The Raleigh City Council met on March 4, 2025, in an afternoon session (1:00 PM) and proceeded into closed session before the evening session. The meeting covered consent agenda items, planning commission recommendations, special funding allocations, city manager reports, public hearings, committee reports, and appointments. Key actions included approval of funding for East College Park townhomes, a pilot program update on homelessness, convention center expansion phase 1 guaranteed maximum price, and updates to the Neighborhood Traffic Management Program (NTMP).
Thank you for attending the City Council. We'll call the meeting to order and start off with a pledge of allegiance and Counselor Branch would you lead us. One nation under God. Liberty and justice for all. Next we have the consent agenda, and there was one item uh polled, and that was D four, which was the Carolina Pines Avenue Street Improvements Project. Um do we have a motion for the remaining items? Move for approval. Second. Okay. All in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. All right. And then for D four. Uh I know we're gonna have some additional commentary. I think next week. Okay. So we'll just hold it in. Yeah. I mean, you tell me how to proceed. I mean, I have a couple things on D four, and yeah, maybe just clarify. You're talking about the work session next Tuesday, that there's gonna be discussion on the Carolina Pines Improvement Project. Um yeah, I know there's just concerns that are coming from my residents about the delays here and wondering whether the bids that are being considered to be rejected maybe are still in the ballpark, perhaps, you know, of costs that might be appropriate at this time. I know costs have gone up a lot in the kind of inflationary environment we're in. But yeah, could you just clarify how we're gonna approach this? It sounds like next Tuesday we're gonna have a conversation. Sure. Uh good afternoon, everyone, Byron Sanders Engineering Services. Um we're gonna have two things. We will be coming before you all next week with a plan that not only talks about Carolina Pines, but a number of projects where we're working right now to uh bring things into budget, identify funding opportunities, that sort of thing. Uh specifically for Carolina Pines. Uh this rejection of the bid is really more of a step back to take steps forward. Uh, we did receive three bids with this recent readvertisement. Those bids were all in the same ballpark. So we've got a lot of confidence that the pricing is fair. Um however, that pricing is still uh in excess of our engineers' estimate. By about I think it's twenty four percent, somewhere around in there. Um so our plan is to uh reimagine the scope of the project uh and put it out, advertise it with a bid and two bid alternates. Um the base bid would be uh would carry the project from Lake Wheeler Road to about Henslow with some uh bid alternates that address one would address uh some storm drainage and other work on Henslow and carry the project from Henslow to approximately the railroad tracks, and the other bid alt would take it from the railroad tracks on to South Saunders Street. So really the plan is to uh and understanding the frustration. Uh really the plan is to try to build as much as we can with what we have and also have an idea of what those other pieces are going to cost. We may be able, depending on the base bids, how they come back, to be able to look at some of those other pieces in those bid alts. Uh the other thing that I think is important to mention is that we do have a 100 percent design completed. So we will have essentially a shovel ready project for the rest of it at the time that we can identify uh that funding. Yeah, I guess what I just want to say is if we're potentially going to shorten you know the amount of street that can be improved because of our current budget, then I don't want to lose sight of what has been promised to the taxpayer. This is through you know transportation bond funding, is it 2017? Yes. Yes. So I just have residents here that feel very um concerned that they've kind of gotten into last place maybe in these projects and are now losing out on some sections to be improved there. Um so I just want to kind of bring that to light for our conversation next Tuesday and clarify that we're not making a decision today about these bids.