Remember when you're a little bit more than a little bit.

All right, everybody.

We now have a quorum, and we can convene.

Uh Councillor Jonathan Lambert Melton has an excused absence today.

Um, and Mayor Pro Tem Ford is running a few minutes behind, but we'll be joining us, and we are here to talk about the twenty twenty-two Parks Bond update with Shaw Shine Baker and Kelly Ham.

Thank you.

Good morning, Mayor, and good morning, members of the council.

I'm Shaw Shane Baker with Raleigh Parks.

And this morning, my engineering services colleague Kelly Hamm and I are presenting a progress update on the twenty twenty-two Parks Bond project.

And towards the end of this presentation, I'll be giving a brief overview on the annual Parks Capital Improvement Program supported primarily by the Penny Tax Revenue.

First, the bond projects.

The neighborhood and community connections partnership is going strong currently in permitting phase.

We also recently secured pretty substantial partnership with a private developer for the office renovation activation on Dix Park.

In addition to all that, we have received over $800,000 from City Raleigh stormwater program for the implementation of green stormwater infrastructure on some of the bond projects.

We still have a couple in the pipeline and we continue to look around.

With that, I would like to have ask Kelly Ham to uh start talking about the projects.

Thanks, Shashem.

All right, and we're going to talk a little bit about the project status.

And this slide may look familiar to you.

We've used it a few times as we've provided updates.

So as we go down the slide vertically, we have the park bond projects.

And then as we uh go across the top from left to right, we have the phases of the project, starting with early phases like RFQ, planning, schematic design, construction documents through permitting bidding, construction, and finally uh completion.

And our progress uh since our last update to you all, which was in um March, is shown in blue.

And I did want to note even if you don't see an entire phase advancing in blue, we are making a lot of progress.

And we're going to talk about the projects based on the fiscal year.

They were funded a little bit here.

So for fiscal year 24, um, we have one project that is open to the public, and wow, what a wonderful project to be the first one delivered through the park bond or resounding uh success with the Play Plaza.

We've got a couple projects under construction, and then Green Road is in the bidding category.

Um a significant number of the projects uh funded in fiscal year 24 are in permitting.

I won't read all of them, but um for I wanted to point out Biltmore Hills is the farthest advanced.

It's in the um building permit phase, and the remainder are primarily in um site plan permitting.

And the remainder of the fiscal year 24 funded projects are in design, um, as you can see here.

And the fiscal year 25 funded projects are also in design.

So happy to report all the projects are rolled out and in um design or further along phases.

We just wanted to briefly mention some of the ongoing challenges, and this is not to alarm anybody, just to say that we are um anticipating planning for these um factors and trying to work to minimize uh their impacts on our project to the extent we can.

So um some of those challenges are tariffs, um bidding conditions and contractor availability to do the work, increasing costs.

Um there are some projects for which we have federal grants, so we want to be extra careful to make sure that we meet all the requirements for those projects.

And then relocation of impacted services.

So even as we are um planning for design of renovation to some of the community centers, our um parks counterparts are working very hard to put in place plans to um relocate some of those services and to minimize any impacts to programming overall.

And so now we're gonna talk about the dashboard.

And we will see.

Okay.

So um we last provided you an update on the um park spawn dashboard at our last update, and um we wanted to preview it for you today.

So we're calling it the 2022 Park Spawn spending tracker.

And um, I'm just gonna go over it briefly.

You can um pick all projects or you can pick a specific project.

So right now we're looking at all of them.

It has an interactive map here where you can click on um project, so each of these dots represents the project.

And the bigger the dot is um the more bond funding the project has.

And then as we go over here, if I pick a we'll do this in a minute, we'll pick a specific project, but um when we pick that project, it'll tell us what phase it's in.

It tells us what is the total budget.

So this represents the 275 million of bond funds plus any other donations, grants, or other funding for a total of 325 million here.

And then it shows us on the next line how much have we spent from the parks bonds.

So we've spent 55 million, and then um it'll give us for each of the projects individual, but but our goal is to spend down these funds by December of 2029.

And then as you go down farther, um there's a cash flow curve here.

So um we actually so this is how we plan to spend the funding over time.

So the blue line is just that that projection.

How do we plan to spend this 275 million of bond funds over time?

And then the green line here is how much are we actually spending over time?

So the blue line is a projection based on a curve, and the green line is based on actual invoices and pay applications.

So as we go over here, we have some general information about the bonds.

And then we have these graphics that look like speedometers.

So I like to call them spendometers because we're trying to show how much we're spending.

So you can see here the first one is spending from the parks bond.

So we know we have a total of 275 million.

And so far, if you see this dark blue, we have spent about 55 million from the bond.

And then if you go to the middle, it's going to show us spending from those other sources.

So we've got 50 million and we've spent about almost 36 million.

And then if we go to the far right, that's just going to total everything up for us from the bond plus other sources.

So 325 million and we spent um 91.

And so we'll just go ahead then and try to preview a specific project.

Let's just take a look at TARBOR, for example.

And one thing that you'll know is you have to unclick the select all so that it shows you that specific project.

There we go.

Okay.

So now that we're on Tarborough, you see our map is focused right into our project location.

Our project description is telling us specifically about Tarborough.

So we have a note about when the schedule was last updated in this case.

We had a contract amendment that um did schematic design through construction.

So we're on that schedule.

Um we have an overview of what it is.

So this is redeveloping the park, and then some of the key features, the community center, playgrounds, um, play court, parking, and so forth, and improvements to St.

Monica.

And then if we go over here, you can see we're in the design phase.

We're anticipating being done with construction uh in January of 29.

And then as we look at our um projected spending versus our actual spending down here.

So again, projected is blue and actual is green.

And then um as we go over here, our spendometers, we can see again our budget for this project is 29.3 million.

We spent about 980,000.

And this particular um project doesn't have any other funding sources, so you're just seeing um bonds.

So that a spendometer over here will look just like the one spending from the bond.

So um with that.

I'm going to turn things back over to Shashin to talk about the look ahead.

Thank you.

Next steps um, of course, we're going to continue implementing these projects and continue to pursue grants and partnerships and this dashboard that Kelly just showed you.

We hope to publish that this week.

Um unless there are any substantial input and comments from the council that we need to address, of course.

I mentioned earlier that we're going to uh plan we are planning for an open house event for spring 2026, and this event is intended to be a community event with a fund and food and music and family activities.

And once that date is finalized, we'll definitely share with the boards and commissions and city council and the broader community.

The next two slides, I only have two slides left.

Um the next two slides are about the capital, the annual parks capital improvement program, again, primarily supported by the penny tax.

Back in fiscal year 2022, City Council authorized to implement a one penny tax increase to support maintenance, deferred maintenance, and lifecycle replacement.

Um during the first year of why 2022, one penny brought us $7.6 million, and that amount has increased with the current year being $11.6 million.

And since then, Stav has been working pretty hard with the penny, and we have completed over $120 projects through the execution of well over $200 contracts, and that we have expensed $28 million, and currently there's just shy of $9 million under contract waiting to be spent.

And here's some uh snapshots of the projects that are covered under this program, Dix Park Building Abateman demolition, a site stabilization.

We also have security system expansion and upgrades at locations where there was none or locations where um there were uh analog old outdated analog systems to keep them upgraded.

And we completed about 40 at about 40 facilities so far.

And then ongoing parks paving, stream bank restoration, playground renovation, and park system upgrades.

So those are targeted for again focusing on maintenance, deferred maintenance and the lifecycle replacement.

And with that, we're happy to take questions.

Yep, Council Branch.

Definitely thank you for the presentation information of the 4.187 that is short between that 21 and net 17.

I know you say you had three opportunities, excuse me, coming forward yet to be secure.

But what's the touch point or the date kind of on the calendar that says, hey, if we don't have funding for this $4 million by this date, then projects may be in jeopardy.

Okay.

I wouldn't say our projects are in jeopardy, and the grant funding is really to supplement.

We're not counting the projects are not designed accounting on the extra funding.

The extra funding would just provide extra Christian extra confidence for us.

And also if there's any low-hanging food during the projects that come up that could be covered with the additional uh grant funding that would be helpful.

So we're not counting on that money.

Okay, perfect.

Let's get to hear.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Counselor Patton and then Silver.

Hi.

My question is around think there's a budget gap on New Surve Park.

Um between what was approved in the master plan and what is available.

And I know like funding opportunities are being pursued, but I don't see them reflected here on the slide.

Are those still looking optimistic or how is it going there?

Um they are not on the slide because we have not secured them.

We are only reporting back the dollar amounts that we have secured 90 percent.

And for News River Park, we did we complete the master plan and we're looking at phasing to see what we could accomplish with the bump funding and also meanwhile looking for other opportunities.

One of the uh the grants I caught out on the SLI was uh state parks grant, and that's something we are eyeing on, and hopefully to apply for for this project.

And we are also talking with our partners and to hope to uh bring some private dollars, but they're not secured yet.

And if going back to Mr.

Grant's um Mr.

Brench's question, if we fail to do everything there, we will phase the project and to have it fit within the budget.

And then a broader question is it fair to to characterize that these bond projects currently are on time and on budget?

Maybe fair characterization overall.

The short answer is yes without getting to each project.

There has been some council directions to ask scope to certain projects that impacted uh funding and uh schedule and staff has been strategizing every time we receive directions from council or from the community to again um with the hope is to get everything under budget and and on schedule.

But there has been some adjustments based on additional input during the process.

I know on our presentation, and it's I guess in beta version before you roll out the tracker, and uh certainly uh appreciate it.

I know we had talked about uh and a very effective tool we use in New York City Capital Tracker.

Um this is a suggestion for the future, but I think the public should be aware there's always three stages of a project.

There is design, procurement, and construction.

And so whether in the future, I know you want to roll this one out, uh, would there be an ability of just showing which stage it's in so the public understands what is happening?

Oh, it's in the design phase.

Procurement, I imagine is very short here, unlike New York City, which was 14 months.

Uh but here I think it is shorter, and then design.

There is some complexity, uh, just adding that one feature about what comp percent complete so the public understands, oh, design is expected or estimated to be completed in this quarter, the projects expect to be delivered.

So I think that would just be a helpful innovation.

But the fact that you have this tracker, thank you.

It is very helpful as we go out and members and community ask us about it.

We could either tell them go directly to the tracker or we ourselves can look this up on the dashboard.

So we just want to thank you for this addition uh to understanding how our capital projects go from design to completion.

Thank you for that input.

Uh when we when the team worked down this tracker, we this product is intended to be a living document or a living product.

And from both the elected officials as well as to general public.

So we do intend on improving it as needed.

And currently there is a phase as Kelly presented.

There's a field showing what phase we're in.

Design, construction, but we do not have uh the rainbow or the speedometer to show that, but we could uh work with our surprise.

I just couldn't play with it because in the slide it was static, and so I kept clicking.

So I understand it's in beta, you're gonna roll it out, so I will certainly take a look at it.

But thank you for that uh that addition.

Very helpful.

So I'll just second Councilor Silvers.

I mean, this is fabulous.

Like this is gonna be such a great tool.

Uh when when do you think it's gonna go live?

I mean, just ballpark?

Uh we'll have things set up today.

Um hopefully tomorrow, uh, we'll have the links on all the project websites, including the main Parks Bond website.

We'll have it set up just ready to roll.

Okay.

Well, I mean just the interface, the the diagrams, the interactivity of it's really really great.

I mean, I do think this uh then begs if the parks department uh does this, you know, the affordable housing bond, the transportation bond.

Um, we're probably gonna need to develop right tools to assess those projects um in those uh departments of the city so that we're treating all these big bond issues equally.

So I don't know whether we've got plans to do that, but uh I think that's gonna immediately be the next question.

I have to say there has been a lot of efforts.

I it's the season to give uh thanks and appreciations.

I do want to thank IT staff and for uh nights and weekend work to make this happen.

And uh to answer your question, it would be it would be a shame if we only use this one time for this park spontane.

And if we do intend on hopefully uh I'm not speaking for Marshall, but hopefully to uh use something similar for future bonds and to help with transparency.

So second question um, which kind of goes to some of Kelly's comments about I mean we know there's been tariffs, inflation, uh all these projects, the dollars have gone up.

And so this sort of suggests that the 2022, when these things were bid, that that was the total number, and we're just tracking against that number.

I mean, at some point you also need to show where there are inflationary increases, how we're trying to address that.

Um I mean, maybe that's too much to put into the tool, but I also want to acknowledge the amount that the city is stretching and uh, you know, in the case of Dix Park, of course, where you had philanthropic dollars, put in an additional 1.5 million to cover some of the inflationary overruns, and you sort of want to recognize the muscle and flex that the city and philanthropic partners are putting in to make sure these projects are actually brought to you know to fruition.

Appreciate the thought.

Um, most of the uh very complicated large-scale projects, uh, we did have uh different uh delivery method, like construction managers at risk and who help us with the cost estimation from real um construction market time and hopefully and we're also tracking escalation as well.

Every step of the way, we have certain percentages of escalation built.

So we're we're hopeful.

I don't I don't want to promise anything, but we're we're hopeful that most projects will be delivered on budget.

But that's why uh again back to Mr.

Branch's off uh question.

We're we're still looking for additional funding opportunity for in-case situations.

But we're not necessarily increasing scope even with additional funding.

Just hopefully one bit time comes, everything is workable.

Okay, any other questions.

All right.

Well, I think that is the right only item we had on our work session, and uh we appreciate it, and we are uh adjourned until the regular session at 1 p.m.

I'm Robert Hansen, and this is what I do.

Whether you're a Raleigh native or new to the area, you've probably been to Pulland Park.

It's a magical place for kids and adults.

I've been doing that for about three and a half years, and what I do.