, so just recently, that went, at least the fell iron property
- went through the planning approval process and it's been approved for apartment building construction.
- So it's very unlikely that that's for sale. And these are two separate properties with two separate
- owners actually go across the B line. So you're talking about kind of separated properties already.
- Likely though, I mean, we can always,
- peel off one part of that and consider the other but I don't think it's I don't think it's very likely
- that's going to be for sale given the advanced stage of the planning process. So it sounds like we need
- to take that one and gray it or take it out whatever we're calling that now. And then Hopewell West
- that seems to be next. Yeah so I can speak a little bit to Hopewell West and East.
- These are RDC owned properties and so an official decision would need to come from the RDC. I have done
- some checking though and there is full plat complete which means as well as a park installed etc. So
- there's significant planning already executed for residential and public promise of residential there.
- Again, I won't speak for RDC if you want to make an official ask, but I would say it's unlikely. What
- do we think we want to do with this property and the rest of the committee? I think it's still worth
- discussing, but I will point out that in old B Square coverage,
- Back from 2023, one of the other issues with Hopewell, apart from the Bloomington City Council
- not necessarily being willing to part with the property. I believe there was also a big question about
- the ability to co-locate on Hopewell. And so that would be another thing to keep in mind as we're discussing.
- You mean the jail facility and other things? Yes. Okay. Just wanted to make sure. Yes, thank you.
- Okay, so are we agreeing to leave it on with further discussion at least until it's not on anymore?
- How will we find out it's not on? Officially you would need to get it on the RDC agenda with an official
- proposal. I guess my suggested process for that would be if it floats up to be one of our top three,
- knowing it's unlikely we did ask them to consider that okay that sound good to the rest of the committee
- yep okay so it's gonna remain on for now it sounds all right the HT building it's for sale as I remember
- so I know it's for sale I think do you know if Jeff updated us on the
- It was under a letter of intent for purchase by an arts group. I think they were supposed to have that
- answer. My understanding is Jeff was gonna fill that in. It's been in due diligence phase for potential
- sale. Again, it could be left on for now until we confirm for sure that it's not and very similar to
- Hopewell what we said. If you all decide that it's one of your top targets, then of course we can do
- a lot more digging into the staff.
- Okay. Just as a note on that site, again, partial unusability of part of the site. It is in a floodway
- and part of, I mean, by floodway, I mean a creek in part of the site. There's extensive demolition,
- et cetera, et cetera, et cetera on that site. So there are challenges there, notwithstanding the potential
- sale. Okay. I will leave it on for now and not shade it out ultimately at this point, right?
- and south of the post office. That looks like that's in a floodway as I can see, right? We know we can't
- build in a floodway. It seems like we should gray that out similar to the Bloomington Transit Garage.
- Yes, is that right? We're gonna take that one out. Okay. Tap Road North. Looks like it's partially in
- a floodway.
- what percentage of that would be and how it would impact the building that we need to build. Like there's
- 107 acres at that site. Can you help me understand the degree at which, yes, partially is affecting
- the property? It's not significant enough that it would affect the buildable area really.
- practically for you all. Probably the bigger consideration for North is it's a
- It's adjacent, I'm sorry to use these types of terms, but it's adjacent to a karst area. It is planned
- for building out though. Significant hills, there's a lot of infrastructure that needs to be built in.
- The city's at least transportation plan has called for a relocation of Weimar Road for that
- to be straightened out across this property, which would require the building of a bridge.
- on the property because of the photography, but neither the floodway nor the being adjacent to Karst
- area prevents you from building on. I mean, as we noted here, it's a hundred acres. It's not a significant
- portion of it. It's just a small sliver. And because it crossed the property boundary, we said that
- it did. Okay. So it seems minimal, right? Yes. And this property is on the north side of Tap Road.
- Jason to Wapahani. Okay, correct. Anything else about the tap road north before we go on? With the owner
- willing to sell the property being listed as unknown, at what point would we know? We still need to
- reach out to the owners and find a definite answer to see if there's any interest there at all.
- Okay. Ready for Tap Road South now. Tap Road South. Did somebody say something? I'm sorry. I just said
- it's big, 95 acres. It is big, 95.29 acres it says. It doesn't look like there's anything on here to
- just qualify it. That's right, thank you.
- Thompson? Disqualified. Say that one more time. Nothing to disqualify from the preliminary round. Okay,
- thank you. I'll leave that on, right? Then we'll go over to the next set of papers. South State Road,
- 37 and Fullerton.
- the screening questions. I'm sorry, say that again. It's the screening questions. Is agree nothing to
- disqualify. I think we can leave it on. Is North Park great out for a reason and private lot too? It's
- great out specifically because it's outside of the city. So beyond the purview of this particular committee,
- same with private lot too.
- We're gonna leave Fullerton on, I presume? Yes. Okay. And North Park will stay on there, but grayed
- out. And City Hall parking lot. I would just say that, yeah, I would say that there's no viable solution
- for city parking if we were to get rid of that. It's not a short-term,
- resolution to come up with that. And so I would say for the purpose of this group, it's not really a
- viable discussion at this point. And we will gray that out. It seems I would agree with that assessment.
- Yes, I will push back a little bit just because one of my colleagues, I believe council member Flaherty
- put put this forward. So I feel like as the representative
- It might be worth just keeping it on the list, not saying that that's going to be the option we go with.
- Am I reading it right where it says 1.3 acres? Not big enough. I don't know how what we have to fit
- would fit there, right? Physically. I can reach out to Councilmember Flaherty. Can you see if he has
- a better idea how he thought that was going to fit? Yeah. That would be great. I would say the same
- for Convention Center parking lot. They're both... Same signs.
- Subpar for space. It's also overflow for county employees parking because the county parking garage
- is smaller than needed at times. Then so let's go back to the City Hall parking lot. Are we gonna gray
- that out or for now like just like the Convention Center or not? Councilmember Zulik said she well sorry go ahead.
- bring it back. I think the point about the square footage is well taken and I'm happy to leave it off
- as well. Okay so we can gray that out along with the convention center and then if that changes you
- can let us know right? Absolutely. Yeah okay. Will do. We don't have a final recommendation yet so we
- have some time. Thank you. So private lot one so again that's 1.6 acres from what I can see right? I
- would also say it doesn't meet the minimum
- square footage unless it's adjacent to something else so without being an executive session i'm not
- sure what this is but we're happy to present that to you thursday just to give you a little bit more
- information about the location and the pros and cons of like the others i think we can gray it out for
- now and bring it back if we need to will that work so we're kind of consistent on that philosophy right
- i'll just ask the attorneys to proactively bring it back to us in executive session if it's
- Directly adjacent to another property that we're discussing and could be added Yes, that will that will
- take care of that. Thank you And then private lot two that is 30 acres Okay, so let's tally up what
- we have left here from what I can tell what I wrote down Building with curry the curry building
- The Tap Road North, Tap Road South, Thompson, Fullerton. About it, right? I think we still have question
- marks on Hopewell. East, West, and HT is, according to my notes, we did not choose to gray them out,
- although they all sound like long shots. Yeah. In some ways, I'd be happy with graying them out, and
- then we can bring them back. I kind of like that at some point.
- Was that a comfortable way to do it for others or do you like just putting question marks there for
- now? I'm fine either way actually, but. I think we have a week left and we need to. If we really want
- to chase our highest prospects. We should do a lot of due diligence on the highest prospects. Yeah,
- my vote is great amount for now. That OK with folks? I agree.
- Is Wilson, you're okay with that? Yes. Okay, all right. So, that brings us down to... Sorry, fell iron
- bender lumber also was categorized as a pretty long shot. Grate that out as well. That's what I have
- on my notes. Yes. Okay, yes. So there's one, two.
- left is that the tally I get that everybody on the same page there yes counting yeah renovations with
- three as separate from curry yes we're down to six okay so I'm just gonna number them so I don't get
- lost here renovations is gonna be one for me Curry's gonna be two
- be three that's north tap road north tap road south is going to be four thompson will be five everybody
- got that everybody with me yep okay all right we're down to six so let's proceed down our list here
- so um can i ask a quick question oh sure
- So our one and two on this list, one is renovations of current building with Curry, and number two is
- Curry Building. Can someone tell me what the vision is of the difference between those two columns?
- I think maybe somebody over there might be able to help more than me. Do you know the difference between
- these two projects? Well enough to speak about it? I mean, I know there's a difference, but I don't
- know if I'm well enough to speak about it. I think the difference between the two columns is,
- The first column, the renovation, incorporates reusing the current justice building. The second column
- uses Curry alone. I don't know that the space with it would be Curry and Fiscus. The Curry and Fiscus
- building alone provides enough square footage. And so I think the only viable option would probably
- be with the use of the current justice building. Which would be the new number one? It would be the
- first column. First viable column.
- and we should eliminate two under that. Is that correct? Do you know the size of the Curry Fiscus alone?
- Or can we look that up potentially? I can try to look it up. I know that we asked our GIS division to
- do a map of all the properties with square footage and then to put the overlays to show usable square
- footage and they're currently working on them. We hope to have it by the next meeting, but I also don't
- want to commit the surveyors office to the undeliverable. Sure.
- be helpful to clarify whether we're just talking about the Curry Building or any other county adjacent
- owned property to it as well. The Curry Building itself is a separate parcel which is relatively small
- and it does it is not historically designated surprisingly even though it's renovated as a historic
- building but there is other county property obviously to the immediate west of the Curry Building as
- well which could expand out that.
- It's the fifth biggest building that Molly mentioned. That's the public defender's office. Yeah.
- So Ms. Zulek, I think you added the curry. Did you have a vision of how that would, when we're evaluating
- the property, it might be helpful to get a sense of what was the proposed? Sure. That came about from
- a lot of conversations I had with other county council members.
- happy to reach back out to them. But honestly, I do think. Well, let me back up. I agree that the Curry
- building itself will not be. Just want to focus on the one and not two. I'm fine with that as well.
- Did the Curry building in the number two we had at one point with did that include the Fiscus? Is that
- what she was saying? I believe so, but I can confer.
- That's what I thought I heard the table over here mentioned. There's just no way you'd leave the viscous
- building. It just wouldn't make sense. I don't know if it's a separate property or not in terms of the
- GIS, but it wouldn't make any sense to leave just the much smaller viscous building. So you're saying
- it would be the curry? I think it has to be both. If you're going to do anything with curry, I think
- it has to be both because that's all county owned right there.
- I also have an answer on the historic preservation aspect of Curry, so I'm happy to speak to that one.
- Let's do that. Okay. So I spoke to the chair of the historic preservation commission, and this is a
- process that could happen at the exact same time as the rezoning process would odds are it takes much
- less time than the rezoning process would take. Essentially, it would go to the historic preservation
- commission, they would
- It's only on the national registry. It's not considered on our local registry. And so essentially, it
- would go to the Historic Preservation Commission for a potential demolition delay. If that demolition
- delay was voted for, it would then come to council who has the final vote to vote it up or down. So
- ultimately, I do think that my colleagues on council would be
- favor of maybe doing something to preserve the facade, but certainly not getting in the way of building
- a new jail. And just to be clear, that will move much more quickly than the zoning process. So that's
- not something that's going to rub up against us with the timeline.
- Larry Allen, did you mention that there was no historical designation? So. Just exactly what council
- members like just said, which is it's not designated under the city. It may be federal, but federal.
- Replaces, but it's not designated by the city of Wilmington as a district. And how do you approach that
- national historic designation? How does that work? I'm not sure I know.
- on record and say this, but I'm fairly certain that it's a contributing building and that the National
- Registry has much less strict rules for contributing buildings than our local code does. Okay, so it
- depends on what kind of historic designation it is. I would love to get a confirmation from Attorney
- Allen. Would that be available on the GIS? Do we know? Does that appear there? It isn't, but I'll look
- it up and I'll get back to you with that information. Thank you. Okay.
- I have a question on timeline, though. So if it needs to go to the historic preservation commission
- or committee, what has to be prepared in order for it to get to the historic preservation committee?
- Do we need a design? Do we need a proposal? What are the steps to accomplish that? I think it would
- be demolition approval for the current building.
- You would need to know enough of the design to know how much of the current building, especially the
- facade, will be demolished. So if we were gonna... So one of the challenges, I think, with making a
- Curry building into a jail, if that's the plan, and it sounds like you're gonna follow up on what the
- proposed plan is for Curry, retrofitting it would probably be the less desirable instead of
- removing the building entirely and building up from the ground issues for building construction issues.
- That's why I was trying to figure out, sorry. You're probably going to have to level the building and
- start from scratch to be short. So I wasn't sure how much of a design or information would be needed
- to what committee and how long that would take. And one of the things in the resolution was to kind
- of work through the procedural steps.
- maybe that's something we could find out by this meeting so we could be able to share that. So I would
- like to just state the elephant in the room here, which is that we all agreed to serve on the subcommittee.
- Speaking for myself, I don't have a lot of extra bandwidth right now to do the homework that it takes
- to figure out the answers to these questions.
- who are we expecting to do that? For instance, Larry has been chasing a lot of these details for us,
- and I think some procedural things, and Molly, thank you, I think some of the procedural things we can
- track down, but when it comes to
- more specific technical questions about if you want to preserve the facade on the Curry building, I
- think we actually need a construction expert to come in and give us some idea of exactly what's needed
- there. The ability to fill out the sheet is
- going to be challenging by next week. I think that's correct if you're if you're looking for an opinion
- I guess reaction to your statement in terms of what we can do and what we can't do. One of the challenges
- here I think are twofold. One is my understanding and Molly can correct me if I'm wrong is my understanding
- is we don't have a contractor like DLZ under contract anymore by the county and so
- Because the purview of this particular subcommittee doesn't seem to come with expenditure funds, it's
- very hard to then hire or get that expert to participate in this.
- I think just as a practical reason, I think the natural tendency here is when we're looking at sites
- is to want to also start to do the design, i.e. multi-floor, single-floor, all those things. There's
- a lot of information on the sheet, and this is not to dodge that information. We are trying to get the
- best information that we possibly can at this stage.
- But a lot of it does come later, even in the due diligence process, much later, honestly, in the due
- diligence process to talk about cost of remediation, what remediation is needed. Some of these things
- we have a good idea on only if they've been developed or redeveloped fairly recently. My example of
- this would be Hopewell, you know, is a good example of the city has put tremendous amount of money
- into it similar to the county with looking at both the rogers property the thompson property and north
- park and so those sites we do have some information on we have the geotechnical we have the environmental
- so we have a sense of what we're getting into
- If the property has been sitting with a use for several decades at this point, it's very possible that
- that documentation is just so out of date and just doesn't exist for us in a readily findable format.
- Of course, we can find things like environmentally restrictive covenants, things that are publicly recorded,
- but in terms of getting down to
- Where is bedrock? Is it even across the site? What kind of soils on the site? What kind of hydrology
- do we have on the site? All of that comes almost when you're at the groundbreaking phase close to it,
- because even when you're doing due diligence for the purchase, and I'm sure all of you can attest who's
- been part of projects, is that you do some amount of potholing and due diligence during the purchase
- phase, only to find out during construction that that potholing
- just pick the perfect places to miss the key areas that you needed to know for expenses. So I'm saying
- that not to delay, but just to acknowledge the reality that there are a lot of these details that are
- just going to be unknowable at this phase without the expenditure of significant amount of money, not
- only for the professional construction agency to give their best bet, but also for them to have that
- information and to be on site and to actually do some analysis.
- I would say I appreciate that. There's a lot of questions I know that we're not gonna be able to answer
- until the project gets further along. I think with this particular issue though, the resolution said
- we had to look at properties within the city limits. By nature of that, that also means that there's
- gonna have to be city processes we're gonna have to go through. And one of the foundational questions
- that we have is how quickly we'll be able to build the property, which is of particular relevance, because
- we know we're gonna get sued.
- And besides the fact that there are 200 plus human beings in that building, and every day they're in
- that justice building or in that jail, they're being exposed to conditions that have to change. So time
- is one of our most critical, if not the most critical factor we have. So I was hoping we could explore
- a little bit more about how long the city process takes. If it has to be the Historic Preservation
- Commission, and then we have to go to the county council,
- I know we have council member Zulek here, but I know she can only speak for herself. And then there
- might be other people that I don't know what their positions are going to be. But knowing that process
- and how long it takes will impact how quickly the project can move, which is I think some of these properties
- we're going to eliminate because we're concerned about time. So if we can figure out the steps,
- time period. I'm happy to make calls. You tell me who to call. I will follow up and put the hours in
- if we need to. But whatever way I can help, I'm happy to help. And I'm very sorry and I didn't mean
- to cause any confusion with my answer. I believe that the city processes are the most noble thing here.
- The parts that are unknowable are honestly
- some of the detailed site conditions and and when we're talking about is it appropriate for a particular
- type of building that's where I'm talking about the difficulty you're you're 100% right about the city
- processes and and we do have time estimates as we go down the sheet we have time estimates now those
- can be sped up a little bit I think with cooperation and clear clear togetherness from the city and
- the county you know on estimate
- Just if you don't mind me taking another point of privilege. So when we're talking about these properties,
- all of these properties across the board, not one of them exist in a zoning area that allows for a jail.
- So the city of Bloomington has two zoning areas that allow jails as a conditional use. Those are an
- institutional zoning area and then an employment zoning area.
- None of these are in either of those types of zoning so so each of the properties that are considered
- on this list would require some type of rezoning that usually is going to take between three and six
- months to do from beginning to end now. The good thing is, I mean the good thing is that that process can run.
- sort of parallel with some other processes. When we're talking about historic designation or rezoning
- and potential, as we're getting closer to site plan approvals and things like that, some of those can
- kind of run in conjunction to each other to shorten that ultimate timeline. So what would normally be
- potentially and conservatively a 12-month, and I think you see this listed here, a 12-month
- Timeline for full approvals. I think can be shortened quite a bit. It does take a lot of coordination
- It takes some some some heightened coordination, but it's very possible Regardless the the process you're
- gonna have to go through for the rezoning is go before the Board of Zoning Appeals Site plan goes before
- the Plan Commission all of these require there to be some
- documents like construction documents that are ready to go so that they can be reviewed by planning
- staff, that they can have comments back and forth and then get submitted to the planning, the plan commission
- and the BZA as appropriate, plus public notice of hearings, which are usually 21 days in advance at
- minimum. So there's, when we're talking about that three month timeline, that's really a, it is a tight
- timeline. It seems like a long time, but for staff, that's a fairly tight timeline.
- Is it doable? I think so. I think with, it's very helpful to have the mayor here, and certainly with
- her cooperation, it's doable. But just to understand, that timeline's very knowable because we have
- some experience with projects. And we know that each of these sites will need some type of rezoning.
- So thank you. So if I understand, then say we picked a property where there hasn't been any environmental
- studies, none of those reports have been completed.
- In order for us to get to zoning, we would have to have some type of design for the property.
- Is that right? So certainly for site plan approval before you can break ground, you're going to have
- to have a fairly good plan. For those that need purchasing, so if you're buying from a private, and
- if I'm saying something that's really obvious and everybody knows this, please stop me in the middle.
- I'm very sorry. If you're buying from a private property,
- You know, you're going to talk about the restrictions for governmental purchase, so we're not even talking
- about the financing necessarily of it. You need to allow for a couple of things to happen again kind
- of simultaneously. Those would include two independent appraisals of the value of the property if they're
- held in private hands. Those take roughly 30 days.
- 45 days is common as well so 30 to 45 days depending on the appraiser to get those reports completed
- those are necessary by law to complete at that same time you could be negotiating potentially you know
- non-binding letter of intent that could really inform a very good purchase agreement you could also
- get permission to run some of the phase one environmentals when you're talking about phase one environmentals
- when you say
- Are there environmental on the site? Again, minimum 30 days, it really depends on the season and the
- environmental consultant. Just to be frank, in a really busy building season, sometimes it can be hard
- to schedule them, and those can get pushed out to 60 to 90 days just to get your phase ones done. Typically,
- a phase two is going to be common, particularly when you're talking about a governmental entity and
- a use that's this important where you're involving
- So you get to extend that, maybe double it for it. You take phase one is typically done, a phase one
- environmental analysis.
- just for some background is done on historic documents largely. There may be some site investigation,
- but it's fairly limited. So usually what the environmental consultant will do is go out there, see if
- anything's been recorded, what the historic uses of the site is. You'll get a report. This is what's
- been on that site. Here's where we see potential problems coming. If there's been any other recorded
- environmental reports, they'll find those and they'll try to flag.
- A phase two is where you really get into the investigation of the site itself. So beyond the historic
- documentation, that's where you're going to get taking core samples and soil samples. That takes,
- you know, again, doubling that period of time, conservatively, 120 days, potentially just for environmentals.
- If someone has a different experience recently, please, please let me know. But that's been my experience
- is that that's about how long it takes.
- building season, those environmental consultants are at a premium, particularly if you want
- a good environmental consultant and you potentially have any problems with the site, any kind
- of contamination whatsoever. There are sites where we do have those. We know that they have them. Typically,
- if it's been sold or bought recently, you'll have some sort of phase one minimum
- provided because that can get you what's considered a bona fide purchaser protection under the environmental
- laws. So it's a baseline. All of this is kind of what you should have done. You should have the phase
- one, the appraisals, all of that would need to be done before any kind of purchase agreement is solidified
- and certainly before you close on the property.
- That process shortens a little bit if you're going government to government because the liabilities
- are a little bit different and some of that's taken care of. You also can shorten. Sometimes you can
- only get away with only one. The law only requires one appraisal, for instance, so you don't have to
- worry about two appraisals. So in terms of that timeline, what we're talking about, I think conservatively,
- You know, we've said three to six months to get some of the city planning, the rezoning aspects. I think
- it's probably about the same, probably that three months to four month period to get your due diligence
- to negotiate an LOI and to get to the point of purchasing if this is owned by any separate entity than
- the county. Thank you. That was really helpful. I appreciate that. Any other comments before we decide
- to talk about something else?
- to suggest that while we're in this preliminary process, we may just come up with a formula for ballparking
- how long it is to ground break without trying to troubleshoot every detail of every property. We've
- just heard from Mr. Allen that it's going to take three or four months longer to do
- any purchase of a private property. We know that the historic review sounds like it can happen
- contemporaneously with zoning. So that time point wise may not be an issue, et cetera. I think we can
- come up with an algorithm that works for each. Anybody else have feedback on that?
- So where do we go now? I would recommend that we come up with a critical path of questions that we need
- answered before our next meeting, and who's going to get them answered. That's a really good idea. So
- that we were really strategic in what we're hitting. And so we're down to five properties now.
- old number two out. So then what areas do we still need help with then? Let's see. Looks like we're
- down. Constitutional care didn't get much attention from what I can see on the screen for questions.
- The process for securing utilities will be really important. One page two.
- 8B. You have to contact the utilities for each of the properties remaining, right? Unless, I mean, I
- do see that under 8C, it says how long will those steps take, and none of them say longer than construction,
- with the exception of the Thompson property.
- necessary if that's the case. Yes, it is necessary because you will encounter some that have
- major infrastructure lacking. Some will have sewer mains right in front of them, for instance, and water and Duke.
- others you'll have to put in the preliminary infrastructure before you can even consider tapping. So
- 8B I think is a worthy question. I think no longer than construction is probably what C will say for
- everything because that's how long it's going to take. So if we're happy with that answer, I think we
- could eliminate 8C.
- I think that's fine. I would like to revisit D1 adequate usable space for 448 beds. I don't think it's
- our charge to decide what the bed count should be. If we're going to talk about size, let's do square
- footage. I don't want to get us into a situation where we have more beds than we need. Sorry, where
- did you get 884? Oh, 448. Okay, great. Did I say 884?
- I don't know, I could have heard it wrong. Is there something in the lawsuit that says 448 is the number?
- No, that number was from the Ray Report, which the county commissioned several years ago. Okay.
- For clarity, that number also comes from two other reports that the county commissioned.
- most recently I think it's RQF-AW. I'll just say that one way to approach this is that we're not condoning
- the number of beds but it is an apples to apples way to look at something if we're not discussing design
- like single story, multi story. Is there a way to get a certain number of beds and
- I agree, I'm not, I don't have enough information and haven't studied enough to say how many beds are
- needed. This is not my expertise. I would just suggest we come up with some number. We have a number
- here and just look at apples to apples. It's not gonna be our job to decide how big the jail is. It's
- not within our purview. I'm not even sure that needs to be on there because of that, you know? I agree.
- size for the jail, maybe we just take the square footage of the building, right? That's under B4. It's
- total estimated usable square footage. Well, it's kind of under that. That's for the land. Right. For
- the building. That would be, yeah, that'd be maximum, of course. What square footage then would you
- be proposing that we use? Say that again, I'm sorry? If the idea is to replace the 448 beds,
- the rubric that's in here. Yeah. What square footage then are you proposing for the jail? Is it what
- was proposed at the August 29th, 2025 DLZ presentation? We certainly have data on that. We do. Yeah.
- And come back with some square footage numbers. I know the jail and sheriff's office is currently around
- 32,000 square feet.
- Obviously it will need to be bigger than that, but I'm not convinced that the numbers we saw for North
- Park and the North Park square feet were as big as they needed to be for the charge of what we're here
- to do. You think the North Park numbers needed to be bigger? No, I think they needed to be smaller.
- So I guess because that the North Park already included co-location, is that correct? So if we're not
- doing it all,
- we're just doing the jail in the sheriff's office, it wouldn't need to be as big as North Park from
- what I understand. That is correct. One of the factors, and I think picking a site, is what that site's
- gonna be used for in the future. Whether that be five years, 10 years, 40 years. Right. I would agree.
- I didn't include the 448 because I was making a judgment on what the bed number would be.
- I was looking at the Ray report, page 62, that had a finding that a 30 year jail bed capacity estimate
- indicates that Monroe County needs 448 to 450 jail beds by the year 2049. So if the site is going to
- have the longevity to be able to have space for the next 30 years,
- I think that's the number we need to make sure there's enough adequate square footage for, not the size
- of the current jail, which is too small already. I think everyone agrees that the current jail is too
- small, but I don't agree with the inevitability that we'll have more and more and more inmates. I think
- that if we as a community, especially as
- community leaders are doing our job that number should fall it shouldn't be rising and so how can we
- as a community reinvest in prevention methods that keep people out of jail because ultimately that should
- be our goal. I agree that is the that is a goal we should all be working towards and I want to be careful
- to stick to
- For my part, stick to the charge that we have, which is to secure viable sites and not to discuss or
- get into the elements needed in a jail. I think that's worthy discussion. If we want to partner with
- the county on that in the future, perhaps we can find a path to do that. I would just say our job is
- evaluating sites and seeing if they are adequate for the jail that is- That we know we have to build.
- That we have to build. Yes. So what square footage? I guess that's fine if we want to use a different
- number. We just have to pick a number. So I guess if you want to eliminate the 448, can we use the proposed
- square footage of the design that was presented on August 29th, 2025
- for the jail and jail administration as at least a minimum marker. Now the challenge I will tell you
- is if you are proposing Curry, there are many other departments in Curry. So we're gonna probably get
- into square footage of other departments as well once we get into discussing that property. But we do
- need a minimum. And so if you wanna get rid of the 448, I would ask that we use the square footage that
- has been proposed.
- Well, I know we have that number from the August 29th report. I know that's available. So we'll just
- compromise and thank you. So we're just going to put based on before we'll just put based on the August
- 29th data from that report, right?
- and we're gonna take out the 448 number, is that correct? Yes. Thank you. All right, so. I'm back up
- into the screening questions where it talks about the site meets the requirement of the constitutional
- care. What answers do we, what questions do we need answered to best be able to answer
- that screening question. Can you tell us what you were thinking April when you asked? I'm happy to share.
- So one of the places I think we can look is the Kenray study and another place is the ACLU letter from
- December 29th of 2025. I shared that a couple meetings back. If possible, if we could put that ACLU
- letter on our subcommittee website so that the community has access to it. There are several things
- that are listed in the letter.
- And in addition, I would direct the committee's attention to the RAISE study when you have an opportunity.
- In particular, if we could look at facility assessment, which starts on page 84. And throughout the
- pages that follow, if you look on page 85, it gets into several different things that are 53 problem
- areas related to safety and security, health, compliance with industry standards, structural and systems,
- operational effectiveness,
- inmate care and custody and environmental conditions. So that's, I think, a great place as we're evaluating
- sites, those subsequent pages. I think that'll come out in discussion, but one of the most important
- aspects is space, which I think comes back to our square footage issue. Maybe a question I have is,
- would the North Park section that was just the jail and the sheriff's office, would it have met the
- constitutional care requirement, do we know?
- Well, I think it would have addressed several of the issues, like we have inadequate counseling areas,
- inadequate housing, inadequate housing for segregation. I could go through the list, but I think space
- is one of the most difficult pieces. As I remember, it probably met that criteria, right? No, I can't
- speak to every single one, but I would say we'd have an improvement in several. It looks like Ms. Turner-King
- had some. Oh, sorry, I'm ignoring you. It's okay. So if you use the,
- square footage from the August 29th 2025 meeting, that blueprint was based on a design that remedies
- these constitutional conditions. And so in essence, if you're using that square footage, then it would
- meet constitutional care. Thank you. Thank you.
- So then, is there anything else on the second page of these questions that needs some more discussion
- or more help trying to figure out, get what we need? Question seven, additional costs. This B7, uh-huh.
- Oh, I'm so sorry, B7. So there's some of those have answers in them.
- The renovations of the current building with Curry. So it says to be determined, right? Yes, so for
- those who don't work in the Curry or the Curry-Fiscus building, as Ms. Renbeck was sharing, the Fiscus
- building has the public defender's office, which has several employees. And then the Curry building
- has several different departments, and it actually has our magistrate as well as the part of the prosecutor's
- office that deals with child support.
- And so if this were to be considered, you're going to have to move everyone in that building. So that's
- why it would be helpful to understand what the proposal would be for that space as an extension
- or replacement to be able to start looking at numbers for our next meeting. That's why I was hoping
- to better understand, is it going to be an extension of the jail? Are all the administrative offices
- going to fit on the Curry Fiscus? Or footage?
- I wasn't sure what the proposal was. So do we need any additional help then on the seven question? I
- don't know if there are additional costs without knowing the proposal. I think because we're not putting
- dollar values to these additional costs anyway,
- we can just list relocation or co-location of existing departments. Let's take the easy path out of
- that. I mean, we don't have bids on the roadways either, so. No bids, right. Does that make sense?
- All right. So then moving down the line there,
- about the process for securing utilities already. Who is doing that? I think we were relying on historic
- information. So based on what we already knew about the sites, just generally, Mary, you made an excellent
- point earlier though, in terms of the utilities that we do need a little bit more information. So I
- think it's gonna be wise of us to reach out to both the CBU and Duke to try to get a sense
- In some cases, where you've seen a longer timeline, that's because of Duke. With CBU, it's a little
- bit harder because that's more of a flow and capacity issue that we know when we open up the ground
- to have a conversation with them that we're going to be using that site. Yes, I think flow and capacity
- are being consistently evaluated as developments come up and we have some development room. I think
- if we just answered,
- you know, is there a main there? How far away is it? We can do that means Larry's doing that, or?
- I think so. Okay. I hear a volunteer, Mr. Allen. Ms. Turner King is going on vacation, I believe this
- Wednesday, so. That's correct.
- been an amount here. All right. So then are we on the next page then? Let's see. The answer
- on the geotechnical and environmental studies, whether or not they've been completed would be helpful.
- And what number and letter is that? Where are you at now? Oh, I'm sorry. E1. E1. That would be on the
- next page. It's on page four. Yep. E1. The bottom. Yep. It's like the renovations of current building
- with Curry is unknown, as well as the two Hopewell locations and... Sorry, looking at my other side
- of my sheet. It looks like the two...
- for Fullerton and North Park are completed. So we just need some information on whether or
- not the geotechnical and environmental studies have been completed for the renovations of the current
- building with Curry and then Hopewell, West and East. Oh, not Hopewell, West and East. I just can't
- read. Okay. I believe the tap road locations though do need an answer there.
- Is that along with Thompson? And is that something feasible to think that Larry could help us with or
- not? I think there's some estimates, you know, based on like
- For Thompson, for Hopewell, the geotechnical does exist. I think you may have just said that, that you
- saw that on the list, yeah. For the Currie building, because you have a current building on there, I mean,
- likely you're not going to need a lot more geotechnical, it depends on how high you're building and
- what that structure is and what weight. But I do think it's probably fair to assume that that will support,
- you know, a building being that you have a relatively large structures adjacent to it, which would not
- be able to stay if you didn't have at least some adequate geotechnical abilities, i.e. you have a
- fairly large parking garage in the jail itself that are adjacent to it. So if nothing else, I don't
- think there's gonna be anything that would be shocking on that particular site. So I think we could
- mark, although it's marked as an unknown, I don't think it's as much of an unknown as they, the tap
- road area is probably more of an unknown because we have not done any of that due diligence and we don't
- know how much the owner has done.
- And we ask that the ones that you think maybe more than just unknown be amended here so that we get
- that information on our metrics. We can amend those in that information. Thank you. All right. Those
- are all my comments.
- here. Mr. Allen.
- Sorry. Would it be possible on the very last section, question eight, will the site require additional
- preparation? For the yes, is there any extra notation for renovations of Curry Building with Curry?
- I see the other ones have a bit of a note, but I wasn't sure on the square.
- Can I repeat the question to make sure I understand what it is? Just what is the additional site preparation
- when there is a yes mark for the Curry building specifically? Would it be okay if we added that between
- now and the next meeting? Would that be all right? Yeah, I think not only is it okay, I think so part
- of those, anytime there's a structure standing, when you talk about additional site preparation, large
- part that's gonna involve also demolition. So that site preparation is gonna involve demolition at least of
- One or part of those buildings in addition to foundation those kind of things are additional site preparation
- as we go across And we talk about you know, hope well has very specific Infrastructure needs that we
- know about because the city has done that work has plotted out Understand that's a long shot And that's
- very similarly, you know, there's you know tap road where it says
- grade changes but also when we're talking about is all road infrastructure any place that does not currently
- uh at a crossroads or immediate access is all going to have to road construction of some kind so that's
- site preparation the other site preparation that could could occur on the remote sites is any kind of
- grading soil remediation that kind of thing point of clarification what is the difference between um seven
- and seven question does site have additional costs and eight will the site require additional preparation.
- I think we should combine those two unless it was intended to be differentiation if there was
- some differentiation let's spell it out.
- I think sometimes there was just a road would be needed, but you could call that development too. We
- could put in the same. Yeah, I think that's good. Combining seven and eight. Yeah. And then I'm trying
- to figure out what the difference is between six and seven. And that's B, it's B seven and B eight,
- I believe.
- Yeah, B7 and E8. Oh, B7. There we go. Thank you. I was looking at the wrong seven for bingo cards.
- All right. Yes, thank you. I'm with you now.
- need to go over here or still down to the five properties right right I think we have five properties
- and we have determined the most critical things to fill in before our next meeting I would suggest we
- spend a few minutes determining how we're going to conduct this next meeting so that we can actually
- process through some
- I know we have executive committee, then we have, it'll be our last meeting where we really have discussion
- before public comment and then we're making a decision. We'll have the executive public comment, right?
- Next time. So what else do we need to add to that agenda besides those three things?
- The executive committee will be talking about the private properties, right? I heard some feedback last
- week about how we maybe should wait some of the criterion. We could have that conversation now. Okay.
- Just really quickly, we also have a request just for the audience and everybody who's watching. Just
- because we have gone back and forth between properties,
- Could the chair somebody read out loud the five properties that are still in contention and what we're
- specifically talking about To narrow it down so that everybody's clear. Thank you. Sorry council members
- like I think these could be done together, but I Can read so I have I'm wrong you tell me okay, I'm
- counting on the committee for this I have renovations of current building with curry and
- north I have tap road south I have Thompson and I have Fullerton okay thank you that okay with a note
- that I believe we put Hopewell West and East in half gray in case we have to return but it is unlikely
- right HT I think we did the
- the same thing for each t yeah the ht is dependent on the future property owner or potential future
- property owner all right so we've got the five properties identified remaining in our work you all mind
- if i restate i i'm very sorry this is more for my notes at this point
- If that's okay, I don't mean to delay you further. Go right ahead. So the five properties in main contention,
- which are not grayed out whatsoever, that we're considering is the Curry building with renovations to
- the current site. The second one is Tap Road North. The third one is Tap Road South. The fourth is the
- Thompson property. And then the fifth is the Fullerton property. And then as property alternates,
- for consideration, if none of those work out or we need more information, those include potentially
- Hopewell West, Hopewell East, the HT building, and then potentially private lot one, depending on what
- happens in executive session. Is that correct? Yes. Thank you very much. That's what I have. To council
- members Zulik's point, I would suggest that we try to develop
- as uncomplicated as possible, weighted rubric, which also highlights any criteria that could possibly
- disqualify a site immediately. And the ability to score those, I would feel most comfortable not scoring
- them until, or waiting on the scoring until we hear the full public comment.
- But perhaps we could come up with a formula and agree upon that at the next meeting. Do that first and
- then discuss any new information that we have on the sites.
- We could do a 3-2-1 system, where it's three points for any piece of criteria that directly relates
- to the unconstitutionality of the jail. Two could be anything adjacent, and then one could be that we
- have as a community, but not necessarily related to the constitutionality of care with jail. That way
- we can add weight to things that aren't necessarily required.
- So you're saying the numbers you would use to add to the points of value would be three, two, and one?
- So you're saying that those things have different values, right? Yes, and so ultimately we could add
- up the points for each property at the end. I get that part, but I don't understand how you've come
- up with the weighted system for the categories.
- I get the categories, but I don't know why that is three. I don't know why two is two. Why are the categories
- weighted the way they are? That's my question. I think the weighting system is a great idea, and it's
- one that at DLC actually used if you go back to the first packet. Challenge, though, is we're all going
- to come at that at different perspectives, right?
- We might spend a lot of time debating a three or a two when we're under such close constraints and we
- need to figure out the information for each site and from our individual perspectives, you know, take
- a vote from that. I think it's just, I don't think we're going to agree in the next two meetings on
- which one's a three and which one's a two. But I do want to give voice to our individual concerns and
- maybe we do that when we talk about the properties.
- That's also fine with me. So we would have a waiting system or not? No, okay. Always only. Yeah, okay.
- All right. Yeah. Thank you. All right. So by the next meeting, we would have a mostly complete spreadsheet,
- primarily looking at five properties
- And we shift the five over to the left. So that would be great. Yeah. So can we shift the five remaining
- over to the left so that we can have all the ones we're working with viable at this point in one little
- section of the whole chart here rather than having them all mixed up. I'd like to see that fine tuned.
- Does that make sense? Did you hear that, Larry? I imagine you're going to be the one since Ms. Turner
- King will be gone.
- right now so to move all the properties in main contention to the left. All the remaining viable properties
- to the left so that it's great out to the right of those. Yes, and even the potential alternative. Maybe
- there should be three different sections, right? Maybe a current very viable, maybe alternative and
- then the gray area, right? Different color designation. Yeah, that would be great. Does that make sense?
- then we've got our categories of properties. All right. And what else? So the next meeting, we will
- have an executive session and talk about the private properties. Talked about maybe talking about the
- meeting agenda for the regular session. Do we wanna confer on that now? What would the regular session
- agenda look like? It wasn't complicated this time because we were going over the site evaluations. Is
- that still what that should be or should it be something different? I believe we'll still be doing site
- evaluations. Anything in addition to that? I'd like to start talking about the property. All of that
- on that Monday. Following Monday? After a public comment?
- I know we're going to vote on Monday. I just wasn't sure if like to start talking about individual properties
- on Thursday or wait. So would that come after public comment, you think? Thinking site evaluations,
- start discussing properties and then open it to public. Okay. That would require a very quick moving
- meeting. Say that again, I'm sorry. That will require a very quick moving meeting because we will be
- starting public comment at seven. Exactly. That's exactly right.
- I would suggest that we all come prepared with some comments about the properties. I would value hearing
- from this subcommittee what their main concerns and priorities are with each of the properties
- and considering those over next weekend along with the public comment that we're going to hear.
- And I think that could advance our process for getting to a vote in the final meeting. But some concise.
- Yeah, I think now that we're down to five, it's probably going to be somewhat manageable, right? And
- then trying to keep however many there were to begin with all. Trying to figure out where you're at
- with them all. Leave shortly. Is there anything else that anyone needs from me?
- Well, we have a corn even if you leave. So is anyone else need to leave or is it just Sydney? Okay.
- Couple minutes, but just there. Okay. So what else before we finish our work for tonight? It wrapped
- up a little quicker than I thought. I must tell you this part of it. So I'm happy with where we're at
- time wise tonight. I thought it was going to go on way long.
- Anybody else have anything before we call this session adjourned? Any legal comments or suggestions?
- I think I'm going to call the meeting adjourned then. Thank you.