hello my name is kevin dorn on 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 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 as helen really the chair of the south burlington city council patrick duke who is the chair of the library board of trustees and jennifer a coke man 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 sixth so with that i'm going to turn to helen  talk a little bit about the about the background of the project the scope of the project and how it fits into the communities plans for city center ok great thank you to heaven and thank you audience and i hope with you have questions we'll call in during this taping you may or may not know but the city itself going to has been talking about a city center for about forty years so this is a long time coming and the library has been talking about it and gathering some money to support building a new library for i think it's thirty years so this is really the culmination of an awful lot of conversation hope and visions for our city over the past forty 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 going to 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  invested in creating a city center the state also then thankfully awarded us the designation as a tiff district which will allow us to help create a city center on open land at this point which is rather unusual for the state in the country there are tips all over the country but so we start to 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 in november sixth is a really critical key piece in compassing for 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 city offices and then importantly something that we envisioned and included in the design 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 in the tiff helen the  the land that has been acquired through an option by the city was not adequate really to 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 this facility is planned to said but it is right behind the market central school and the school board in the city council 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 with 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 ken 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 into 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 our what we hope is the new moon 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 p section is this piece of land and a little bit of the green i guess that will is part of the swap and that allows us to build our community center in a cost effective way on this small piece of property by having this right of way an easement for the utilities in the parking as a swap from the school what they get in return is really one having a three storey public building overlooking their their school the blue portion in the picture is a new access to markets school market school scuse me right now it's a handshake in an agreement by the current owners that the road that they use they can use this will guarantee access to that piece of property for ever it also  improves the safety aspect of the access to the school 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 pick up at the school the other part of the agreement it's in i think article two hundred the city in article i think one in the school section is an agreement that if this comes to fruition if the voters vote vote yes on the first four items on the on the articles article one two and one two for a school and city then the city hall will be moving to the new building and when that happens we have  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 of years and eventually if they so choose they can buy the building at hefty price of ten dollars so i think it's a win for both sides of the ledger in terms of our tax payers 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 librar in consolidation of municipal services but also really improving the safety for the for central school as well  district thank you helen this is a great example of collaboration between the school board in the and the city hall as you know both both entities get something really beneficial out of the agreement should the voters approve patrick the i think the viewers today are really want to know more about the footprint and 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 the library portion which as helen noted is the largest component of the community center talk to us a little bit about what 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 after two so the library board had many years as you pointed out one of talking about a new library for our community and it's really a powerful opportunity for our community 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 in the city to design the space that we think is the right fit for self i want them so i think we're going to throw a picture up on the screen of the of the first floor of the library and as you'll see on the bottom of that screen there's a vestibule where you'll walk in and you'll 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 be welcomed by the city hall clock staff wide open space there very bright mary and then if you turn right you'll turn into the community library or the public library i should say and that first spot as you walk and you'll be pretty presented with the circulation dest are right there in front of you as well as a stair case to go to the second floor  and then to the media right there's a library living room so the 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 a 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 were 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 space and then a number of stacks of resources whether that be books d v d s and other resources that our community utilizes and when we talk about the stacks of the resources for our community we've been looking at this from a thirty year perspective so we're looking at population trends in south burlington as well as the communities 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 will be offices for the library staff themselves as well as lots of activity rooms that are set aside for make or spaces or other activities that the programming will utilize as well as a specialized rooms for different age groups so we talked about kind of the infant room that  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 home city council meetings public performances of all kinds and public use as well and in the library the 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  library spans into the second floor but before we go there i think we'll turn it over to jennifer jennifer or the the city of south burlington like most communities in vermont is experiencing  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  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 want to 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 a little way from our our families of origin and so we want to find new communities we want to find  groups to associate with and for instance i one of the delights of my life is that i have a monthly breakfast with about fifty amazing women and we talk about all kinds of things i think that what i've heard from 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 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 pearlington is really going to make opportunities for surface ill of the 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 it's going to be in the included in the senior center we have a very large room where we can have lunches for seniors it would hold about eighty ninety people setting up with the tables then the tables can be removed and we can do some light exercise classes we can offer those things now every once in awhile in 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 twelve to fifteen people it will have a flat screen t v 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 for 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 in our director holly reese figures that right now she could program about ten hours a day into that space so this is our really great addition and we're 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 will also occur in the library patrick  on the second floor of the library have a lot of the adult reading rooms and and teen center reading rooms talk a little bit about what you see happening on the second floor be happy to so the second floor is as you mentioned the entirely the library space so the that floor you go up the stairs where the elevator will have to elevators in the building one is largely to move to the third floor but this one of the center will be accessible for all the community to get to the second floor library space as well as the staircase so this second floor also kind of has a roof terrace as well or a terrace i should say at the front so as you invision 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 a meeting rooms and study rooms that we have in visioning as well as a multipurpose 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 in our program we didn't happen as you look a little bit to the left of that multipurpose room you'll see the friends of the library space which is another community  organized group that helps with library services and sells books and other entities or other objects the multipurpose room if you look at the back as 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 and we have we use this space as you look around more the toward the left of the graphic on your screen you'll see it in a large meeting space that could be used by the public for meetings any non profits or organized groups and in the back you'll see a good space digital lab that we're in visiting with technology for the teams to use as they explore coding in other things  team space and then a raised reading area which is kind of a cool little spot a little bit different a lot of rest of the library and that's really just great architectural design right below that spaces or auditorium which would have a race ceiling so we took the opportunity to res reading area there that's a little bit of a cool spot for kids to kind of hang out with so we're really imaging a lot of programming happening in that that you can see there the wide open glass that we have there so we have a very bright and airy space for community use right outside that terrace and i would double up on what you said about the intergenerational work the opportunity that we have in front of us there to have our youth in the elementary school our youth just coming to a 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 for this new community center you know helen council in the public have expressed their strong commitment to sustainability issues in a moment i want to have you talk about the energy efficiency in the design of the building before we get there i think it's important at this point to put the the community center in the context of the of the surrounding area we have a graphic that shows where the city community center will sit in relation to other on market street behind the market school but can you speak to exactly so the viewers know exactly where this will be plan street the new community center will be just for the the curve are just after the curve next to behind us is the school is as kevin has said and then directly west of this proposed building is a new senior housing called allard square so they'll be thirty nine 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 a several other buildings that are envisioned and one is a housing for affordable housing  being built by the commune the champlain housing trust and then other parts along the the road are envisioned to be private enterprise that will be building  housing as well as commercial this is kind of in the center of the tiff district cross the street of course is the mall which we've seen has had some revitalization the tiff center goes down in includes send remote drive so the opportunity to really develop this space and provide some of the financing which i'll get to for city center is really important think as i said earlier you know 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 seven a busy williston road  interstate eighty nine so we are kind of across words in very important to the economic vitality of county in the state but it is left us without a center so we're really 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 of energy efficiency in sustainability i know that the architects and the various focus groups who have been working on this have spent a lot of time think how can we make this 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  d conservation ok 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 s 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 a 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 in building and have it not be a drain on our taxpayers there light shows there's kind of cool tile carpeting so if he is build something or it gets worn you can pick up the tile and replace it and it looks new a again versus waiting till the rug gets you know 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 terrorist is 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 plant to make it a green roof we can it's service 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 in planning or go to the library as well as using the businesses that will develop in this area there's bicycle parking the road the marketplace road is designed to have me a really lovely bike access as well as pedestrian  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 of our public buildings so we're going to set a really nice example i think for the community well 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 ok i think as patrick noted earlier there's two elevators one has access to the third floor where that we're most of the city hall offices are of note i think it's important to point out that the city clerk's office is will meet their expanded space needs it will be front and center if you walk in the library on the right in 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 look the looking at the screen all the blue is the 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 and 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 designed for city city offices and we understand that that really lends itself to a great deal more collaboration an have lunch in the sunshine clearly the 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 we're going to pay for this and probably the biggest question is will this increase property t so start with that to start with the answer to that if you would helen and tell us about how this project is going to 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 tiffs center and so we have a large city reserve fund and those dollars to fund is about seven hundred thirty six thousand dollars a year and that is already embedded in your tax rate and that is projected to be saved and set aside in every budget  community has voted five times already or 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 the pie then the other significant piece is the tiff portion and that's tax incremental financing and this is the added valuation of buildings built within the tiff district and seventy five percent of that additional value which drives their property tax bill the state has will allow the community of south burlington to retain seventy five percent of that and use that to help fund the public infrastructure and buildings and to centers they do this all over the state it's a wonderful incentive that it really encourages and allows the 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 blend checked fund monies that  ave been gifted to the to the city or the library board and can be used to support this we also have the we have a solar array built on the landfill and the income from that that goes to the city about seventy thousand dollars a year we have set aside for the next thirty years to help support or pay for  the solar array and the variety of of energy efficiencies that the building and compass is so those are the big pieces we haven't included in this bond issue any future fund raising that the library may do so that may in the future depending on how sexy successful you are will offset the amount of city reserve f patrick you want to address that a little bit i know that you've been working with the board on developing a fund raising 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 fund raising and have those donations be tax deductible so we're going to 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 the naming rights are a possibility 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 i go to the dog park quite often and i ask people if they're from south burlington then they and have they heard about the community center and and sometimes they have and 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 day time and recreation and parks will be able to expand our program up to this point we haven't had had any kind of program space to call our own so this will allow us to do a lot more programming then 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 and the sea 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 invision by the citizens of south burlington it's mostly a natural area  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 birdwatching and have your kids you know 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 w ant to be there and i think that people from other communities will want to be in this in this area patrick thank you jennifer the library has moved recently it it is now in  university mall it had been a component of the high school library for many many years tell us what what a new library facility will mean a new dedicated library facility that you have your own space and and  ability to program what does that mean to the community and is just powerful i mean the ability to program all the things that are barbara director jennifer would like to be able to do i mean she's she's done a great job for our library so far but i mean there's constraints from within the high school there was constraints because we were really serving two different populations in some form in the mall we have different constraints and i think having a public space that is really belongs to self world and citizens is going to be a powerful as jennifer said with the with the great foresight in planning the city has done so that we can move this forward and not have increasing taxes our community continues to evolve and change in new members cumber community and this kind of cornerstone of our of our new city center what a great what a great thing a park i mean this will build a public library a senior center what a great tone to set as we developed markets it's a great points helen as we know the election is coming up in a couple weeks november sixth 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 want to support the community center how should be it is 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 soon the debt for the building which is twenty point four 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 waste water project for three hundred thousand dollars which we hope you'll vote for because all of that money gets paid through for state and federal funds so while we bond for thirty thousand 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 of their future use of city hall as administrative offices for the city so we hope you'll come out and vote november sixth if you haven't already and i personally hope you'll vote yes on all of those ballot i am so i think this is the cornerstone of our city center in 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 important for voters to get out and and vote anybody who would like to have additional information can look at the south burlington web site and we also have so blue life is out great publication sent to every 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 program and today thank you thank you lea