into place and as my final strategy I can come around with a watering can or the hose

and just rinse off any of that potting mix that might have accumulated onto the leaves of my new

plant. When you're putting that in we talk about when you're digging the hole how wide should the

hole be? You know it really depends on the plant. Certainly for woody plants trees and shrubs you

want to make sure the hole is quite wide but not deeper than the root ball. You're looking for like

three times as wide as the pot.

If you're washing the roots,

the hole can be smaller or differently shaped.

You just want to accommodate those roots

and get them into the soil.

Okay, and how about when would you,

are there times when you need to add soil amendment?

So this is when your planning comes back into play.

If you understand the soil texture in your landscape

and you've chosen plants that are adapted

to that soil texture, there's no need to amend the soil.

So many plants that are sold for xeriscapes,

certainly plant select plants and others,

are already adapted to soils that are common

along the front range,

there's no need to amend the soil for those plants.

It's only if I want to grow particular plants

that aren't well suited to my site

that I need to resort to soil amendment.

If I do decide I need to amend the soil,

say for a vegetable garden or a flower garden,

it's better to amend the whole area before planting

rather to amend each hole individually.

That ensures that the soil is uniform

and the plants can explore that whole area

rather than just their planting hole.

Okay, and how about when's the best time of year

to plant a plant?

You know, you can successfully plant a perennial

just about year round in Colorado,

but the best times are those traditional seasons

of spring and fall,

when outdoor conditions aren't too extreme

and the plants have plenty of time to root in

before they have to get through the hot weather,

summer, freezing temperatures of winter.

Great tips.

All right, in our next video,

we're gonna give you some tips on watering your plants.

Hi, I'm Bea Stratton.

I'm with Denver Water, and I'm here with Ross Shrigley from Plant Select.

We're at Gully Greenhouse in Fort Collins.

So, Ross, Plant Select has nearly 200 water-wise varieties, but you're going to tell us about some of your favorites.

Let's start with popular ornamental grasses.

Oh, you bet.

This one here is the undaunted ruby muley grass.

It's one of my favorites.

Full sun.

And then in the fall, it puts on clouds of small pink flowers that just look so beautiful across your garden.

And then in the wintertime, those pink flowers, they can turn a brown and it occupies that space for winter interest.

It's a beautiful plant.

Thanks, Ross.

What about a water wise shrub?

Yes, you bet.

This one here is one of my most favorite pollinator plants we have.

This is fern bush.

It has very lacy leaves.

It blooms on August 1st and it tracks more pollinators than you can even imagine.

and they won't bother you. It's just so entertaining and it's completely drought tolerant.

It's xeric. After it's established, you don't have to water it anymore. Let's talk about a

waterized perennial that's great for hummingbirds and pollinators. Do you have any recommendations

for that? You bet. You bet. We have penstemons. We have a whole bunch of penstemons. Now this is

Red Rocks penstemon, but we also have, my favorite is actually the desert beard tongue and it gets

darker pink than this and it gets a lot larger, but the bees love these penstemons. The hummingbirds

are attracted to a lot of the other penstemons. You get hawk moths and things like that. Very

drought tolerant. All these are North American native plants. All right, how about a waterwise

perennial for year-round interest that looks good in the winter as well as the summer? Oh my gosh,

I got the plant for you. This is another one of those plants where I say it's my favorite plant,

and this is Canna Creek buckwheat, and it has yellow flowers in the spring, and through the

the summertime all the leaves are green just like this but in the wintertime it turns a dark purple.

It doesn't really drop its leaves until you just don't even know they change from purple back to

green. So it's like a full spectrum of color with this plant. Exactly and it's completely drought

tolerant. You find this planted along really tough strips. Great so what is a good water wise option

for someone looking for ground cover? Oh that's a easy answer. This is ever silver creeping germander.

This is a fantastic low-maintenance plant.

It's silver, and it's named ever silver because it stays this way year-round in full sun.

And in the springtime, you'll get umbel-shaped flowers that are purple, and the pollinators love them.

There's no maintenance to this plant at all.

The flowers just disappear, and the ground cover keeps growing out.

Thanks, Ross.

So all the plants we just talked about are water-wise.

Can you talk about what that means and what that can be for our customers trying to save water?

All of the plant select plants are water wise, but what water wise really means is saving water.

So if you're watering your lawn three times a week, all of our plants, almost almost all of them,

you can reduce to one time watering a week and most of those you can actually go less than that.

So that's savings of two-thirds of your water every week if you can reduce it to a once a week watering.

Yeah, that's a really great option for customers that are concerned about water use.

So if anyone would like to learn more about this, please visit plantselect.org.

And for more water-saving tips, you can visit denverwater.org slash conserve.

Thank you.

Welcome back to this biweekly meeting of the South Platte River Committee of Denver City Council.

Join us for the discussion as the South Platte River Committee starts now.

Hi everyone, welcome to the South Platte Corridor Committee.

Today is, what is today?

Wednesday, January 28th.

Thank you.

Welcome, everyone.

I am Councilwoman Jamie Torres.

I represent West Denver District 3.

Before we turn it over to our presenters today, let's do introductions, and I'll start with

Councilmembers online.

Good afternoon.

Diana Romero-Campbell, Southeast Denver District 4.

Thank you so much.

And in the room, I'll start to my left.

Councilwoman Flor Alvarez, Lucky District 7.

Good afternoon.

Council Member Daryl Watson, Fine District 9.

Good morning, or good afternoon.

Amanda Sandoval, Northwest Denver, District 1.

Hey, Denver.

Chris Hines, Denver's Perfect 10.

Kevin Flynn, Southwest Denver's District 2.

Great.

Thank you so much.

And today we have an action item before us regarding the pedestrian bridge at National

Western.

So we'll turn it over to our presenters.

Thank you for being here.

Great.

Thank you so much.

I am Mike Bouchard. I am the executive director of the mayor's office of the National Western Center, and I am joined today by Sarah DiPietro, who is our program director.

Nice to see you all.

All right.

So we have one item to bring to you all today.

It is the pedestrian bridge, construction contract for the pedestrian bridge on our campus.

That has been a long time in the planning and design phases, and we are thrilled to finally be bringing it through for the construction contract.

We wanted to also take the opportunity to do a few program updates and give you just a status of where we are as a program and what progress we have made on the campus.

So this is our campus plan, as you are probably well familiar with.

And really at this stage, with a very successful stock show, 2026, the 120th anniversary of the stock show, we had record attendance with over 750,000 visitors coming through.

And really it was a celebration of opening of the new side of the campus.

So as we look at this map, number nine there that's labeled Livestock Center is the new building we just opened that debuted for Stock Show.

368,000 gross square feet, one of the largest buildings the city has built in decades.

And it debuted for the Stock Show.

It had the animal pens in it, so there were cows and then pigs and chickens and rabbits and llamas and the whole deal.

There was also the show arena where they show and auction cattle.

And then the junior auction, if you watched 9 News last Friday, occurred in the auction hall in the livestock center.

So it really was the center of activity for a stock show this year.

And really, the entire this side of the campus was activated.

And the center of gravity of the show moved to the new side of campus for the first time ever.

So it was a great milestone for us, and we were really thrilled to see how everything functioned and thrilled at the record attendance that we had.

So we are wrapping up the construction of the initial phases of the campus, which we historically referred to as phases one and two.

So that represents everything.

It's sort of on the upper left of this map, with the exception of number 10, which is the equestrian center,

which we are still in the process of working with our development partner to finalize the design and start construction later this year.

There's three other components that we continue to work on.

Pedestrian Bridge, which is number seven, which we'll talk about more here shortly.

Number eight is the Betty Cram Drive Bridge and 48th Avenue Greenway connection over to Washington Street.

That is a project we are doing jointly with Dottie and we'll be going out for

procurement. So we'll be going out to bid here in the next couple months and we

anticipate starting construction on that during the low flow river season that

starts next fall. So that will be the second vehicular and multimodal bridge

connecting Globeville through the campus. And then the final piece that we are

starting work on is number 17, the Marion Underpass, which as you know is a

vibrant Denver bond project that now that the bond has passed we are starting

our procurement for design services to move that project along. The Marion

Underpass not only will go under the three rail lines that that bisect the

campus, it will connect over to Brighton and between the Betty Graham Drive Bridge

and Marion Underpass, we will connect Illyria, Swansea, and Globeville with a vehicular and

multimodal connection that will not require folks getting on the highway to get across their own

neighborhoods. So this is the follow-through on the commitment that the campus made and the campus

master plan committed to reconnecting these communities physically, culturally, socially,

and economically. The final piece of work that is taking quite a bit of our time right now

is the planning efforts around the triangle. So the triangle is the dashed area to the lower right,

and we are finalizing our engagement strategy right now. You will all be getting some communication

early next week on our timeline for the planning process and some of the steps,

engagement steps we've put in place. So more to come on that here shortly.

But it will involve planning for the remaining public assets that still need to be completed in the triangle.

That includes the 10,000-seat arena, the replacement for the Coliseum, additional expo hall space, and the renovation of the 1909 historic stadium arena.

In addition to other uses, residential, affordable housing, and mixed uses that we will be working with the community to develop the site plan for over the next year.

I also just wanted to take a moment to mention an effort that I don't know that we've updated Council on.

We started this about a year ago, actually brought on a team member to help focus on this,

working closely with DOTI really to coordinate all of the construction activities,

both city-led and other construction activities that we're aware of in the Globeville and Elyria-Swanzaia neighborhoods,

put them on a comprehensive map and communicate this out to community members.

Really, with the intent of trying to minimize the impacts to residents on their daily lives,

hey, this road's closed, this is going to be down for two weeks,

wanting to have the information out there to minimize what we know are

and will continue to be ongoing construction activities in the neighborhood.

So just wanted to note that this is out there.

Happy to share those links with you.

I believe it's updated weekly, and so happy to share that as we move forward.

And with that, I will turn it over to Sarah to walk you through the specifics of the Ped Bridge resolution request for you.

So this approves a contract with Ames Construction for $12,742,210 in a contract term of 550 days after NTP, which is about 18 months,

and includes the scope of a pedestrian bridge, as Mike talked about,

over nine railroad tracks in the National Western Center campus in Council District 9.

So more specifically, this includes a single-span pedestrian bridge

between the 49th and Brighton RTD stations, so that's on the end line,

and the National Western Center campus.

It's over nine railroad tracks.

It's actually three different railroads.

It's RTD, BNSF, and DRIR.

So it also includes bridge landing plazas that have elevators with HVAC systems and staircases.

Other elements to note include lighting at the landing plaza facilities and also inside the bridge.

We also have IT and fiber connectivity for communications and safety, which includes security cameras and emergency call boxes.

And lastly, we have a new pedestrian connection to Brighton Boulevard to make this easier to access once built.

I do want to note that this includes federal funding from a USDOT Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods grant.

That all was approved through an IGA that City Council approved in January of last year.

All right.

Oh, and just one, maybe one more thing to note is,

while we talked about the estimated contract term,

we expect that we'll be giving NTP

if this is approved in late March.

So construction would go to the end of 2027

and be open for use at the end of 27.

And this slide just really shows kind of where the bridge location is

in context of the overall campus.

And just wanted to note and reiterate Mike's excitement

about this bridge here because not only is it providing

greater campus connectivity,

but greater connectivity for GES as well.

And just maybe a little bit on this,

we thought that this was a good illustration

of showing what folks currently have to do

if they're on foot or on bike.

So you may have to, if you're getting from the RTD

in station over, or RTD, 40th and Brighton station and over to Washington Street, you may have to go

Brighton to Race Court to National Western Drive across the 51st Avenue Bridge, or you might go

Brighton to 46th Avenue. So we estimate that this will reduce those commutes by approximately one

mile. And this is just a plan view and really this just kind of illustrates all

of the tracks that this is crossing and also the connection on the right side of

the screen to the RTD station. So it's just south of the current RTD station.

And yeah this is a great view of the south face of the bridge. So this is

elevation if you're standing near the bridge you're looking north and you'll note that the

bridge is fully enclosed and that's to protect users but also to protect railroad operations as

well. You may notice the bridge height so on the left side of the screen on the west side it's about

five stories to the bridge deck and on the east side it's about four stories and the reason for

that is because it's got to get up and over, of course, the railroad and the railroad operations,

especially the overhead catenary system, which is like electric lines for RTD.

And these are just some views. These are a couple of different views of the same

tower. So this is the west side landing, and you can see kind of the elevator

entrance on the left side, and then with the stairs on the right side of your screen.

and a similar elevation on the east side landing.

And that's all we have for our presentation today,

if you have any questions.

Great. Thank you both so much.

I've got a queue going.

Councilman Watson, why don't we start with you

as this is in your district.

Thank you so much, committee chair,

and thank you both.

I share the excitement for kind of the opening

of the new building on the National Western Campus.

And not just the livestock additional piece

for showcasing and bidding on that,

but also the community piece.

I mean, the community night that was held in respect

and support for the tens and tens of community organizations

that helped to make this campus part of community

and their presence that evening I think was fantastic.

And as I meandered through the many events

over the 16 days and just walking into that building

and seeing the small group community meetings

that were happening throughout that building,

I think it speaks to kind of the thoughtfulness

of that project and I wanted to just take a second

and say thank you both for that utility.

Yes, it is what it is, the livestock center,

but really for a community that may not have had a say,

per se, in some of the other development

on National Western to be clearly involved

in the building of that process

and then also to be a part of a solutioning for space

for them to have a place to come to, I think was helpful.

So, I wanted to share that.

I'm always cognizant of asking about federal funding

I'm going to do it, and you say what you can and what you can't.

Reconnecting Communities grant was a massive win for our communities.

It was a hard-fought grant.

Many other communities applied, and Globally Larry Swansea was successful.

What is the stickiness from your perspective, from what you're hearing,

as for this specific bridge project that we're discussing,

and not even any of the other reconnecting stuff.

I think some Betty Cram, some of that has reconnected as well.

Share what you can on the stickiness of that grant.

Sure. Do you want to?

From a federal grant award perspective?

Yeah. So I use the term sticky.

I mean, is it here? Is it being grabbed, called back?

However deep you can go, please.

Yeah. So thank you for the question.

And yes, we had a great grant award.

We were all really excited in 2024 when we got that notification.

So this was part of a four-component application request, and the total award was for $36 million.

And it included other projects Mike mentioned already, the Betty Cram Drive Bridge over the South Platte,

the remediation of the former DPS bus barn, as well as an at-grade crossing, a railroad crossing.

And so in coordination with FHWA, we were able to talk about how we would obligate those funds.

So we were obligating them kind of separately. So they have to reach a certain milestone

for us to be able to obligate that funding. Ped Bridge was kind of first in line.

We were progressed far enough with our design that we were able to go ahead and obligate that.

And that was part of the IGA that you all approved last January.

And so since then, unfortunately, the unobligated portion of that grant agreement for those other three projects has been rescinded.

And that happened with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Don't ever say that.

You draw one?

Yes.

So that was what rescinded that funding.

And maybe if I could just give a shout out and an acknowledgement to a lot of the city colleagues that worked to help get this in front of you all.

As soon as we could, we were concerned that the worst could happen and funding could be pulled back.

But so we were glad that we were able to secure what we could when we could.

So it took a team effort to get it across the finish line on January 17th, 2027.

or 2025. I hate even having to ask that but I thought it was important for us to be transparent

that the obligation for this bridge is solid is sticky and the funds that weren't obligated there

there's some pressures and issues with those being rescinded. My other question final question is

not specific to the funding but I'm trying to orient myself on the towers for the bridge

the land on which those towers are built, who owns that?

Is that owned by the state?

Is that owned by Union Pacific, owned by us?

Talk me through, and when I say the towers,

I mean obviously you know what the towers are,

where the length of the bridge connects to.

That's city-owned land on both sides, yes.

And of course we're in close coordination with the railroads

because we'll be working closely there.

We have a temporary easement to construct

and then permanent easements for permanent aerial easements for the bridges.

But the landing on the east side is not RTD property.

We're right up against that station, so we're in close coordination with that.

But, yes, that's city-owned land.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, committee chair.

Thank you.

I've got Councilman Alvide that is followed by Flynn.

Thank you, committee chair.

Great information.

Very exciting.

Definitely excited about this grant. I'm curious, did we have to purchase the airspace

above the railroad and how much did that cost? Oh, great question. We did not for RTD. We did

not for DRIR with RTD. We have an IGA with them for several projects in this immediate vicinity.

Um, uh, we did for, um, BNSF and, um, I, I am forgetting the amount right now, but I want to

say it was approximately like around $200,000 for the temporary easement and also, um, the

permanent aerial easement. Um, but I could get you those exact numbers and we can follow up there.

That'd be great. Um, I'm also curious for the contractor, what was the minority or what,

What goals were there?

And can you speak to the workforce requirements as well?

Sure.

Yes, there is a workforce requirement.

And we did have an established goal for this project.

And unfortunately, we were asked to remove that program.

the federal government issued a DBE interim final rule about removing the

those goals from federally funded projects so this is not an ideal

situation for us and we were disappointed to have to do that but we

did coordinate with dispo and the city attorney's office to try to understand

guidance here and that was the recommendation that we received that's

That's really terrible to hear.

So it's not just DBE.

It's MWBE.

Right.

And SBE?

It was an MWBE goal.

The difference for this grant agreement was a different regulation that's DBE.

So we really wanted to dig in and make sure we were clear on what we were doing.

We got guidance from the attorneys at the federal government that we would be jeopardizing the grant.

So we passed all of that information along to DSBO as well as the city attorney's office

and received some legal guidance on that we should probably remove the program to be in

compliance with our own ordinance.

And also we just use a lot of acronyms.

Can I ask a question?

Sorry.

I was just going to say, what the acronyms, I was just going to say they can clarify the

acronyms and then I'll get back to you.

So the DBE, DISMO.

Yeah.

Can you spell out the acronyms that you're using?

Oh, sure.

business enterprise and then minority and women-owned business enterprise and

then small business enterprise yes sorry I lost my train of thought that I had so

I'll get back in the queue yeah thank you thank you Councilman Flint thank

I'm sure who did the design for the bridge that's Wilson okay not recalling

when that contract came through?

When was that?

How much was that for?

I would have to give you the exact amount,

but this was part of a larger contract

for Horizontal Design Services

on the National Western Center campus

with Merrick as a prime consultant.

So they were subbing to a larger contract?

Correct.

So it's essentially like a master on call

through which we have task orders.

Okay, could you let us know before this comes to the floor how much that design contract

was?

And my primary question actually is, first of all, thank you for observing the height

above the RTD track because I was on that project 25,000 volts AC.

So it's a good idea to keep a lot of separation.

18 months seems like an awfully long time to build this bridge.

It just strikes me as outside what I would normally expect to build a pedestrian.

What's the overall length and single span?

So it's got to be some pretty heavy stuff.

The overall length is about 265 linear feet, if I recall correctly.

And I think a lot of the time is procuring long-lead materials.

There are elevators.

We also have to comply with the Buy America, Build America Act.

So, you know, that will also increase the lead time for procurement of materials.

Okay.

So we won't see construction, actual, you know, things moving, machinery, workers.

We won't see them on NTP.

notice to proceed, we'll see a lot of maybe storage of material as it arrives.

I think we can anticipate that it will take a while before they're really kind of moving around out there.

So this is a hard bid contract, so we don't have the contractors' schedule and activities

specifically in front of us at this point and we'll get more into the

coordination with them yes as that as we obviously a lot of work that will be

going on during the next stock show and are there provisions in the contract for

securing the work or keeping those areas safe from the 750,000 people who may

come or more yes they're addressed in the contract yes yes and everything we do on

the campus. We, you know, stock show happens every year and construction activities have to work

around it. We have to let the show go on. So that's factored into how we coordinate all the work that

goes on. And the 18 months is really sort of very conservative. We would hope to deliver that sooner,

but, you know, we're getting the kind of worst case scenario. The intent is that it is complete

and open for the 2028 stock show. All right. Perfect. All right. Thank you. Thank you,

Thank you.

Council President Sandoval, then Councilman Hines.

So on the pedestrian bridge, the elevators and on both sides, my council district has

tons of bridges in it over the consolidated rail line that connect with Council District

10.

having a meeting on Friday because they don't work.

The elevators specifically?

Yeah, the elevators don't work.

The ones behind the Zeppelin Hotel, the A-Line,

have never worked, or they did,

but they don't currently work.

So there's a consistent pattern that on bridges

that the city and county of Denver builds and owns

and operates, the elevators don't work.

So how, even in my council district, the one that connects over off of 18th, not the one that connects on 15th, like the big millennial bridge, it's owned and operated by a metro district, which should have at least some like line item in their metro district to be able to have that operational.

We don't down so councilmember Heinz can't get a crop like he has to come on the 16th Street mall

go up go up and over and then head back door 20th or

Go under not I mean stay on the 20th side. I'm what I need you go to north. So it's all north or

20th

Underneath the pass and by Rockies, and it's not and that's been like that sidewalks been under construction

there are I had a tour with council member with councilman Taurus about the one going up and over

spear because I was nervous about that so how do we ensure that this is and from what everyone's

telling me especially with the one over the consolidated rail line closer to 20th street

which is like 18th that it's antiquated that it's older I think it's only 15 years old to be 100%

honest with you and they're saying that the elevator doesn't work because elevators aren't

supposed to work when they're outside in the city and county of denver and because we have cold

weather i could go on like i could have a whole committee of meeting about bridges and elevators

and how they don't work how is there a so long story short is there a line item in your budget

to make sure that these elevators will already always be operational and then is this how old

is this design? Is this design from like five years ago and now we have new crews that are

designed with better equipment and better mechanisms? Because the one off of 18th, they

updated about three years ago and the fire department now is saying that there's, because

the fire department has to certify the elevator, right? They're saying that the equipment,

the parts are no longer available and that that bridge probably won't ever function to

have people who need like people in strollers, people

in wheelchairs, ADA accessibility, it's probably gone.

It's done.

And that's super frustrating.

So how do we ensure that we're building something that's

going to last, I think we just celebrated 120 years

at the stock show.

How do we ensure that we're building something

that's going to last 15 years?

Sure.

Great, great, great question.

I'll let you answer the age of the design question,

and then I'm happy to address the other.

Sure.

So this design has just recently been finished

right ahead of issuing this for bed.

We actually just changed the elevator.

So as far as kind of what's available

and whether the design is stale,

we feel pretty good that this is the latest, greatest.

And if you want to answer the maintenance question

of the elevators.

It's something we think a lot about.

So like everything else on the campus,

even though this is a public asset the city owns

and is paying for the construction, will own this asset,

we hand this over to the National Western Center Authority

to operate, maintain, and program for the next 100 years.

That's the mandate of the authority as an organization

through the framework agreement,

through a board that is appointed largely,

with majority mayoral appointees on that board.

So they are the entity responsible for the long-term operations and maintenance,

including capital maintenance and replacement of these elevators,

if and when that is necessary, for the next 100 years.

So it's not a typical city-operated pedestrian bridge.

It's not even a typical metro district.

It is a unique entity that was conceived of and constructed specifically to do this one thing on the campus.

So that is the assurance we have of the long-term maintenance of this bridge in particular

and why it is different from a lot of the other bridges that the city has in its system.

I'll just say that doesn't give me any confidence because we have the Union Station Authority and that elevator is broken.

and that the Union Station Authority was the design that we used for the National Western Center

Center Authority because I was in Councilman Montero's office when we did this and that

elevator's down. That elevator's broken all the time. You cannot go from the foundation. I can't

remember that the name of the foundation is up and over on Union Station. You can't. It's broken.

And so I'm telling you, unless you mandate that they have a line item for this to be done when we hand it over to them, it will probably be broken.

I don't know one elevator in the city and county of Denver that operates and functions.

The only one that I do, the ones that I do know, I think the one on 38th and Blake was down for like a year and a half.

because RTD, at least RTD, you can call a line,

and it's especially for the elevator there.

But I'm telling you, as a council district that has more bridges

than you would probably want to think about over the Platte,

because I have the Platte, I have I-25, I have the consolidated rail line.

They don't work.

And so I understand.

I'm very familiar with the framework.

I'm very familiar with the authority.

I've been there since this even started in 2012.

when they've decided to stay, unless you force them, like, have a deal

and we hand that over, that piece of capital,

and say that you have to mandate that this be, like, stay working,

they just don't work, which means that it's great for me.

It's not great for Council Member Hines in 10 years from now when it's freezing

and he needs to get from one side to the other

or somebody who needs to walk and isn't accessible

and that's the whole point.

So I'm eating a dead dog.

Councilwoman Taurus knows that I'm like,

she's like, knows that I have this thing

about these bridges.

My staff is probably laughing at me right now

because I'm having a meeting on Friday

about a bridge that I'm not going to go anywhere

and I'm still holding that meeting

because I want it publicly on my calendar

that I'm holding everybody accountable

for a bridge that they literally told me

will not be fixed.

and it's unacceptable because that means that council member hines has to go from the millennial

20th and it's not safe and that's why we built these bridges and so i just like i'll get off my

soapbox but i'm so tired of us building infrastructure with elevators in a climate

where we have coal that they're not sustainable that why don't we figure out how to build them

In Europe, it's freezing, and they have figured out how to do these without elevators, where everyone can still get accessibility 365 days a year.

Because they don't have elevators in Europe to go up and over the bridges.

They just make them so they're accessible all year long and not have to deal with corroded elevators that are cold and mechanical issues.

issues because it's scary to be stuck on a bridge that doesn't have an elevator when you need it.

So I'll let that go.

But thank you all.

And if I could, we will follow up on potential of a dedicated line item for this moving forward.

Absolutely.

100%.

And Council President, I do want to address that we did explore the ramps extensively for this project.

project and felt like it's, you saw how tall the elevator towers are. And so we were really

constrained, especially on the west side with utilities and the adjacent livestock center. So

it was something that we explored and kind of felt like we were a bit constrained in terms of what we

could do spatially. It's interesting because it's the west side that makes me the most nervous that

if it broke down and someone was stuck in the middle of that, I don't even know how they would

get out. So that's

actually, it's the west side when I was looking

at it that actually asked these

questions because if someone gets stuck on

there, I mean that's

it's super tall.

Yeah.

Just out of curiosity before we go to

Councilman Hines, has there ever been an

agreement where we have line itemed

elevator maintenance? That I know of.

I've never asked it before.

Okay. It's coming up

I think all the time

and

So I think it would be really important to map out what could that look like.

Okay.

Councilman Hines.

Thank you, Council Dreyfus.

Thank you, Madam President.

That was actually my line of questions as well.

So thanks for getting off the podium.

I'm going to take it and get right back on it.

So I think the President said a lot of what I was going to say.

I would just add color if, like the Millennium Bridge at the south end of the 16th Street,

I have gone up the elevator over to the other side and had the other elevator broken.

And so then I have to, you know, go back and hope that someone's not blocking the access

to the first elevator for, you know, letting people in or whatever.

However, my concern, to the council president's point, is let's say I make that decision in cold weather.

Rather than go all the way around to the railroad tracks to a non-elevator solution, it's freezing.

I'm going to try to take the most direct route to our stockyard because I want to celebrate 121 years of our stock show.

And it turns out the elevator doesn't work.

So what do I do in that situation?

Do I do the long journey around?

You know, that wasn't part of the plan.

It was maybe not part of the wardrobe that I had.

You know, like I didn't plan that extra jacket or whatever.

So I am, my office is right now working two elevator complaints.

One is a 13-story apartment high-rise that doesn't have any working elevators.

So not only is it private buildings that have elevator issues, it's as I continue to dig

in on elevator challenges, and I represent district members of the center city, so maybe

we have more high rises and therefore more elevators.

But it is my understanding, at least not from the elevator industry, but from individuals

that service elevators, that the response from those who produce elevators is, we're

just going to shorten their useful lifespan.

So as opposed to, you know, an elevator is supposed to, like, if you bought an elevator

20 years ago, it's supposed to last 30, 40, 50 years.

Now the elevator industry is saying, you know what, this elevator is going to be good for

10 years.

And after 10 years, we're not going to service it at all.

You have to buy a new elevator.

So I just also want to not only factor in the costs of today, but the opportunity lost by people who want to use this bridge and can't, and also the maintenance down the road of having to replace an elevator.

Obviously, that elevator is one of the expensive parts of the solution.

I don't know what the percentage of the construction costs are for the two elevators, but I also don't want to, you know, investigate, as the council president said, a line item in a budget somewhere and then have—this isn't a metro district, but we've seen metro districts say, we installed elevators.

those have been broken so much that they're broken more than they work.

And so we want to then investigate how to replace them with a ramp getting up to it.

And they say, oh, it's too much.

We're just not going to bother.

So then we are limiting, you know, a group of people that require elevators.

We're also eliminating other groups of people that stairs are possible, but certainly a challenge.

And so if we're going to spend the people's money, we should make things available for the people, not a subset of the people.

So thank you, Council President, for your thoughts.

I, too, have concerns.

It's 50 feet high, right, on one side, 40 feet on the other.

That's a ramp.

So, but I just, I have concerns about spending, what's the contract amount?

About 12.7.

Yeah, 12.7 million of, you know, the people's money on something that's not available for all of you.

So, thank you.

Thank you, Council Torres.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, Michael.

I would just, maybe a little bit of context campus-wide.

This is one solution for getting across the tracks, but it's not the only one.

This gets you up and over right at the end line station as shown here.

But the Marion underpass is the other connection that will be multimodal,

obviously ADA, bike pad, and vehicular that will go underneath all those.

So the connection between the two, if there is this situation where the elevators are not functioning

while they're being repaired, when the Marion underpass is in place,

there will be other options that will require you going the full way around.

So I just want to make sure that I'm giving the full context of how this plays in the larger campus infrastructure.

I would be very careful.

And you report to a board that's majority mayor appointed that you are saying the Marion underpass is ADA compliant

because you were implying that what you're trying to build is not.

So I just want to make sure that.

Understood.

Can I retract that?

That's certainly not what I'd tell you.

Thank you.

Okay, thanks.

Councilwoman Avitres.

Thank you so much.

Agree with my colleagues, definitely have this issue in my district as well at RTD stations.

But going back to my follow-up question about the goals was will we still track the utilization

so that we can use that data in the future?

Can we still ask, ask, not require, but at least ask them to report how many of the businesses

that they're using are small, minority, or women-owned or disadvantaged?

Yeah, absolutely.

We were just talking about that.

This information kind of came down to us just to provide some more context

while this was an open procurement.

So it was kind of very last minute.

So we do believe that this would be something that the contractor will be open to.

We've worked with them before.

They maintain great relationships with their subcontractors.

And so I think that that's something they would absolutely be willing to do.

I think that's important, just as we had the disparity study town hall today with the Division of Small Business Opportunity.

And we have come a long way.

And I think this is the beginning of us going back to former ways where we aren't utilizing small minority women-owned businesses, disadvantaged-owned businesses.

And my understanding is with the federal government's decision, we just have to come up with a new way to define what is disadvantaged.

Bless you.

Thank you.

So I think tracking that will be very helpful.

I did want to ask about the workforce requirements.

Can you tell me what those are?

I do not have those in front of me right now, but they are kind of the standard workforce

requirements.

I believe 15% apprenticeship.

I would have to go back and provide that to you, but this does have a workforce requirement

that's consistent with the ordinance.

Great.

And then is there contingency built into this price with the unpredictability of tariffs

these days?

I don't know if this is a steel bridge, but I'm curious how much contingency could we possibly do we have could we have are we

Anticipating tariffs affecting the future cost by the time this is built in 550 days

Great question

Yes, we at the guidance of the city attorney's office do include a line item and our beds for tariff increases

Now, in theory, because we're having to comply with Buy America, Build America, there wouldn't be a lot coming from overseas that would have a tariff applied to it.

However, we do have a line item and an allowance in our contract.

And so that's, you know, they would have to request and show that they've incurred that cost and then we could approve that.

So it's not a guaranteed value for the contractor.

And then it would be reimbursed by the federal government, not by our general fund or capital dollars.

Correct.

To an extent.

So this grant is, it does have a local match.

And I believe it's a 42% federal funding to 58% local match.

So as we, up to $10 million for federal funding.

So as we submit reimbursement, that would get applied, that kind of percentage.

So the $10 million is not necessarily guaranteed if we don't kind of get up to that higher value, if that makes sense.

Great.

And then as far as listening in on the conversation around the elevators and the line item request,

who will be into the future paying for maintenance and repairs for the bridge?

Is this in a maintenance district or is it?

Yeah, so this will be under the authority of the National Western Center Authority.

Okay, great.

This is handed over to them.

They are then responsible for operations and maintenance long term.

Great, wonderful.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Just wanted one question on total budget.

What's the total cost of this project?

So the full?

The full, yeah, yeah.

Do you have that handy?

Yeah, I think right now we're estimating that it's at about $23 million,

with design and contingencies.

That obviously assumed a construction value.

There are other costs to deliver this project.

If we needed to have bus bridges for RTD,

we don't plan on that,

but we have a contingency for that just in case.

And that includes design and other costs

to deliver the project as well.

And then how much was the USDOT grant?

Oh, go ahead.

$10 million.

Oh, you said that before.

And as I said, that would be that percentage.

So what we'll actually realize will be dependent on kind of the actual value of the ultimate construction cost.

Okay.

And the 4258 split, which is the local match?

Let me double check in my notes to make sure that I am saying the correct percentage here.

So I'm not.

The local match is the higher percentage.

I could have taken that out.

Well, let me get back to you.

I could be misstating those numbers.

It could be 4852.

So I want to be clear in what I'm saying.

So let me make sure that I follow up with that exact information.

Perfect.

Thank you so much.

Anyone else in the queue?

Yeah, Councilman Flynn.

I'm sure.

To Councilman Alveders, there's 18 subcontractors listed on here.

could you provide us with or we could go right to disbar ourselves if you could do that could

you let us know which ones are certified with by the city as uh mwb absolutely we at least know

which ones of these 18 it looks like that i can pick out well i'm not personally familiar with

all but maybe two uh so that'd be helpful yeah we'd be happy to do that great thank you so much

and I don't see Councilwoman Romero-Campbell getting in queue,

so I think we're good.

This is an action item, so we need a motion and a second.

Thank you, Councilman Hines, second by Councilman Watson.

Everybody good with this moving forward?

Yep.

Great.

Thank you so much.

Thank you all for being here.

We're adjourned.

Makes noise because sometimes it reminds our neighbor to breathe.

One more full breath in.