The Annapolis City Council held a work session on July 17, 2025, to discuss two major agenda items: the City Dock flood protection and redevelopment project, and the Carrs Beach shoreline restoration and park master plan. Staff from multiple departments presented updates on construction timelines, funding, and community engagement. No formal votes were taken, but council members posed questions and received commitments for follow-up.
Sorry running a little late today. Thank you, everybody. The work session of the episode of Council on Tuesday, July 17th, 2025 will be called to order 304. This time, would everyone please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance? City Attorney, please present the first on the agenda. Yes, sir. The first item on the agenda is ID 11725, City Dock Cars. Presenter City staff. Welcome. Nice to see you all. We are delighted to be here, and we have a full team, uh, full city dock team with us. We are very pleased uh that Zoe Johnson from the Naval Academy was able to join us today, as well as both our landscape architect and architect who you all have met before, James Sink, Chris Holler, our preservationist, Kim Dayleader, and then of course, you know well Marcus Moore, Hilary Raftovich, and our public works director, Burr Vogel. So we um we have a brief presentation for you. And what we would like to do today is give you an overview of all of the various things that have been happening concurrently so that you're up to date not only on what's happening, but what are actions that are going to need to take place in the next couple months. And specifically, we want to focus on our coordination with the Naval Academy and their uh construction, which will start in the fall of the wall, as well as what has become um very critical, and that is stabilizing the Bertus House to protect it from harm's way. Um we also will be sharing today uh some funding options. The public works director will be talking to you about that as well as the phasing and the specific schedule for construction. Um so with that said, Council is very aware of the urgency we've had this past year, two of the all-time 10 top flooding events. So each year we get it becomes more critical for us to get started, and it can't be soon enough with the uh comprehensive flood barrier plan that you all have approved. And you've seen this slide uh before many times, but it's really at the heart of everything we're doing. Uh council during the budget hearings, I know is aware of the uh project costs. Again, here are the projected costs that we anticipate and the revenues we anticipate in funding at this time. We are expecting over 86 million dollars in funding from federal, state, county, city uh sources, and that does not include some anticipated private donations. Again, Burr Vogel will be talking to you about some funding options and alternatives. As we look at this project today, I wanted to just step back for a moment with the council for you to look at all of the aspects you have approved and all the aspects that have really been moving forward concurrently. Very, very important for the entire project was the um successful P3 partnership with the garage. I talked with finance today, and it continues to the garage Hillman Garage continues to outperform the expectations and the predictions. And again, that was our initial upfront funding for this entire project, and it remains a critical revenue stream. Council, I believe, is aware that all aspects of the city dock project, that is the site plan as well as the amenities, in addition to the maritime welcome center, Prince George Street Park, which I believe the new official name will be Vince Leggett uh Park. That is the site plan as well as the amenities, in addition to the Maritime Welcome Center, Prince George Street Park, which I believe the new official name will be Vince Leggett uh park. All of those elements have been approved by both of our commissions, Planning Commission as well as Historic Preservation Commission, and Maryland Historic Trust has approved both concept and construction drawings for the Maritime Welcome Center. So with that said, I'd like to turn this to our partners at the Navy. This is what our current conditions are at Prince George Street in terms of flooding and in terms of elevations. Zoe. Good afternoon, Mayor. Good afternoon, Council. It's a pleasure to be here. As you know, I'm Zoe Johnson. I work for Naval Support Activity in Apollo and home of our Naval Academy. And I have been involved with the City Dock redevelopment, the City Dock Action Team since its inception a number of years ago. But what I wanted to sort of share with you today is where we are with planning for flood protection along Prince George Street. We issued a press release a couple of weeks ago announcing the award of a about a $2.6 million contract for a flood wall along Prince George Street, which as soon as the contract to team mobilizes will start towards the end of the summer, early fall. This project is the third of a major resilience projects that we have been successful in awarding the last few years at the Naval Academy. We recently wrapped up a 39 million dollar uh flood wall flood protection project at uh Farragut Seawall. And we're currently have about an 11 million dollar uh road protection project under construction to protect the cemetery and the columbarium on installation um called Ramsey Road. So we have been moving forward. We have a plan similar to the City Dock plan that's that's uses a range of solutions, both natural resources well as structural solutions to address flood control. And we're very happy then that we've been successful at designing and awarding and now seeing a number of these projects um begin to be constructed as well as completed. But what's important with regard to this Prince George Street flood wall project that I wanted to share with you is that it was designed to integrate in with the existing concept designs of the city docks uh redevelopment. It I want to kind of spend a minute just talking about height in case there are any questions about design height, finished height, uh, you know, our height from grade um for security purposes.