1 2 3 4 5 6 7 KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT 8 Special Session 9 Tuesday, December 17, 2002 10 1:00 p.m. 11 Commissioners' Courtroom 12 Kerr County Courthouse 13 Kerrville, Texas 14 15 16 Design/Build Team Interviews 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 PRESENT: FREDERICK L. HENNEKE, Kerr County Judge H. A. "BUSTER" BALDWIN, Commissioner Pct. 1 24 WILLIAM "BILL" WILLIAMS, Commissioner Pct. 2 JONATHAN LETZ, Commissioner Pct. 3 25 LARRY GRIFFIN, Commissioner Pct. 4 2 1 I N D E X December 17, 2002 2 PAGE 3 1.1 Consider and discuss presentations by finalists for design/build team for HCYEC renovation/ 4 expansion project 3 5 Faulkner Construction/J.M. Lowe/Quorum 6 6 Huser Construction/Allen Adler 50 7 STR Construction/William Epp 103 8 1.2 Consider and discuss selection of design/build 9 team for HCYEC renovation/expansion project 127 10 --- Adjourned 156 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 3 1 On Tuesday, December 17, 2002, at 1:00 p.m., a special 2 meeting of the Kerr County Commissioners Court was held in 3 the Commissioners' Courtroom, Kerr County Courthouse, 4 Kerrville, Texas, and the following proceedings were had in 5 open court: 6 P R O C E E D I N G S 7 JUDGE HENNEKE: All right. It's 1 o'clock in 8 the afternoon on Tuesday, December 17th, Year 2002. We'll 9 call to order this special meeting of the Kerr County 10 Commissioners Court. First item for consideration today is 11 to consider and discuss presentations by the finalists for 12 the design/build team for the Hill Country Youth Exhibit 13 Center renovation/expansion project. Before we ask the 14 first team to present, Mr. Gondeck, do you have any 15 introductory remarks you want to make as the consulting 16 architect? 17 MR. GONDECK: Yes, sir. Judge, 18 Commissioners, first of all, what we will be going through 19 today is three sets of interviews, and to begin with, we'll 20 ask the presenters to give their presentation, and then we 21 should have about 30 minutes after that for questions and 22 answers. The Court would first be able to ask any 23 questions, with the exception of we will not discuss fees or 24 costs today. We can talk about cost methodology, but 25 according to the statute, we cannot ask them, "What is your 12-17-02 4 1 price?" or "What are your fees?" So, we do not want to go 2 into that. Just about everything else is fair game. I do 3 have a few questions after y'all finish that I will ask each 4 of the groups if they have not already given that 5 information during the presentation. Okay? 6 JUDGE HENNEKE: Does anyone have any 7 questions about the procedure? 8 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Little bit about the 9 format. Will they make all -- all make the presentations 10 and then we'll ask questions? 11 MR. GONDECK: No, sir. Each one -- we have 12 them scheduled at 1 o'clock, 2:15, and 3:30 for the 13 different presenters. The first one here will present for 14 30 minutes, or hopefully not more than 30 minutes. Then 15 we'll ask them questions. Then the next one, when they come 16 in, we will ask -- have them present, and then we'll ask 17 them questions. 18 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Okay. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What -- Mr. Gondeck, 20 these rating sheets that you've presented -- 21 MR. GONDECK: Yes, sir? 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You -- you want us to 23 be thinking about these as we go along, or at the conclusion 24 of the session, or how do you -- how do you see that 25 happening? 12-17-02 5 1 MR. GONDECK: I would say that if you have 2 any input that you want to -- as far as how each of you 3 individually score and how many points you wanted to give 4 it, as long as you're consistent through the three 5 presenters, I'm not going to provide any guidelines for 6 that. I did provide, you know, what the points will be 7 weighted as far as my recommendations, as far as an 8 objective score. Even if you choose at the end not to 9 actually have your scores or your evaluation done on a 10 strict scoring method, it is not really incumbent upon the 11 Court to have to score it that way. Our recommendation does 12 have to be on an objective scoring criteria. 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. 14 MR. GONDECK: But yours -- you still have the 15 autonomy, as elected officials, of voting the way you want 16 to. But I guess it's there as a guide or as a tool. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: First, on the -- on the 18 price side of it, we can't talk price, but all of the teams 19 are presenting the proposals that they feel they can do for 20 up to three -- within the budgeted amount, $3 million? 21 MR. GONDECK: Yes, sir. And that is actually 22 one of the things that's listed there as to the feasibility 23 of the project as far as time and budget, based on their 24 design concept. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. And are you going 12-17-02 6 1 to give us a recommendation at the end? 2 MR. GONDECK: Yes, sir. I have a quarter in 3 my pocket. Three-sided quarter, right? 4 JUDGE HENNEKE: Best two out of three, huh? 5 Does anyone else have any questions about the procedures or 6 the parameters of the interviews? If not, let's get 7 started. Gentlemen, you're up. 8 MR. BAER: Thank you, Judge and 9 Commissioners. We of the Faulkner, Lowe, and Quorum team 10 thank you for the opportunity to be in front of you today to 11 present and clarify any questions you may have. We have 12 prepared this response in the notebook that is being passed 13 out to you. It has some sheets which try to address 14 specifically the points brought up in your Phase II of the 15 Request for Qualifications. First, let me introduce myself 16 again. I'm Dave Baer from Faulkner Construction. And, of 17 course, you already know -- I believe everyone in the room 18 knows Mike Lowe, from Lowe -- J.M. Lowe Construction, and 19 Bill Blankenship from Quorum Architects. 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Spell your last name, 21 please. 22 MR. BAER: B-a-e-r. Each of us has some 23 connection to either Kerrville and/or this project 24 specifically. Of course, J.M. Lowe lives and works here in 25 Kerrville, as well as doing projects elsewhere in the state. 12-17-02 7 1 Faulkner has done a number of projects and is currently 2 doing projects here, one of which is just two doors away 3 down the street on -- for the Performing Arts Theater. And, 4 of course, Quorum has been involved in the project early on, 5 as you all well know. One of the things that we wanted to 6 point out today is, if you open the -- to the first page our 7 organizational chart, this -- this isn't a traditional 8 looking organizational chart, and we did that purposely. In 9 a design/build format, it's important that we create the 10 sense of a team leading toward an objective, and each party 11 has some role to play in that team. You, of course, as the 12 Commissioners Court, are the owner, but there are several 13 consultants that you bring to the team as well, plus 14 ourselves and consultants that we have for special purposes. 15 But the success or failure of this project is largely 16 accomplished in the very front of the project, the design 17 phase where we are identifying design solutions to your 18 needs. 19 We've attempted to do that based upon the 20 criteria established in the design criteria, and in a moment 21 Bill will speak more specifically to that. And we've got 22 some of those drawings here -- included here, but I just 23 wanted to point out, as -- I know it's sort of a cliche, but 24 it's very important to realize that the greatest impact that 25 all these decisions can make on the project happen early 12-17-02 8 1 rather than late. It happens in the very beginning. It 2 happens in probably the first team meeting, the first 3 kickoff meeting that we have together, is really where great 4 decisions are made that impact dramatically the -- the final 5 solutions and final project. 6 The first month or so of our efforts are 7 really where we -- we bring the diverse elements together. 8 And, by "diverse," I mean the scope of work as we understand 9 it, and maybe have it clarified. Then we have, you know, a 10 budget and expectations from the end users and the 11 Commissioners Court, and how we bring those all into a -- a 12 circle that is realistic for all of us to attain each of 13 those expectations. That happens early, so it becomes 14 critically important that the team be established in the 15 sense that it functions as -- as a communicating and 16 decision-making team, so that we can proceed along a 17 timeline that's critical to your needs. 18 I'm going to let Bill speak to his inserts 19 here, and you can turn the page and start to open those up 20 in a second, but I wanted to just point out that while, you 21 know, we believe we have -- collectively have a challenging 22 budget condition here, we have taken the approach that we 23 would try to put all of the design criteria on these 24 documents as we best understand them from the -- the handout 25 package. And we can get into more discussions about those 12-17-02 9 1 specifics as we go along, and, obviously, they would be 2 further clarified at subsequent meetings. Bill? 3 MR. BLANKENSHIP: Good afternoon, 4 Commissioners and Judge. If you would, take the first sheet 5 and flip the first sheet out. The way I have done this is 6 so that as it's folded out, we'll go to the next sheet and 7 you can see how it kind of works together. The initial 8 page, though, is the overall site, and like Dave was saying, 9 we try to emulate what was brought out in the RFP so that we 10 do cover all the bases that were there with all the design 11 criteria. 12 The site that you see, the gray area is all 13 the paving that would be involved up front. There's 14 approximately 150,000 square feet of existing paving, and 15 we'd be providing about 240,000 to 250,000 square feet of 16 additional paving to that. The area that's shown dashed -- 17 if you don't mind, I maybe need to kind of show y'all a 18 little bit. The area that's dashed is your existing area 19 for all the parking. That's right through here, and see how 20 it goes up around there? So, one of the criteria was to 21 provide at least 600 spaces. To do that, the additional 22 area is that 240,000 square feet. We have about 530 -- if I 23 counted them right, the way I laid out the parking, we have 24 530 existing spaces, and we provided you with another 604 25 spaces in that gray area that's shown outside the dotted 12-17-02 10 1 line area. Also, the exhibit hall was to be put over to the 2 east side facing north. The existing barn area's 3 50,000 square foot. Then the interim piece in between with 4 the central core is shown, the overall look being one that 5 would unify that front area. 6 I'll start with the exhibit hall first, and 7 just say that some of the initial thoughts on that, we had 8 it more turned towards any possible future addition. With 9 the criteria that was set on the RFP, it asked for a 2-in-12 10 slope, and also a masonry front. What I did with that is 11 turn it so that the front elevation looks more like the 12 elevations that are coming up with the existing arena and 13 the new barn area. The existing arena criteria was asked 14 that we provide concrete outside the arena area itself, and 15 if you look on there, the orange area is the existing arena, 16 and the dashed area or dotted area is the added concrete. 17 When you go over to the existing barn -- yes? 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Is it easier to ask 19 questions as we go? 20 MR. BLANKENSHIP: Sure. Any time you want to 21 ask a question, ask it, because I can clarify things. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Just to make sure I'm 23 understanding, looking at the existing arena that so the 24 area that has the bluish-grayish speckled -- 25 MR. BLANKENSHIP: Right, that's concrete. 12-17-02 11 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Is concrete going to be 2 added in all that area? 3 MR. BLANKENSHIP: Right. That was asked for 4 in the RFP. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 6 MR. BLANKENSHIP: When you go over to the new 7 barn area, the front area shown dashed is the concrete area, 8 and the two back areas are the dirt. In between that, we've 9 got your central entrance, restrooms that handle that area 10 up front, and portion of the existing arena, the offices. 11 And then, while we were doing our walk-through, it was 12 brought up that -- that you wanted to save the existing wash 13 rack area. And also, there's some criteria in here that 14 says you wanted to cover that and add some heating in there, 15 so I accommodated that, actually a little bit larger than 16 what it is right now, because I feel like it's probably a 17 little tight for what they're doing. It's approximately 18 50 feet across there. So, on the site, if you look at that, 19 has anybody got any questions about the total, overall site, 20 how it looks and operates? 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The -- go ahead. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No, go ahead. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: On the -- in between the 24 existing arena and Barn 1, you have the concession area as 25 furthest back? 12-17-02 12 1 MR. BLANKENSHIP: Yes. I'll get into that in 2 a little bit. It will be -- I've got it blown up down 3 further. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: All right. 5 MR. BLANKENSHIP: I'll clarify that for you. 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You're going to do 7 kind of an in-depth discussion on the exhibit hall also? 8 MR. BLANKENSHIP: Right. 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 11 MR. BLANKENSHIP: Okay. So, to give you an 12 idea about the elevations, take your next sheet. That is 13 the elevation; you can fold it out. And then take the next 14 sheet under it and fold it out also. You can just place 15 them one on top of the other, so you can get a general idea 16 of how the elevation is in comparison to the two buildings. 17 That's how they're both going to look. One of the things is 18 that on the existing building, we're taking a portion of it 19 off, so the e-height on that building is actually larger 20 than what it's showing up as it is right now. And then it 21 continues on, and then you've got the area to the side. The 22 new barn was asked that we match that height, so we did, and 23 provided a central area for people to come into both the 24 existing and the new barn. 25 And, just to clarify a little bit, the 12-17-02 13 1 existing beige look on the front of the building, we kind of 2 held that, because we feel like that's probably something 3 that we can't change right now with the monetary situation. 4 If you flip the elevation over, the area for Barn 1 -- 5 Commissioner Letz, your question was you can see the 6 concession stand over on the side. That's in that 50-foot 7 space along with toilets. And then there's also a toilet 8 area up front which covers the front concrete floor, with 9 the idea that that was probably going to be some kind of 10 assembly. 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: The washing racks are 12 all in that covered area? 13 MR. BLANKENSHIP: Right. 14 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. 15 MR. BLANKENSHIP: And I figured what we'd do 16 is we'd remodel those, because I don't think they will work 17 the way they are right now. 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Is it intended that 19 the -- that the toilet areas in that -- in that covered area 20 near the wash racks, they're not -- are they not especially 21 for the general public? The general public's are on the 22 other side? Is that -- 23 MR. BLANKENSHIP: No, the general public -- 24 the way I figured this would work is everybody in Barn 1 is 25 going to have activities that they're going to cross back 12-17-02 14 1 and forth between those two, so the area for the cross-overs 2 is where the concession and the toilets are. 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Mm-hmm. 4 MR. BLANKENSHIP: That being an agricultural 5 type in the back. And also the situation over there on the 6 existing arena, then you're going to have actually three 7 toilet areas to cover the existing arena. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. 9 MR. BLANKENSHIP: So, it spreads it out so 10 that you don't have to walk across back by where the arena 11 might be. And also, you may not have the existing arena in 12 operation, but you could have Barn 1 in operation. This 13 allows you to have one in and one out without having to open 14 them up, and you still have availability of concession and 15 toilets. Then, if there's someone in there like the Youth 16 Fair, if they're doing their wash rack area, they can have 17 access into that area and back out without having to cross 18 any of the public areas, if that's only operating over there 19 on that side. 20 The front concrete area, the way we arranged 21 the -- the barn, there's two areas on that front that are 60 22 foot by 100 foot that have clear spans in them the width of 23 this building. You can say it's, like, a 60-foot -- a 24 50-foot and a 60-foot span. So, there's two 600- by 25 100-foot clear spaces up front, and then there's the movable 12-17-02 15 1 partition that goes down the central course area to divide 2 that area up. Each one of those, like y'all -- you had 3 asked in your RFP, there's three separate spaces that are 4 connected up with overhead doors. And just a little 5 clarification on how I did the overhead doors; I didn't want 6 to go back in and show every little door that was there, but 7 every overhead door is going to have a personnel door beside 8 it. 9 The offices that we have in there, you wanted 10 four offices and some storage and reception area. That's 11 about 2,200 feet. I didn't take it all the way up to the 12 2,500, because the wall that's at the end of the offices is 13 where the wash racks start right now, and I felt like if we 14 got into there, it would be getting into a bunch of 15 plumbing, so I didn't want to do that. You have a central 16 area that leads off to either existing arena or into the 17 Barn 1; also would be an area that you can get to the 18 offices and cross over into the offices back to the back. 19 That's up to you, how you'd want to have that for 20 accessibility. 21 Okay. Take the next sheet over and fold that 22 up. That's the elevation for the exhibit hall. And then 23 fold the one underneath it. You can kind of see how it sits 24 on the exhibit hall. Kind of look under it. We've got some 25 projections that come out for the wings for the storage, and 12-17-02 16 1 the offices added on. What I did, I got a masonry front 2 that goes around to the sides and then up from the -- up to 3 the front, and then I blocked that off, thinking that it's 4 going to be too much to carry that all the way up to about a 5 24-, 25-foot height on that back side, so I stopped it there 6 where the Hill Country Youth Center -- that would be metal 7 from there on up. 8 Turn it over. The criteria had asked for a 9 north and east entrance, and so I -- I configured this so 10 that it actually works for all the parking that's out on the 11 front and north sides, east or west. And this allows for 12 any future addition to be added onto the back so that the 13 configuration up front for the elevation sets that peak so 14 that it matches those other elevations. Originally, I had 15 one that was turned so the flat piece came out, and I don't 16 think that's what you wanted to have for the -- the 17 elevation for the time being. This allows you, in the 18 future, to add that back area with no change up in the 19 front, and it's probably your cheapest addition. What 20 you've got is toilets that service 1,000 people, and a 21 kitchen that would provide for a catering-type. 22 Like I say, the entrances on the two sides 23 allow for a lot of movement of the people in and out coming 24 from all the way around. The front area would be a sidewalk 25 area, so it's a gathering area. And then you had mentioned 12-17-02 17 1 about a mall. What I did was use -- we got a landscaped 2 area out in the front. This would also allow the kitchen to 3 be serviced from the side. We could just put some small 4 walkway up there so that you wouldn't have to get inside the 5 building to service the kitchen. The storage area on the 6 east side could also be serviced from the side on the -- 7 parking on the east side, and then have access into the 8 exhibit hall. The offices on the west side can be utilized 9 by the exhibit hall, and in the future, if there's any kind 10 of added arena or concourse, they can also service those 11 people, too, for offices for any kind of meetings or 12 something that somebody in that arena would be having. 13 That's a quick deal. Have you got any questions about that? 14 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: How does -- how does 15 the -- how is the kitchen serviced? 16 MR. BLANKENSHIP: From the area that's up in 17 the front, the landscaped area there. 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Oh, okay. 19 MR. BLANKENSHIP: We have trees out in front; 20 they're right back there. You can come over to the side, 21 have a parking area, and they can just wheel through that 22 kitchen. We'd probably put some kind of front door, you 23 know, very -- not -- so you wouldn't see it very well. 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I see. Okay. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, deliveries to the 12-17-02 18 1 kitchen would come from the front behind the trees? 2 MR. BLANKENSHIP: Yeah. That doesn't 3 necessarily mean they have to, but that's just an 4 opportunity to keep it out of your exhibit hall area. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 6 MR. BLANKENSHIP: So, if you open all those 7 up, you can kind of see how all the elevations fit with the 8 buildings that are underneath there. Any questions? 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: The peak on the 10 exhibit hall, is it a little higher than the peak on the -- 11 MR. BLANKENSHIP: Yeah. It was asked that it 12 be 2-in-12. 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. 14 MR. BLANKENSHIP: And so that 2-in-12 kicks 15 it up almost twice what it would be at a 1-in-12. The other 16 roofs are 1-in-12. 17 JUDGE HENNEKE: Anything else? 18 MR. BLANKENSHIP: If y'all are okay with 19 that, then Mike will speak to a schedule and how we can do 20 the project. 21 MR. LOWE: Commissioners, Judge, if you'll 22 look at the first schedule in your book, preconstruction 23 activities, this schedule is broken down into three basic 24 components. When we are awarded the -- the project, if we 25 are, then we would have a kickoff meeting, assumably the day 12-17-02 19 1 after close -- following closely the bond election. At that 2 time, we would begin to develop the scope of the work, the 3 definition, the -- we'd begin identifying the components of 4 the building. You can see by the schedule we think we'd 5 spend a month doing that. At that point, we would be 6 probably 35 percent complete with our construction drawings. 7 At that time, we would -- we would get 8 together, the Court and ourselves, and review those, and 9 after your approval, we would go to document development, 10 construction drawings, developments. We would -- we would 11 reach a 60 percent interval and stop again for final review 12 of our drawings, at which time we would begin finalizing our 13 construction documents. At that point, we could develop a 14 guaranteed maximum price, apply for a building permit, and 15 if you approve of our guaranteed maximum price, then we 16 would be ready to enter into a contract. That's the basic 17 preconstruction schedule. And you can see that time -- the 18 timelines for each of those -- of those items has got it 19 basically on a three-month schedule. 20 Second sheet is the schedule for our 21 construction activities. You can see it's about an 22 eight-month schedule. You can read each of these tasks and 23 trades on the left and see the timeline. I would say that 24 the -- the most important component of this schedule is 25 being able to order our pre-engineered metal building as 12-17-02 20 1 soon as possible. You can see we've got demolition of the 2 existing livestock barn, exhibit hall, site work, 3 underground utilities, concrete foundation. But the main 4 thing is ordering that building and getting it delivered. 5 We are told that it will take 10 to 12 weeks from the day we 6 order it to have the building delivered. That is the one 7 thing that will affect my construction schedule more than 8 anything else, so we've got 60 days to erect it. And then 9 Line Item Number 9 is the interior finish, which means all 10 the finishes on the inside of the building: plumbing, 11 electrical, drywall, all those type of things. You can see 12 that our -- our parking lot paving and striping starts 13 towards the end of the project, which we were thinking 60 14 days to -- to do the parking lot. And our schedule has a -- 15 a target completion date of January the 8th. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Mike, are you looking at 17 building both metal buildings at the same time? 18 MR. LOWE: Yes, sir. We would be -- we'd be 19 doing the dirt work under the exhibit hall while we were 20 doing the demolition of the existing livestock -- livestock 21 barn. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: What could be done to 23 move the completion date of at least the barn about a month 24 earlier? 25 MR. LOWE: Dave is going to talk about that. 12-17-02 21 1 MR. BAER: Let me offer a couple of 2 suggestions. You've noticed, obviously, that it runs pretty 3 tight there, and if you assume that everything will go 4 precisely the way we've put it on this schedule, we 5 shouldn't do that. There's a couple -- there are a couple 6 of activities we can do that would improve that 7 dramatically, some of which takes perhaps -- not a leap of 8 faith, but it takes a sharing of some risk. If you found a 9 way to identify another fund outside of the bond funds to 10 allow us to begin the design work for the first segment of 11 this activity, which is the Item Number 1 on that schedule, 12 it keeps your risk very low, but it gives us a one-month 13 head start on the -- the meetings and decision-making 14 process that need to happen. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Assuming that doesn't 16 happen. 17 MR. BAER: Okay. Then the next potential 18 idea that could help us is that, at a point in time when we 19 are at that 60 percent approval, Line Item 4, we may still 20 not have the scope and the budget completely matched up, but 21 we should at that point be sufficiently close that the 22 footprint of the building will not change, and that could be 23 the time period where we are released to order the building. 24 That starts that -- it's always kind of a strange discussion 25 you have with these pre-engineered building suppliers, where 12-17-02 22 1 the thing that takes so long is the engineering of a 2 pre-engineered building, but that is the fact. And, so, if 3 you start that process, that doesn't mean you own a building 4 yet, but -- and there -- should the unthinkable happen and 5 bond issue fail, then you could -- could stop that process 6 at very little cost. But that would be a way of actually 7 speeding it up by a month. And, actually, getting done 8 before the holidays would be far preferable than trying to 9 finish up through the holidays of next year. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Mm-hmm. 11 JUDGE HENNEKE: Dave, you have on here City 12 permits. I'm not sure that the construction requires City 13 permits, since it's not actually in the city. 14 MR. BAER: Well, we had a discussion about 15 that. We put it on the schedule here for discussion 16 purposes. You had indicated in the -- in the documents that 17 you wanted to perform everything -- or design it and 18 construct it in conformance with the City requirements. It 19 would be, I believe, your option whether you wanted us to 20 actually obtain a City permit and obtain City inspections as 21 a result of it. If it's not necessary, obviously, it can be 22 deleted. 23 (Commissioner Baldwin entered the courtroom.) 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Excuse me. 25 MR. BAER: Certainly. 12-17-02 23 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We need another book 2 for Commissioner Baldwin. 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's okay, I'm used 4 to being treated this way. Thank you. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Do you have another book? 6 If you do, just -- it's hard for someone else -- no, not for 7 me. I was wondering if anyone in the audience -- 8 (Discussion off the record.) 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'd say let them look at 10 it. It's public record. 11 MR. BAER: Do you mind telling me who I'm 12 giving it to? 13 MR. RAYMOND: I'm from the Times. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Pass it around if they 15 want to look at it. Why don't y'all -- all four people 16 identify yourself? 17 MR. BAER: The reason I ask is that it's an 18 open meeting, and I prefer not to give it to our 19 competition. 20 JUDGE HENNEKE: No competition. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: No competition. Press, 22 Maintenance, Hill Country Youth Exhibition Center, and 23 Commissioner-elect. 24 MR. BAER: Thank you. 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any other questions or 12-17-02 24 1 comments on the construction schedule? 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What's involved in 3 the 35 percent owner approval? Can that be moved up some? 4 MR. BAER: Well, that's really largely 5 dependent upon how much time y'all are able to dedicate or 6 can dedicate to a fairly extensive series of meetings to 7 resolve all of the scope budget questions, and that -- you 8 know, we discussed how many -- I mean, that's more than one 9 day of effort. That is -- you know, that's days of effort 10 to get to that 35 percent level. It's -- it's kind of 11 misleading. These things might look like 35 percent, but 12 this is us looking at it in a vacuum, looking at the design 13 criteria and interpreting it exactly how we read that -- 14 those items. 15 What that leads us to, though, and I'll -- 16 I'll move on to the next phase, is the feasibility of -- and 17 I believe the question was leading us to what's the 18 feasibility of performing all this for $3 million? And it 19 is very challenging. We believe that, you know, if our 20 interpretation is correct, we've got too much scope in it. 21 And our interpretation may be wrong in some areas, in which 22 case -- and I'll give you an example. The storage and the 23 office space in the exhibit hall, if that was meant to come 24 out of the 13,000 square foot, then that's a significant 25 change to what we've got on the document here. And, so, 12-17-02 25 1 that's easy money to get back out of -- of the scope. 2 But -- 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: What -- let me -- so, the 4 way you drew it, it is -- there's 13,000 square foot of 5 exhibit hall space, plus the office -- 6 MR. BLANKENSHIP: Plus two, plus two. Plus 7 2,000 on either side. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It should have come out 9 of the 13, so it should be 9,000. 10 MR. BAER: Well, see, those are the things 11 that -- you know, and that's just an easy example, because 12 there are other things that take a lot more -- and we 13 probably don't have the right people here to have this 14 discussion, but things like the -- the volume of exhaust, 15 the air changers. There actually are some elements of that 16 that create another problem, and it's a structural problem. 17 The air changers are so great that you would have to have 18 fail-safe interlocks so that you relieve the back pressure 19 to prevent sucking the walls in. I mean, that's a huge 20 amount of air. So, I mean -- and that's kind of not an 21 issue that we need to discuss at any length today, but 22 that's exactly the kind of thing that should go on at those 23 meetings. 24 And I -- I'll make a comment here. We need 25 to test the assumptions and challenge them, so that -- you 12-17-02 26 1 know, sometimes y'all make a statement in a document like 2 this, and we're off in our office and we interpret it a 3 certain way, but we need to come together and make sure 4 we've interpreted it exactly how you want it to be used. 5 And where it drives the price up more than the budget can 6 stand, we have to raise our hand and say so, and then we 7 start to challenge finding a different solution to that -- 8 that use or that problem. So, the reconciliation of those 9 things is what happens in that first month. So, it's a 10 pretty intensive month of work. Bill, you can jump in. 11 MR. BLANKENSHIP: It's intensive from the 12 standpoint that you're going to have to be involved. I 13 think you understand that, that there's a lot that's going 14 to happen and go on, because you're looking at several 15 different codes; A.D.A., a few things going on with the 16 City, the new I.B.C. that's coming out. And, so, I think 17 it's going to be a situation that's going to be very intense 18 for that period of time to set the correct scope and concept 19 and head out from there. The time is well spent up front, 20 versus being on the other end where you got more problems, 21 more things going on, so I think there's a lot of dedicated 22 time there up front. Doesn't necessarily mean that we might 23 not come to a good conclusion in two weeks, and so it might 24 be a situation that could be changed. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: On the -- go ahead. 12-17-02 27 1 JUDGE HENNEKE: If the Court were to -- to 2 direct that you use your best efforts to complete the 3 renovation of the existing arena and the new barn by, say, 4 December 15th, even at the cost of letting the completion of 5 the exhibit hall slide until, you know, end of January, 6 mid-February, is that a possibility? 7 MR. BAER: It is. However, that doesn't 8 really help the budget constraints, because when you 9 separate those two activities -- for example, if you have to 10 buy the two buildings separately, there's obviously no 11 savings to be had there. There might be a slight penalty to 12 pay, because you're buying -- you have less -- less volume 13 or less material that you're buying in one purchase order, 14 so that could hurt us a little bit on the budget. 15 JUDGE HENNEKE: But let's assume we could buy 16 both buildings, set one building, and perhaps let the 17 finish-out of the exhibit hall lag until the work was done 18 on the existing arena and the new barn. 19 MR. BAER: Well, if -- 20 JUDGE HENNEKE: Is there time-saving? That's 21 what I'm trying to get. 22 MR. BAER: If I understand your question 23 correctly, that would be what I would consider a sort of 24 a -- an option to make sure that you had the barn done in 25 time for -- for January. 12-17-02 28 1 JUDGE HENNEKE: Exactly. 2 MR. BAER: The livestock show. And you have 3 a little bit of flexibility over here on the exhibit hall, 4 so that's -- it would be our preference to finish it all at 5 once. 6 JUDGE HENNEKE: Exactly. 7 MR. BAER: But if that doesn't work, then you 8 step back and say, okay, what do you really have to have 9 to open up correctly here? You're going to really -- it 10 would be a much better opening for Mike's trailer to be 11 gone, punch list to be done, everything be nice, new, you 12 know, ready for the public. So, that would be, obviously, 13 our first choice. But, yes, there's some possibility of 14 that. And -- 15 MR. BLANKENSHIP: Let me give you -- let me 16 say one thing about that. We've got several areas -- if you 17 notice, at the last schedule, we got a G.M.P. approval; I 18 think we had two weeks in there for that. A lot depends on 19 what happens, and then we do our approving, like at 35, 60, 20 and 100 percent. I left a week in there for the Court to 21 make some kind of decision. When you take these weeks out 22 and you take the G.M.P. out, that pulls that schedule back 23 down. The thing that Dave was reiterating about the 60 24 percent set, if at that time we have a G.M.P. set that meets 25 the criteria, then ordering those buildings would be an 12-17-02 29 1 option, and that option right there would save two to three, 2 maybe even four weeks. 3 MR. BAER: See, that would happen after the 4 bond issue -- bond election, so obviously that decision 5 would have been made while we were under construction. So, 6 I mean, that would be kind of a natural time, and it's a 7 fairly low -- low risk to actually get that engineering 8 process started with the pre-engineered building. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I forgot what I was going 10 to ask -- oh, I know what it was. How accurate is, I guess, 11 the delivery time for the building? What's the chance of 12 that sliding a month, six weeks? Or is it pretty -- 13 MR. BAER: Well, they had asked the question 14 of a certain vendor. We obviously need to get pricing from 15 multiple vendors, and they vary a little bit. But what 16 happens in that industry is, they all get real busy based 17 upon what's going in the marketplace, or they slow down 18 based upon it. And I would say that's -- we can do it from 19 any vendor in that amount of time, and have the potential of 20 improving it slightly from certain vendors. What we don't 21 want to do is pay a premium for improving it. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It looks like you're -- 23 it's about a six-month time after the building's delivered 24 to being finished. I mean, you have a -- basically, early 25 July until early January would be six months, and that's the 12-17-02 30 1 building erection and interior finish segments, so that's -- 2 MR. BAER: Correct. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: What happens if the 4 building doesn't come in until August 1st? Which means that 5 there's a very high likelihood that it's not going to be 6 ready January 15th, which is not acceptable? I mean, what 7 -- what happens if it -- if there's a delay and we tell you, 8 because of that delay, you'll have to shut down for six 9 months, 'cause y'all can't finish it? I mean, basically, it 10 has got to be done in January. 11 MR. LOWE: Yes, sir. We've ordered a number 12 of these buildings, and have never had one be late. The 13 vendor that we're talking to is pretty reputable from a -- a 14 good manufacturer. We've never had them be late on a 15 delivery. I feel like we could meet that schedule. 16 MR. BAER: The only thing I'd suggest is, 17 before we would step back to that six-month delay concept, I 18 think we would seriously consider spending a little money to 19 accelerate to get it done. See, delaying it six months and 20 coming back to finish it costs money. If we're going to 21 spend it anyway, let's spend it more positively so that you 22 get a finished product when you want. And that's just part 23 of what we'd have to study to collectively make a decision, 24 you know. And, of course, it also matters whose fault it is 25 that it's not there. If it's our fault, we have to figure 12-17-02 31 1 out how to resolve that issue. If it's a decision-making 2 issue, where we couldn't collectively get to a decision, 3 then, you know, perhaps we have -- have an issue to talk 4 about. But, generally, my attitude is, if we're -- if it's 5 going to cost money, let's spend it positively, rather than 6 in a reactive condition by, you know, delaying the project 7 finish-out. 8 MR. LOWE: Commissioner Letz, one other 9 thing. We will be very consider -- considerate of our 10 schedule. If it appears, due to a delay in the metal 11 building being delivered, or what -- any other cause that 12 might delay the overall schedule of the project, we'll work 13 around the clock. I've done it here, and we'll finish that 14 building when we tell you we will. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: If -- I don't mean to ask 16 all the questions, but no one else is saying anything, so 17 I'll ask this one. Say in that February framework -- or 18 time framework, we have additional funds and we decide we 19 want to expand the exhibit hall by 6,000 feet, maybe 20 12,000 feet, whatever. Some amount. How -- what is that 21 going to do to the schedule? 22 MR. BAER: It essentially will do very 23 little, if anything, to the construction schedule. And 24 that's a -- it's already really thought through pretty well. 25 So, from the design standpoint, it's a pretty small impact 12-17-02 32 1 or wrinkle. I really see that as being almost a nonissue. 2 What would happen -- what would be more troubling is if that 3 decision or that -- that funding and expansion of the 4 building came after the original building was delivered. 5 So, if you got it in February time frame, I see it having, 6 you know, very little negative impact to the schedule. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Then how -- so, 8 basically, it's on the -- ordering the building is really 9 almost the drop-dead date for us letting you know what we 10 want out there at this time? 11 MR. BAER: That's -- I mean, even beyond 12 that, it can be done. I have done it before. But, again, 13 then you have to go through the process of getting the 14 pricing from the vendor, agreeing on that additional -- and 15 it's a significant increase in the -- in the scope of his 16 work. You have to get all that agreed to before it's really 17 on order. When you sign the -- when I -- or we sign that 18 vendor's purchase order is when it's really -- that clock 19 starts to move towards that 10 weeks. 20 JUDGE HENNEKE: Is the exhibit hall designed 21 so that we build this project and then, let's say in three 22 years, they want to expand the exhibit hall, can that be 23 done? 24 MR. BAER: Well, the way we've oriented that 25 building, it's real easy to expand. The original concept 12-17-02 33 1 that we did -- well, y'all didn't see it; we were just 2 playing with these concepts, but where we had the framing 3 turned the other way, it would have been far more difficult 4 to expand, because you wouldn't have the complete frame -- 5 metal building frame. You'd only basically have half of it, 6 with the other half coming in the expansion. So, when we 7 turned the orientation this way, it's kind of an odd-looking 8 building. Normally, you see the peak of the roof around the 9 long direction, but in this case it's running the short 10 direction in anticipation of that expansion. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Commissioner Letz, did 12 you talk about change orders, or were we -- 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: No. 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- asked not to talk 15 about that, or what was the story? 16 JUDGE HENNEKE: No, we're -- 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We can talk about change 18 orders. 19 MR. GONDECK: Basically, we can talk about 20 anything except fees and direct costs. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Can't talk about the 22 most important part. 23 MR. GONDECK: We can talk about the cost 24 methodology and how they develop their costs. You can ask 25 them those questions. So, yes, you can ask them about 12-17-02 34 1 change orders. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Ask them about -- I 3 want to apologize for being late. I was out shopping for 4 y'all's Christmas gift. 5 (Laughter.) 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Took that long? 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well -- and I talked to 9 Commissioner Baldwin about this once before, just -- you 10 know, just talking about the project. How do you -- what 11 would the impact be of changing -- or how do -- I guess how 12 much more does it cost us? Do we pay a premium because of a 13 change order that comes along, or is it a cost-plus that's 14 negotiated on the road, or just how do you handle change 15 orders? 16 MR. BAER: Well, generally, the typical 17 contract -- and I believe that your anticipation is to use 18 an A.I.A. contract, which is a pretty standard and 19 well-understood contract format. It really comes in Part 1 20 and Part 2. Change orders really happen in Part 2, which is 21 the part that is addressing the construction of the work, 22 and it addresses change orders in there. And we can pick, 23 you know, whatever kind of markup you feel is -- or we 24 ultimately agree is appropriate. But the change orders -- 25 and you may be leading to this question -- change orders are 12-17-02 35 1 typically the nemesis of owners, because they are so 2 aggravating that they pop up -- they happen at the wrong 3 times; they're really irritating to deal with. And there is 4 a misconception that we, as contractors, make tons of money 5 on change orders, which is absolutely not true. What 6 happens with change orders is they -- they impact the -- the 7 normal process of construction, and so the impact is slow 8 down, stop, wait for decisions and so forth. You have to 9 work around that issue. That's what causes us more -- more 10 trouble. 11 Well, most of those change orders, really, in 12 the design/build format, fall within our own camp. The 13 coordination of change orders where the electrical designer 14 and the mechanical designer didn't quite have things matched 15 up, you don't have to even hear about that change order. We 16 just have to go deal with that end, the design/build team. 17 But when you add a piece of the building, that's a change 18 order. That's a different scope, and so we would have to go 19 get pricing, show that pricing to you, get your concurrence 20 with it, and then be released to order the materials to do 21 that. And I guess the expansion of the exhibit hall would 22 be the extreme example that we would anticipate in this. It 23 would be the biggest potential change order. But if it 24 happens before we go to Part 2 of the agreement, and it 25 becomes included in the G.M.P., then it's really a change in 12-17-02 36 1 budget, and the -- the budget increases, the scope 2 increases, the G.M.P. got bigger to include that scope of 3 work, and it's not really a change order then. Change 4 orders would only happen after the G.M.P. would be agreed 5 upon. 6 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: In a design-to-cost 7 project, the ultimate answer is -- is that owners ought to 8 resist the temptation to make changes. Resist the hell out 9 of it, as a matter of fact. 'Cause it -- 'cause it blows 10 the budget or it blows the schedule. 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Or both. 12 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Or both. 13 MR. BLANKENSHIP: That's why you do that 14 35 percent up front, and you really concentrate your efforts 15 right there. And, from that point, do what Mr. Griffin 16 says. 17 MR. BAER: Well, let me go to the last page 18 here. Now, we addressed several final points in your -- in 19 your outline. And I mentioned several things earlier about 20 the feasibility. There's absolutely no doubt in my mind 21 that this is a challenging budget based upon the scope of 22 work as we have understood it. And y'all have clarified at 23 least one thing where we have too much scope in here, but 24 that's all part of the process of challenging assumptions, 25 getting the real answer that -- that must be then put into 12-17-02 37 1 the design and put onto the drawings. The cost methodology 2 is really an output of the process of design. And we 3 mentioned earlier that kickoff meeting and/or a working 4 session -- I'm not sure how y'all would intend to do this, 5 because it's a little unwieldy to do design working sessions 6 in an open meeting, but I guess that can be done. But it 7 has to be done in a format where there is interaction 8 between the two parties. That no longer is a presentation 9 type of process. There -- there is, you know, questions and 10 answers and responses and -- and so forth. That's the most 11 critical part of the design, in my mind. 12 This whole deal is -- really comes down to 13 the first couple of months of effort. And if we fail there, 14 we'll never get it back on track. If we succeed in that 15 first 35 to 60 days, the rest of it becomes a normal process 16 and easily handled. And, so, we -- you see there where we 17 described, again, that 35 percent design concept, which is a 18 bit more than what we've seen here, but it's responsive to 19 all of your -- the questions and answers that we get. Then 20 we go to the 60 percent design, which we do a budget update 21 or an estimate update. The first real estimate would be 22 back at that 35 percent time frame. It's the first time we 23 quantify square feet of materials and length of things, how 24 high they are and how much material it takes to do, you 25 know, what's on the drawings. 12-17-02 38 1 We update that, then, at the 60 percent 2 design, and those things should start to come together. It 3 should not necessarily be surprising that there's still a 4 bit of a gap there, because my experience and my style would 5 be that that number or that budget or estimate number should 6 be declining as we approach the final design. What's 7 disastrous is if we bring it in too low, and it climbs as we 8 get the design refined, because then you're surprised too 9 late to be able to deal with it, and then everyone is upset 10 with each other at that stage. So, we want that -- that 11 scope and that budget to come together at G.M.P. time, 12 exactly where you want it. In an effort to -- or in our 13 preparation of a G.M.P., those are done on construction 14 documents, and we solicit subcontractor and vendor input 15 proposals, and that's the basis of most of the G.M.P. It's 16 what the market pricing is for the various components. 17 And I might note that it's our style, and it 18 certainly is Mike's style, to utilize local participation of 19 contractors and vendors where possible and where they're 20 capable of performing, and so that's, obviously, something 21 that we do in that solicitation process. And then one -- 22 one last thought there is that, to protect against an 23 overbudget condition at that G.M.P. time, often we can use 24 what's called additive alternates, so that you carve off a 25 piece of scope that you really want but don't have to have, 12-17-02 39 1 and design it without that included, but add it in as an 2 added alternate, so that if the budget comes in slightly 3 under the desired G.M.P., you can add those components back 4 in, in whatever order you prioritize them. So, that's just 5 a mechanism that we use to try to give some options there. 6 The last thing is about inclusions and 7 exclusions with -- with our typical G.M.P. The first 8 comment is that we're going to be flexible. There are 9 certain things that should never be in the design/builder's 10 G.M.P., but generally we can be flexible to your needs. For 11 example, F.F. & E., or furnishings and fixtures and so 12 forth, typically are not in that, because you can really 13 manage it and buy it less expensively than through us. But 14 the things that are obvious is the direct cost of the work, 15 the design fee, the demolition of the old barn, and the 16 disposal of it. We exclude the -- the environmental 17 engineering, which I believe is already underway, and we 18 exclude the abatement. That's not to say the abatement 19 couldn't be put back under it. We do occasionally do 20 abatement, or you could do that directly outside of our 21 work. We also have excluded the geotechnical engineering, 22 which ought to be going on, really, right now, and hopefully 23 it is. And -- 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: What is the geotechnical? 25 MR. GONDECK: Soils analysis. 12-17-02 40 1 MR. BAER: Soils analysis. 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. 3 MR. BAER: And that will generally dictate, 4 then, how the designer designs the paving sections, the 5 concrete slabs, and the foundations for the building itself. 6 And I might make a note there, that we -- we would like to 7 have some participation in that selection. If -- if you get 8 an ultra-conservative geotech -- geotechnical engineer, it 9 drives costs into the -- the building or the structure that 10 we almost can never get back out. And so you want -- 11 MR. GONDECK: I just -- excuse me, 'cause 12 we're running -- probably running out of time. I think some 13 of these things are very important. As far as the 14 geotechnical, why do y'all want to exclude that, when you 15 have the responsibility for the complete design? 16 MR. BAER: Well, the presumption is that it 17 would be already going on, but if that's not true, then I 18 guess we can reconsider it. But -- 19 MR. GONDECK: That -- that presumption is not 20 an accurate one. 21 MR. BAER: Okay. 22 MR. GONDECK: And, really, truthfully, 23 because all of the other architectural and engineering work 24 is being done by the design/build team, and the structural 25 engineer is going to be, you know, depending on that, as far 12-17-02 41 1 as that goes, my recommendation to the Court is that that 2 would be part of the design/build team, as far as the 3 geotechnical. 4 MR. BAER: Okay. Refer back to my first 5 statement. We're flexible. If that was a bad assumption, 6 we'll reconsider that. Generally, I think the abatement or 7 the environmental -- 8 MR. GONDECK: And environmental, that -- we 9 have part of the environmental. We've done some looking 10 also into the -- that at the bullet traps or whatever. The 11 cost for the abatement and clean-up prior to the demolition 12 is going to be fairly inconsequential, when you really look 13 at the dollars on it. So, it's -- 14 MR. BAER: Well, I'm sure that that's true. 15 And, really, the lead is probably a mineable product; people 16 mine that to reclaim the lead. But the -- if there's 17 asbestos in there, really, with the lead -- 18 MR. GONDECK: It's not been found, so the 19 asbestos is not an issue. 20 MR. BAER: But you have to have that report 21 in order for us to demo the barn. 22 MR. GONDECK: We have it. 23 MR. BAER: That's a requirement. 24 MR. GONDECK: We do have that. 25 MR. BAER: Okay. 12-17-02 42 1 (Discussion off the record.) 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: One question I had is -- 3 and who is the -- who are we contracting with? With 4 Faulkner, or with Lowe? 5 MR. BAER: The concept is that you would -- 6 you would contract, as design/builder, with Faulkner, and 7 then we would contract with Lowe and Quorum. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, Faulkner is who we 9 deal with? 10 MR. BAER: Well, yes. But I want you to 11 think of us as a team. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. But, I mean, 13 if -- you know, if -- hopefully, if push comes to shove, we 14 want to know who's accountable. Who's the -- 15 MR. BAER: Yes. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: -- top accountable 17 person. 18 (Mr. Baer raised his hand.) 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay, it's Faulkner. 20 MR. BAER: Yes. 21 JUDGE HENNEKE: Wayne, anything else? 22 MR. GONDECK: Yes, sir. There is a little -- 23 and I know we got started a little bit late on y'all, but 24 there is a -- it's sort of a difficult question to ask, for 25 me to phrase right. On your -- your concept of 12-17-02 43 1 design/build, you have presented it as, really, a design bid 2 or costing and then build, rather than as a design/build 3 package. It's my understanding that the statutes are -- do 4 contemplate this as an alternative delivery method, as 5 hiring a team based on qualifications, establish the scope 6 of the work, and then determine a guaranteed maximum cost or 7 price. Has there been any thought as far as any contract 8 actually -- or looking at the 35 percent phase or the design 9 development phase, or as Part 1 of the contract, to come 10 back with that definitive proposal that has the documents at 11 a certain level to establish the guaranteed maximum cost, 12 and then to go forward from that point? 13 MR. BAER: We can and have done that, but I 14 would recommend that that's not a solution here, because the 15 budget is so tight that we will have -- we won't be able to 16 make that work if we have to include contingencies to cover 17 the gap between 35 percent documents and actual construction 18 documents. And there's no room in there for much 19 contingency for that completion of design. And so, I 20 believe the -- the best value -- again, we can do it that 21 way. I just don't predict it has the intended result in 22 this case. The best value, I believe, for the County is to 23 work with us to develop and refine that scope of work using 24 our estimating knowledge and collection of information from 25 various vendors and subcontractors so that you can make 12-17-02 44 1 choices about the products and materials and scope of work, 2 even, so that we ultimately get to something that has the 3 scope you want at a price you can afford. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: On the contracting 5 standpoint, once we -- sometime this week, hopefully; maybe 6 today -- pick the people that we're going to try to 7 negotiate with, that will not -- that negotiation will 8 basically be on hold, or the contract wouldn't be signed 9 anyway until May, when you get the guaranteed maximum price, 10 as I understand. 11 MR. BAER: If you use the A.I.A. contract, it 12 has Part 1 and Part 2, and both are signed. Part 1 is 13 generally the value of the design. It's made up of nearly 14 all design dollars, and a few estimating and, you know, 15 miscellaneous dollars. Part 2 is only a very little bit of 16 construction administration from the architect, and all of 17 the -- all of the hard costs of construction dollars. So, 18 Part 1 is the small piece and Part 2 is the big piece. It's 19 the real construction. But you actually execute both 20 agreements. But if we never get to a G.M.P. that's 21 suitable, or something just happens, then what your exposure 22 is is only the value of Part 1, which is the -- the design 23 effort. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, if we never can -- 25 well, I guess this goes back -- and the reason that it's a 12-17-02 45 1 bit of concern to me is that you've mentioned several times 2 the budgetary challenge. While it may be challenging, it is 3 still, in your opinion, possible to get this project done 4 within that budget? I mean, I don't want to -- for us to, 5 you know, select a team, work with them for three months, 6 and never be able to get to that -- I mean, 'cause 7 $3 million is the money. That's it. I mean, there's -- 8 that's how much the bond issue is going to be for, so if 9 that's not realistic, in your opinion, it doesn't make sense 10 to negotiate for three months and spend money, you know, if 11 it's not a pretty good likelihood we're going to get -- be 12 able to come to -- 13 MR. BAER: Let me suggest the inverse of 14 that. And if we lose this job because we're honest at this 15 stage, then so be it. I -- we'll just have lost the job. 16 You will be in a far -- you know, far worse position if you 17 work with somebody who says it can be done for $3 million 18 today, and ultimately it costs $4 million when you're trying 19 to go to G.M.P. If -- if we're predicting more accurately, 20 you know, what the cost of this scope of work is, we'll end 21 up working together to get to the goal. But if someone says 22 it today to get a job, then that -- that's not the way we 23 want to get a job. Let me just say it that way. It's not 24 our -- and if that -- if our belief today that this set of 25 drawings -- which, let me footnote again, we've got more 12-17-02 46 1 scope in here than -- 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 3 MR. BAER: -- than we intended or should 4 have. But even after we get all that out, we sort it out in 5 that first step of an estimate, that's really when we start 6 to get a better feel for how close or how far apart the 7 scope and the budget may be. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Question to Wayne. This 9 is an important point to me. Is it possible, under the 10 statute, for us to -- you know, whoever we end up picking 11 for our first choice, second choice, third choice, that we 12 get to a point of negotiations, and then we realize we're 13 just not going to get there and -- and stop before you get 14 to the actually guaranteed maximum price -- 15 MR. GONDECK: Yes, sir, the statute does 16 contemplate that. You know, you rank each of the qualified 17 teams, and then you begin the negotiations with the first 18 team. If you cannot successfully negotiate with the first 19 team, then you go to the second team. You do have to end 20 formally the negotiations with the first team, though. But 21 it does provide that you can. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, before -- well, do 23 you sign -- do you have to sign Part 1? 24 MR. GONDECK: Well, there -- the contractor 25 agreement has not been presented within the -- the 12-17-02 47 1 qualifications statement. In other words, it is very 2 open-ended and a totally negotiable point. In looking at 3 the A.I.A. agreement, you do not have to use that form. You 4 can modify that form. You can tie it to be more stringent, 5 so your latitude is very broad in this. What we would, you 6 know, recommend is that you try to tie down as many of the 7 knowns and determine at least a maximum formula or something 8 as far as those issues, speaking of the changes, all those 9 issues prior to -- you know, or at that first phase of that 10 negotiations. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I appreciate the honesty. 12 I just want to make sure -- I don't want us to get in a 13 situation where we're wasting each other's time trying to 14 negotiate where we never can come to an agreement. 15 MR. BAER: I understand completely. 16 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any other questions? 17 Mr. Gondeck, do you still have any to go? 18 MR. GONDECK: No, sir. Actually, the 19 questions were asked right here. This is a tough bunch. 20 MR. BAER: Judge and Commissioners, thank you 21 for your time. I can assure you that if we are selected as 22 your design/build team, you won't find a harder working team 23 to go through this process with you. And we'd love to do 24 this job. 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: Thank you, Dave, Mike, Bill. 12-17-02 48 1 Appreciate you coming over this afternoon. 2 MR. BLANKENSHIP: I'm going to leave you guys 3 a larger -- two larger drawings. I didn't want to bring 4 them out for -- to just tell you the deal here. 5 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Same as these? 6 MR. BLANKENSHIP: Yeah, but they're just 7 bigger. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Is it too late to ask 9 Bill a question? 10 JUDGE HENNEKE: Go ahead. 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Bill? 12 MR. BLANKENSHIP: Yes? 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: If we were to -- 14 Dave, please listen. If we were to learn after the bond 15 election successfully passes that additional funding will 16 become available for the expansion of -- of the Exhibit 17 Center, you're notified early on, that doesn't change a 18 great deal; you can just go ahead and do that. So, I guess 19 my question would be, these two wings that you've got on 20 there of 2,000 square feet each, if we're locked into 21 13,000 square feet, they have to come off, but if we learn 22 that we're going to get additional funding, they can be 23 considered as part of the additional square footage? 24 MR. BLANKENSHIP: Right, and just extend it. 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. 12-17-02 49 1 MR. BLANKENSHIP: Shouldn't be a problem. 2 MR. BAER: Actually, those two are pretty 3 simple, because there's not a lot -- there's no plumbing in 4 it or anything. 5 MR. BLANKENSHIP: No, just space. 6 MR. BAER: They can kind of move around. 7 MR. BLANKENSHIP: It's air. 8 MR. BAER: It's air, and those two are. All 9 your money is in this front section. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. 11 MR. GONDECK: There was one additional 12 question, and Commissioner Letz actually brought it to mind 13 the other day, and I forgot to ask this. Because of the 14 type of financing and the bond election coming up, if y'all 15 do happen to be ranked as number one, would you be willing 16 to allow the Court to utilize those conceptual drawings for 17 the promotion of the bond election? 18 MR. BLANKENSHIP: You bet, or anything else 19 they need. 20 MR. GONDECK: Any other agreement at that 21 time? 22 MR. BLANKENSHIP: And anything else I can do 23 to help out, no problem. I'd come down here and talk or 24 whatever. 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay, thank you. All right. 12-17-02 50 1 Thank you, gentlemen. 2 MR. BAER: Thank you very much. 3 (Discussion off the record.) 4 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay. Let's take a quick 5 five, back at a quarter after. 6 (Recess taken from 2:10 p.m. to 2:15 p.m.) 7 - - - - - - - - - - 8 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay. Let's reconvene so 9 that we'll stay reasonably on schedule. Steve, you're going 10 to introduce your team here? 11 MR. HUSER: Yes, sir. I am Steve Huser, 12 president of the Huser Construction Company. With me is 13 Scott Rain, who is our senior project manager in charge of 14 our estimating department, and also with us is Allen Adler, 15 who is our project architect. I wanted to start off with 16 just telling you how much we appreciate the opportunity to 17 be here. Appreciate your consideration of our firm. What I 18 want -- the way we're going to kind of structure this is let 19 Allen tell you a little bit about the conceptual design that 20 you see. Scott's going to tell you a little bit about how 21 we go about obtaining bids and pricing and that sort of 22 thing. I'll talk a little bit about schedules, and then 23 give you guys an opportunity to ask any questions. If you 24 -- you see something in the midst of this that you're 25 wondering about, holler, and we'll answer it as we go 12-17-02 51 1 through. So -- 2 MR. ADLER: All right. Well, first of all, I 3 want to mention a few things; that Huser and I have been 4 working together here in Kerrville for Sid Peterson 5 Hospital, and we've done a lot of projects together. We've 6 done several of them over there, and we're working on one in 7 Llano Health Care System, and we're used to each other and 8 we complement each other and provide each other a lot of 9 needed information, which helps things go smoothly. And 10 I -- for my part, I mean, I have a mother-in-law that's 11 lived here for 25 years, and I've been coming here for 40 12 myself, so Kerrville is a very familiar place for me, and 13 it's a home and a place I always look forward to coming to. 14 Working here in Kerrville is something that I -- I really 15 enjoy doing and look forward to. 16 With regard to this project, we went with 17 Wayne and his group and the pre-proposal aspects of this, 18 and listened to the program and got all the literature. And 19 I went back, 'cause I'm -- as I mentioned, I'm here. And I 20 went back and -- and did a very thorough walk-through, 21 talked to some of people over there, and I did -- I didn't 22 vary, you know, from the program. I mean, I was very -- I'm 23 an architect, and an architect presented me the program, so 24 I'm listening, all right? And I'm listening to see what's 25 going on. 12-17-02 52 1 JUDGE HENNEKE: That's your first mistake. 2 MR. ADLER: Huh? And the -- and the concept, 3 and it was a very specific concept; you know, enough 4 details. So, the aspects of this are -- are very 5 site-related, in my opinion. The site of this project, it 6 was specifically stated that the exhibition hall should be 7 on the east side, and that -- that part is what you see 8 here, of course, and this is the arena. And I drew the 9 arena in so it would help me know where it is. That's the 10 arena building. The demolition of the existing structure, 11 of course, will be gone, the livestock barn. But the -- the 12 main thing that there's a lot of facility in this plan, and 13 the main thing we were concerned with is budget. I mean, 14 it's -- I know -- I mean, I've done Little League fields, a 15 lot of things for the youth where I live, and I know that 16 budget is number one, so we tried to keep it simple. Keep 17 it simple -- keep it Hill Country, keep it simple. 18 And, so, needless to say, the shapes are 19 simple. That's a big building, so they need to be. But 20 they're also -- they're simple and they're -- they're 21 structurally simple. They're -- they're like this -- this 22 arena building, but they give us an opportunity to do some 23 design. They give us an opportunity to tie things together, 24 and so what we tried to do is as many of the two-for-ones 25 and free things we could do. One of those things is 12-17-02 53 1 landscaping, parking. We're going to do that anyway, right? 2 So -- and here we have a great big, huge, expansive 3 building -- where's my picture? Right there. The arena 4 building right now is a very big, huge metal building with 5 big old doors, and nothing softening, not a tree in sight. 6 And so what we felt was a very -- very good thing to do 7 would be to tie this entry that would -- was identified to 8 join the arena building, the livestock building, with the 9 entry to the -- the exhibit hall, and the entry to the whole 10 complex, and center it on those two doors. You know, when 11 you walk -- when you drive in, you see the -- the signage 12 and then you go left or go right, but you -- you're 13 immediately indoctrinated into the facility. You have your 14 two choices. And we've successfully broken the facade of 15 all of these, of -- I'll show you a picture of it. So, what 16 you see here happening relates to that. 17 Another major part is, obviously, there's a 18 lot of truck and trailer traffic. Well, this part right 19 here, we can't -- we can't tighten that up. We've got to 20 honor that. We've got to honor the traffic coming out of 21 here. So, we have created an avenue for that to happen, 22 that doesn't interfere. Now, it could come to here if you 23 want it to, but this way we have some positive separation of 24 those types of utilitarian traffic versus the -- you know, 25 the people in cars and all that sort of thing. Now, what 12-17-02 54 1 we're connecting these two entrances with is a landscape 2 mall, and that -- that really gives you some opportunities. 3 And, of course, I -- you know, budget being an issue to me, 4 the parking -- we can reuse the surfacing. I mean, I think 5 that's one of the things we want to do as much as we can. 6 Now, I've got here 890 square feet -- I mean 890 parking 7 places. You got all that on what I handed out to you. We 8 could put another hundred here, another hundred here, 9 another hundred here, so you can have as many as you want. 10 But -- but there's a point where you don't want to keep 11 paying for parking; you got to have some buildings, too. So 12 -- so, the -- so, one of the things we've done is we've 13 tried to surround the buildings, of course, and make the 14 parking as convenient as possible. We may want to have some 15 trailer parking too, but if we do that, I'd say we lengthen 16 these parts here, here, and here, and make that a very easy 17 transition to a lot deeper parking lot. 18 Now, that gives you an overview of sort of 19 what we're trying to accomplish here. When you go to a -- 20 an enlarged drawing of the livestock barn, you'll find -- 21 I've tried to tie in with the site elements for you so you 22 can see -- you can see what's going on. But, again, the 23 entry system here allows you to enter the arena building or 24 the livestock building. Then, right at the top, we've got 25 reception and the offices and everything else, per the 12-17-02 55 1 program, which is three or four offices, a conference room, 2 et cetera, all of that, and your six workstations. I got a 3 unisex toilet and a mechanical room. Then we have a 4 concession stand, which I tried to -- concession and toilets 5 I tried to center as much as possible, so that you can get 6 to it from the arena building, you can get to it from the 7 livestock side, either one. And you can access it through 8 here and through here, so you can separate these three. 9 Now, here are the three areas. Basically, 10 that's one area, that's two areas, and that's three areas, 11 and we have -- we have them connected with movable 12 partitions. And this particular partition I'm showing, I've 13 used on other occasions, and it's very nice. I've -- I show 14 it -- it's economic. I show a 30-foot opening. It could be 15 80; it can be what you want it to be, but I've shown it at 16 30. So, you can close it and you can open it and have 17 plenty of -- plenty of room to make this all one big room, 18 all three, or close this, have this one big room, close 19 that, make that L-shaped. You've got a lot of variety, I 20 mean, by -- by doing this sort of approach. Now, when -- 21 when we did the structure, again, we kept the columns at 25. 22 These are at 25, and we have a -- a center support here, 23 where we -- where that solid wall is, where we can put some 24 columns. So, we're going to free span, and even though 25 the -- the program called for 100-by-60, we can do that 12-17-02 56 1 everywhere. I mean, so, you got a lot of free span area so 2 that you got plenty of room to be unencumbered. 3 As to the arena building and the renovation 4 that is going in there, well, those are renovation items 5 there listed, one, two, three. Concrete, I couldn't agree 6 more. I walked around in there and had my shoes sucked off 7 my feet. And, I mean, that's the last time I'm ever walking 8 in there in loafers, I'm telling you that. And architects 9 have a problem with that, because we're supposed to meet 10 with you guys like this, and then we go out on the site in 11 our shoes and -- right? I mean, or we get all beat up. So, 12 I had been to the hospital, so I got the loafer treatment. 13 So -- so, but the dust in there is an issue, and the mud's 14 an issue, so you need to -- I think the concrete's a big 15 one. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think -- back to that 17 previous one. So, it's a free span in -- 18 MR. ADLER: Basically, this is your ridge. 19 Up and over, up and over. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, you have -- 21 basically, there's three big rooms? 22 MR. ADLER: Yes, there's -- this is one, this 23 is two, and this is three. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And each one of those is 25 free span, I understand, the top -- 12-17-02 57 1 MR. ADLER: Yes. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: You got the -- 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Which one of the 4 three would have the concrete floor? 5 MR. ADLER: This one. 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. 7 MR. ADLER: That's the one in the front that 8 was per program. Again, that was -- that was identified as 9 one that needed to have concrete. And, again, a lot of this 10 is budget-driven, to me. I mean, it is to you, too. And it 11 comes down to sitting down and talking about each one of 12 these items and saying, you know, when the budget -- you 13 know, when the final analysis hits, maybe we want 350 places 14 and concrete here. Maybe you trade one or two other -- I 15 mean, you have priorities, if we can't get it all stuck in 16 the bag right. So -- so, there's a lot of options, a lot of 17 ways to do this, some of which was identified in the 18 program. 19 Now, moving along to the Exhibition Hall. 20 The Exhibition Hall, you saw on the site plan I've cocked 21 it. Well, I cocked it for a reason. One is because we -- 22 we can see it when we come in that front entrance gate, just 23 like here; I can go this way or this way. When I'm looking 24 there, I want to see the entrance. When I'm looking there, 25 I want to see the entrance. I don't want to tuck it -- push 12-17-02 58 1 it back and make it -- make it unobtrusive. I want to see 2 it, want it to be part of this whole scheme. We have main 3 exhibit and banquet area in the front. We have an entrance 4 on the north and an entrance on the east side. Storeroom, 5 accessible from the -- from the rear and to the exhibit 6 hall. I have a catering kitchen that shares the same kind 7 of loading dock effect. I have toilets here that are -- 8 that's another thing. The toilets you were very explicit 9 about, but -- in this particular building, but the other one 10 could have an infinite number of people, so we -- we have to 11 sit and discuss that sort of thing, too. Then the office 12 area right here, and we have three offices, a conference 13 room, and waiting and all of the things specified, and then 14 mechanical room back here in the center, so we can do a 15 fairly economic distribution. 16 Now, the next -- the next drawing -- 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Before you move 18 over -- before you move on -- 19 MR. ADLER: Okay. 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: -- this -- this 21 exhibit hall, as you've depicted it, is how many square 22 feet? 23 MR. ADLER: 13,000. 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. Including the 25 offices and all that stuff? 12-17-02 59 1 MR. ADLER: Yes, sir, the whole thing square. 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And what will that 3 seat, that main area, at a sit-down dinner? 4 MR. ADLER: Wow. 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Approximately. 6 MR. GONDECK: Allen, how large is it? 7 MR. ADLER: It's 114-by-68. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We can come back to 9 that. Go ahead. We'll come back to that. 10 MR. ADLER: A lot. But I -- it's about 11 two-thirds -- I'd say about 8,000 square feet, Wayne. 12 114-by-68. 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. Wayne will 14 work on that. Go ahead. It's your presentation. 15 MR. ADLER: Getting back to the site plan -- 16 MR. HUSER: Depends how close you pack them 17 together, what kind of table configuration you have. 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I know. 19 MR. GONDECK: You can put between 400 and 500 20 people in there. 21 MR. ADLER: How many? 22 MR. GONDECK: Between 400 and 500 in a 23 banquet setting. 24 MR. ADLER: Okay. Now, this is -- this is, 25 again, the concept of what we perceive we can do for this 12-17-02 60 1 type of -- this type of approach. Again, here -- here is 2 the existing arena building right here, and we put the -- 3 the entrance focal point dead on that ridge, so we can go 4 either way. What we envision is to keep the buildings 5 simple, cost-effective, and apply the entry solution, and 6 use Hill Country materials; stone, steel, and timbers in 7 this particular case. We have -- we have a lot of metal. 8 We have -- so, what I'm -- what I'm saying is, let's put 9 some steel trusses out here on the entrance, hold it up with 10 a stone wall, and have it sitting on heavy timbers out -- 11 out at the entrance. And if you look at this entrance 12 detail, this will probably tell you more about it than 13 anything, but we have stone columns and we can put signage 14 on the side of the -- of the wall. And when you come under 15 that, have the star of Texas right there when you come in 16 straight through, hit the star, and then you can go either 17 way. And the mall will connect us, and -- and so will 18 the vehicular traffic. 19 Now, as you come over here to the livestock 20 barn, we have a steel truss sitting on the same detail, 21 heavy timbers and stone columns. And I put in a porch, 22 because that's not enough. I mean, people -- with this 23 number of people, there's going to be some congregating, and 24 so I thought a really inexpensive and efficient way to give 25 us sort of a -- the southwest look was to add -- add a 12-17-02 61 1 porch. And I've got some of those old-timey steel columns 2 with display tops supporting the beam. So, we have a porch 3 here for people to congregate as they enter the building. 4 Not across the whole thing, but part of the way. And this 5 gives me an element that, in the long run -- I've got stone 6 on a 4-foot wainscot underneath here, but if we can't afford 7 the stone, we really haven't lost the look, because we still 8 have the entry solution. So, that's maybe a -- you know, a 9 trade. That's -- you know, I know stone is an option, and 10 we all want it to be all stone, but, of course, it gets 11 really expensive using that rock. 12 So, then, over here on the Exhibition Hall, 13 again, the steel truss at the top with the timbers and the 14 stone columns. In other words, the same elements. I got a 15 porch on both sides to introduce some windows in the exhibit 16 hall. I went back and forth on that. I -- you know, that's 17 one I want to discuss. I mean, exhibit halls, you don't 18 want windows. On the other hand, maybe a little light on 19 the north side wouldn't be a bad idea. So, we introduced 20 them here, but -- and then we left the same entrance 21 solution over here. So, what we tried to do, again, was be 22 very budget-conscious and dollar-conscious and give 23 ourselves all of the avenues necessary to -- to bring this 24 within your budget and the dollars. And I got -- I got 17 25 minutes yet, so -- I think I'm supposed to have 30. So, 12-17-02 62 1 I'll leave it there. Again, jump in with questions on 2 design. Mr. Williams? I mean, whoever. I mean, just 3 whatever comes to mind, holler and let Steve sort of answer. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, can we go back to 5 the drawing of the floor plan -- or of the exhibit hall? 6 MR. ADLER: Sure. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That one -- either one. 8 That one. 9 MR. ADLER: The exhibit hall? 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yes. 11 MR. ADLER: Okay. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: If we were to decide the 13 size of that building needed to be expanded by 8,000, 14 10,000, 13,000 square feet, how would you do it? 15 MR. ADLER: Oh, let me go back. You'd want 16 to throw that area into the exhibition hall? 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yes, it would be in the 18 exhibit hall. It could either be done, you know, right 19 away; we may decide in February or we may decide in three 20 years. 21 MR. ADLER: Well, I imagine that this -- that 22 this is a square. I mean -- okay, in a few years? Well, 23 then I would say that we would come this way. I mean, 24 there, which we got it as a utilitarian loading dock. This 25 way is an entrance and that way is an entrance. We'd come 12-17-02 63 1 this way if you're going to do it later, because this is a 2 -- a free end. I mean, it's ready to go. Now, we can also 3 -- you know, if that's part of the program up front and we 4 know that, and we know we're going to maybe expand it, we 5 might turn and put those toilets -- although the toilets are 6 probably pretty well-located. We may put those where the 7 office is, and -- and so we can be -- have a more central 8 location for those with the addition. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, you don't see any 10 problem in -- in designing the building to be expandable? 11 MR. ADLER: No. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Expandable right away or 13 expandable down the road? 14 MR. ADLER: No, no problem. You got plenty 15 of land over here yet. 16 MR. HUSER: What we've done before is put 17 expandable in-wall conditions in those buildings, to where 18 you basically tie onto it and peel the tent off the outside 19 and go on. I mean, it's effectively -- it's a very simple 20 addition. It's really not disruptive. What -- what you 21 would want to do, though, is if that was part of the design 22 condition, there are some things like, you know, water, 23 sewer, electrical, those kind of things -- for instance, if 24 you were going to add 10,000 feet, obviously, that affects 25 the air-conditioning load. Well, when you -- if you knew 12-17-02 64 1 that going in, you would want to put an electrical service 2 that was big enough to handle the future load of those 3 air-conditioners. So, what he's saying is, if that is a 4 possibility, if -- let's just say you have a -- you know, a 5 400-amp panel, you might want to go ahead and get an 800, 6 because you know, rather than having to have a shut-down, 7 you'd have enough capacity to do that. So, you would plan 8 those sort of things into your -- into your expansion, if 9 that's what you wanted to do. 10 It might -- it might -- you know, it might 11 affect the final location of this building. If you knew you 12 were going to come this way, you might design the parking 13 just a little bit differently, just to where you would -- 14 you could make it easy. It's a whole lot easier to think 15 through that up front and figure out, well, if we do expand, 16 we're going to go this way, and you -- you rough-in some 17 conduits, you rough-in some -- perhaps some structural or 18 rebar in the slab. You design your building with an 19 expandable in-wall column so that everything just extends. 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Steve, following up 21 on Commissioner Letz' question, if we were -- if we were to 22 find ourselves in a position to expand this -- this 23 facility, that expansion, in my mind, has to come in the 24 main exhibit and banquet hall area, so that it almost 25 doubles, and maybe -- maybe some breakout rooms or some 12-17-02 65 1 things of that nature. Now, your answer tells me, then, 2 that everything that's there -- catering kitchen, restrooms, 3 and so forth -- are going to have to go if we expand that. 4 MR. ADLER: I think they go -- depends on how 5 much of an addition. And that's -- again, it wasn't part of 6 my program. But -- but as to how to expand this -- this 7 particular square right now, today, at this instance, we'd 8 come this way. If I knew that up front, I would probably -- 9 and Steve was saying we may relocate this a little bit, drop 10 it down, rearrange this parking around it, and -- and make 11 that Exhibition Hall bigger. And I would -- I would go for 12 centralizing electrical, mechanical, and toilets, so that -- 13 so that some of those facilities you just mentioned are more 14 in the center of the new, bigger building. But it's no big 15 deal to do it. It's just a -- just a -- okay. I mean -- 16 MR. GONDECK: Conceptually, Allen, you would 17 be rotating, I guess, 90 degrees what you have right now, 18 while still maintaining the exterior -- 19 MR. ADLER: Right. 20 MR. GONDECK: -- so you can continue on your 21 exhibit hall. I know it's really a reconfiguration, but you 22 feel that you could rework that to where you still maintain 23 that same concept? 24 MR. ADLER: Oh, yeah. I would think the 25 concept is solid. You know, I think it's just a -- how big 12-17-02 66 1 is the building? 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'm not quite sure I 3 understand Wayne's question. When we're talking about if it 4 were to be expanded, we'd be talking about a square, the way 5 you have it designed? Or would it become a rectangle, 6 rectangular-shaped building? 7 MR. HUSER: It kind of depends, Bill. It's 8 sort of like if you said, well, we would like the 9 opportunity to add 5,000 feet to a 13,000-foot building, it 10 might make some sense that that's a square. Okay? If you 11 said, well, it's a 13,000-foot area; we want to be able to 12 add 15,000 feet. Based upon that new design parameter, we 13 might turn that guy a little bit and make a rectangle out of 14 him because of what you said. Or if you said, I want to 15 make -- I want the ability to add 15,000 feet next year, and 16 if this really goes, then I want the ability to add 15,000 17 more feet five years from now, that -- that's a little bit 18 of a different parameter. And what that might facilitate is 19 turning that building and then adding -- or setting it up to 20 have additional expansions. And if you knew that, if that's 21 what you were thinking, you might reconfigure -- what 22 Allen's saying is you put the bathrooms in an area where 23 they would be more convenient to the expansion, okay? So 24 that if you just added additional dining room, you might -- 25 and, again, it goes back to what you want. Do you want to 12-17-02 67 1 have a room that seats 1,000 people? Or do you want to be 2 able to have two banquets at the same time? Or do you want 3 to be able to -- 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, if you can seat 5 1,000, you can obviously do two banquets at the same time, 6 probably in the same space. So, just for the sake of this 7 discussion, yes, seat 1,000. Would it be a rectangular 8 building? Because you're, in effect, doubling the -- the 9 main exhibit hall area. 10 MR. HUSER: Right. And that may be what you 11 do. 12 MR. ADLER: It probably becomes a rectangle. 13 Probably does, yes. 14 MR. HUSER: Well, just because you're so 15 limited on the site, obviously, if you come way out here, 16 you're going to -- you're going to lose some of this. 17 MR. ADLER: And that certainly makes the 18 parking -- if you turn it a little bit, it changes it a 19 little. 20 MR. HUSER: But that's really not a big deal. 21 You just need to know that when you're planning for it so 22 that that's what you want to do. 23 MR. ADLER: Yeah, the elements. 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: It can be done 25 without tearing up the whole place. 12-17-02 68 1 MR. ADLER: The elements, yeah. The elements 2 are standard. I mean, office, toilets, mechanical, storage. 3 I mean, they're easy, flexible spaces to move around. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: All right. 5 MR. HUSER: Our -- our game plan, kind of, if 6 you were to select us, is that, you know, we go through 7 initially some more input from you guys; things like, you 8 know, do we want to be able to expand it? Do we want these 9 capabilities? As we go through the development of the 10 plans, we're producing cost estimates, we're producing 11 budgets, we're trying to tell you what -- you know, hey, if 12 you change this or do this, you can get it, you know, for 13 more or less money. That's part of the team approach. We 14 did this over at the hospital. We were challenged with a 15 limited amount of space and limited amount of dollars. How 16 do we work out a design that accomplishes these things for 17 this much money? And -- 18 MR. ADLER: So we have -- 19 MR. HUSER: The rehab unit is what we did. 20 And, you know, that's -- it's a real easy deal. Allen's the 21 kind of guy that, unlike a lot of architects, is really able 22 to look at budgets. I mean -- and I'm not picking on 23 architects, but he's one of those guys, when you come in and 24 you say, "Look, I need to build 50,000 square feet and I 25 need to build it inexpensively," that you don't come out 12-17-02 69 1 with a set of plans that's a Taj Mahal that you can't 2 afford. 3 MR. ADLER: That's because I used to be a 4 contractor. I used to put my pallet on the table with a 5 number. 6 MR. HUSER: If you had come in and said, 7 "Design us the best looking facility that there is, because 8 money's no option," well, it wouldn't look like this, okay? 9 We could -- we could -- obviously, we could make it look a 10 little nicer, but were trying to get the absolute maximum 11 value for our dollars. 12 MR. RAIN: Let's talk a little bit about how 13 we arrived at our guaranteed maximum price or budget 14 pricing, as well as the scheduling. Those are two of the 15 parameters that we need to talk about. 16 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: This sheet? 17 MR. RAIN: Yes, this is the schedule. There 18 are color codings there that you can see where the architect 19 advertises for civil engineer, general contractor, and then 20 the owner participates. The project is pretty much 21 programmed. Obviously, there's some considerations of 22 additional thoughts that need to be input, but the program 23 is the key component to the front end of this. Beyond that, 24 it's driven by the metal buildings. Both of these 25 structures we're proposing are pre-engineered metal 12-17-02 70 1 buildings, the most efficient and probably cost-effective 2 method that we could go with. We have several suppliers 3 that we have dealt with. One in particular that we have 4 done a lot of work with that we represent his buildings is 5 Whirlwind Metal Buildings. We've done a lot of metal 6 buildings around Kerrville and the Hill Country, so we're 7 very familiar with that. We take a very aggressive 8 approach; even buy the metal building ourselves and hire 9 someone else to erect them. We can buy them as a package; 10 guy furnishes it, installs it, whatever is the most 11 cost-effective and works within the budget. 12 You know, this project, we're wanting to get 13 the most we can for the limited budget we have. The -- we 14 go through the programming once, we get a good feel for 15 where we're at on the program, what our parameters are. 16 We'll develop a construction budget or preliminary budget 17 that says, okay, here's where we are. But if we really want 18 to add that future 8,000 square feet, we need to consider 19 these pieces, and that may be an option that we need to 20 price separately and bring to you and say, "You want more 21 parking or you want more building?" A lot of those 22 programming pieces or those considerations are going to be 23 decisions y'all have to make. We'll support you with 24 bringing you the questions, and that's where we're -- that's 25 where our value will be. Have you considered this? Have 12-17-02 71 1 you looked at that? Those components to the overall budget 2 development. It's really a team deal. What do you want for 3 your money? Big consideration. Here are some options; you 4 pick. We'll help you, but ultimately you're paying the 5 bill, so ultimately it's your decision. 6 Once we get the programming worked out and 7 the budget, we'll -- we'll cut Allen loose. He'll meet with 8 you or whomever, and we'll do the schematic design and the 9 design development. At that same time, we'll -- we'll get 10 the civil work going. We'll have a pretty good idea from 11 the programming the schematic design so that we can allow 12 the site guy to go out and start moving dirt. Once we get 13 the metal building guy in and start talking about how the -- 14 how the actual floor plan works out and the components of 15 the construction, we'll cut the -- the concrete guy loose. 16 The metal building typically takes six to 17 eight weeks for shop drawings -- approved shop drawings, and 18 then another six to eight weeks to actually fabricate and 19 deliver. So, the real meat to the construction schedule is 20 through that metal building. Ideally, if we can have the 21 site work done and the concrete in place when that metal 22 building shows up, we just keep busy -- we just get busy, 23 'cause once the metal building goes up, then -- 24 MR. ALLEN: The MEP and interior work, all 25 that, the rest of the site work can proceed. 12-17-02 72 1 MR. RAIN: And that's kind of the way we have 2 it. The schedule that we presented starts in February. 3 It's a proposed schedule. I'm not sure what the -- what the 4 actual bond issue date is. Early February is what we 5 understood. We think we can get this building put in place 6 by the first part of December, based on, you know, a fairly 7 aggressive schedule, but based on a lot of support from the 8 Commissioners Court, you know, and -- and Wayne, and how the 9 components come together and the design elements, and the 10 program -- you know, if there's some things to consider. I 11 don't know if time's a consideration for you, you know. If 12 it is, great. If it's not, we'll -- we'll be glad to help 13 you work through all those options. 14 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: It is a 15 consideration, particularly on the barn and the arena. 16 MR. RAIN: Good. 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That fits the Stock 18 Show's needs. 19 MR. RAIN: Well, the advantage is that most 20 of the design elements will be going on in the spring, and 21 we won't actually start messing with anything till we have a 22 firm set of drawings and -- and contract price. So, that's 23 scheduled for -- 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, the key element 25 is that if you start, you know, if the bond issue is 12-17-02 73 1 successful and we move the project forward, Stock Show for 2 this -- for '03 will have been conducted. 3 MR. RAIN: Right. Right. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And then you have 5 until -- you're showing completion of December 1. That's 6 pretty much a firm date, because they have to begin getting 7 ready for their -- 8 MR. RAIN: The next year's stock show. 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So, anything later 10 than that becomes problematic. 11 MR. RAIN: Well, and, you know, there's some 12 elements there, depending on what the final program is. 13 That exhibit hall is kind of separate, so our priority can 14 certainly be on the livestock barn and arena area. And we 15 can work those pieces as a priority while we're, you know, 16 finishing up the exhibit hall if -- if, for some reason, we 17 change design or dollars or whatever. 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Do we lose any cost 19 effectiveness by doing it that way? The emphasis shifting 20 to the agricultural -- 21 MR. RAIN: Mr. Williams, we wouldn't work 22 them separately. We'd just put a more intensive focus on 23 the piece that needed to get done. There is a lot of 24 efficiencies in having the concrete poured at the same time, 25 having metal buildings done. I mean, every trade that you 12-17-02 74 1 can imagine would like to do as much as they can at one 2 time, and that's the way we do it. It would be all of a 3 sudden we need to get this thing done, and that's where our 4 focus goes. There's a lot more design elements to the 5 exhibit hall than there is to the livestock barn. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: If you were to try to 7 look at the schedule and figure out a way to have a 8 completion date early to mid-November, where would you have 9 to make adjustments, and what would -- how would that impact 10 the Court? 11 MR. RAIN: Oh, I think -- 12 MR. ADLER: I think the program -- 13 MR. RAIN: I think it is program design; 14 certainly, this piece is. How much do you want for the 15 dollars you have, and where are you willing to sacrifice? 16 And, so, the initial discussion is, we want it all for this 17 much. And -- 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's the answer. 19 (Discussion off the record.) 20 MR. ADLER: We got the program and we got the 21 budget, but we don't have a cost estimate now, so we got to 22 make sure that everything's -- 23 MR. HUSER: Well, and the way to expedite 24 that, quite honestly, is to get everybody, all of the -- all 25 the suppliers in the same room; the designer, the -- you 12-17-02 75 1 know, the engineers, the contractor, the users, the 2 Commissioners Court. You get enough of those people 3 together, and -- and you basically focus on the design, to 4 where you figure out what the program is. What does it have 5 to do? What can we afford? And you -- you get that instead 6 of, you know, "Well, I need to get with Maintenance," or, "I 7 need to go out and get with the Ag people," and it takes a 8 week or two weeks to get those information questions 9 answered. You put everybody in the same room, and you -- 10 and you stay there till you figure out exactly what you're 11 going to do, okay? I think the -- the most popular term for 12 that is a share-it, which basically, to me, is a big, long 13 meeting where you do everything in a hurry instead of 14 waiting on people's timetables to answer your questions. 15 Okay? Because that's how you chop off that time. 16 The other -- the other kind of overused term 17 in the construction business, quite frankly, is a, quote, 18 fast track. And, essentially, all that really means is that 19 you are beginning construction before you know exactly what 20 you're going to build. And that would be another way. You 21 could go in and you could begin the demolition work, you 22 would begin the site work. You could begin -- if you could 23 finish the programming and you knew exactly the footprint of 24 the building, you could turn the structural steel people 25 loose to, you know, go ahead and design the -- the 12-17-02 76 1 pre-engineered metal building structures. 2 MR. ADLER: Those aren't costing -- those are 3 just design -- those are things we just do first. 4 MR. HUSER: But you just push it -- 5 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: There's some element 6 of risk when do you that, because you may -- 7 MR. HUSER: Yes. 8 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Depending on how much 9 you want to fast track it, you do buy some element of risk. 10 So, it's how much do you want to chew off. 11 MR. ADLER: But you got some real big pieces; 12 demolition, site work. I mean, those things -- demolition, 13 particularly, and whether we have asbestos or not, of 14 course. And those allow us to design while we're doing 15 something that really is a big picture piece. 16 MR. HUSER: The other thing we would do, 17 whether you took a more traditional, more conservative 18 approach and finished all of the plans and developed a 19 guaranteed maximum price, and then authorized the 20 construction -- that's the slower, but also much more 21 conservative, safer approach. We work with a lot of 22 different subcontractors; some from San Antonio, some from 23 Austin, a lot of them from Kerrville and Fredericksburg. 24 Some of the guys around here will be a little less 25 sophisticated than some of the big ones out of San Antonio. 12-17-02 77 1 We've sort of learned how to support those guys if they need 2 help with submittals or they need help with forklifts or 3 equipment or those sort of things. You know, we try to use 4 as many of those local guys as we can. And we -- and we 5 have a good -- you know, a good list of a lot of subs. 6 The process we typically go through is we 7 advertise for bids through the plan services, the newspaper, 8 through what we call RFP's, or request for proposals, where 9 we send people an invitation to bid, and then we pull all 10 those things together. We spend a little bit qualifying 11 them, and then we sit down with, you know, a representative 12 of the owner and we say, well, here's a bid on the masonry, 13 here's a bid on the concrete, and we go through all of those 14 things, combine that with the recommendation, and here's who 15 we think we ought to use, here's who we shouldn't use. It's 16 a good process. We typically like to have, you know, the 17 owner and owner's representative -- you know, maintenance 18 people are important, because somebody's got to call the A/C 19 guy to come and service it and that sort of thing. 20 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Yes. I've got a 21 question for you, Steve. 22 MR. HUSER: Sure. 23 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Or any of you, on your 24 cost model. 25 MR. HUSER: Uh-huh. 12-17-02 78 1 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Is every element 2 that's shown on the schedule covered in the cost model? And 3 I realize that this is something you would tweak when you 4 reply to the content of work and all that sort of thing, 5 but, in essence, everything -- anything on here that's shown 6 as a required item would be included in the cost model? 7 MR. HUSER: Yes. Yes. 8 MR. ADLER: The full project. 9 MR. HUSER: The estimate sheet has much more 10 detail. 11 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Right. 12 MR. HUSER: That's just sort of -- that would 13 essentially be a recap sheet where, if we had six concrete 14 bids, for instance, we would show who we preferred to use, 15 and then we would give you another spreadsheet that showed 16 the other five. 17 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Okay. This is good. 18 MR. HUSER: I guess, in conclusion, I was 19 just going to tell you that we thank you very much for the 20 opportunity to be here. We've had the privilege, over the 21 last nine years, to do a lot of projects for the County. 22 We've built your Ag Extension Office out there and built the 23 road in front of the jail and a few other things. And one 24 of the things I think that we bring as an advantage of our 25 team is that this is a project that fits our size. This is 12-17-02 79 1 a pretty -- pretty typical size project for us. We are 2 large enough that you get the benefit of -- of the 3 organizations, but not so large that you're not dealing with 4 the principals. Allen is our -- he's our point man, our 5 contact with the architects. He's the guy we're going to be 6 talking to. I continue to be involved in all of the 7 projects. The work that we do, you know, in the Hill 8 Country is what gets us our next job, and it's our 9 reputation, so we're not spread from one side of the state 10 to the other, or across the country, or -- we work around 11 here, and we -- we consider this an exciting project, and it 12 would be something we would be very pleased and proud to be 13 associated with. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I have a couple 15 questions. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I got a comment before 17 that. Steve, I want to remind you that you're also a 18 taxpayer in this county. 19 (Laughter.) 20 MR. HUSER: Yeah. As a matter of fact, I 21 just did that the other day. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Very good. So that's 23 out of the way for the year. Remember how much fun that 24 was? 25 (Discussion off the record.) 12-17-02 80 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Steve -- 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Steve, while you're 3 on tax -- 4 MR. HUSER: I will say county taxes were a 5 whole lot less painful than the school taxes. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: With the -- I know budget 7 is a concern on this project, 'cause it is a tight budget, 8 but based on the parameters that were given -- I mean, it's 9 pretty much that is what the project covers. It's a matter 10 of how you put those pieces together. 11 MR. HUSER: Right. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Do you see any problem in 13 having -- or meeting the $3 million guaranteed maximum 14 price? 15 MR. HUSER: I think your $3 million number is 16 a tight number. Normally, what happens in these deals is 17 nobody ever puts out their top number. They always put out 18 the number that they'd like to have. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You do if it's a bond 20 issue. 21 MR. HUSER: Well, again, part of -- part of 22 how you resolve that is in some of the programming steps, 23 okay? And I don't care whether you're building a doghouse 24 in your back yard or you're building a $3 million facility. 25 They're trade-offs, okay? There will be some things that 12-17-02 81 1 you decide, well, I'd rather have -- the last two spaces are 2 going to be trailer parking, and they can be chip seal, 3 where -- because they're going to tear up asphalt anyway. 4 Or you decide that, you know, you change the elevation a 5 little bit of the front entrance or -- I think you've got an 6 achievable budget, but I think it's a very tight budget. I 7 don't think it's the kind of thing where you look out there 8 and you say, well, you know, $3 million sounds like a lot of 9 money, so let's just add this and add this and add this, 10 what I call scope creep. You know, you can't see -- that 11 sounds like so much money, but when you see how much square 12 feet you're attacking, you have a very cost -- you know, in 13 today's market, you have a very low cost per-square-foot 14 budget, so you have to be careful. You can't -- you can't 15 embellish all of the buildings with rock or -- you know, you 16 have to watch that. 17 MR. ADLER: Exactly. What we tried to do is 18 to be very careful. 19 MR. HUSER: Yeah. I mean, so, in any project 20 you do, just like where you're doing landscaping or you're 21 building buildings, you know, sometimes exactly what you 22 would wish for is not exactly how it comes to pass. And 23 sometimes they're little trade-offs that -- that you say, 24 well, I can give up a little bit of parking lot if I can 25 have this piece over here. Or maybe part of the answer is 12-17-02 82 1 that you -- you do the parking lot out of chip seal, because 2 you know that -- or you hope that in two years, you're going 3 to rip all that up and put a building there, so you don't 4 spend the money for asphalt in that area. So, you just -- I 5 think it's an achievable budget, but I think it's a budget 6 that you have to work pretty hard to get to. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Another question that 8 probably goes more to Allen than to you. If you are the 9 chosen design team, do you have any problem with releasing 10 the drawings that are going to be used in the bond issue, 11 basically releasing them so we can use them publicly in the 12 bond issue? 13 MR. ADLER: No. That would presume that we 14 were selected. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: If you're the -- you 16 know. 17 MR. ADLER: Sure. No, absolutely. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: There would be a -- if 19 you need a letter of intent or something like that, that 20 you're the preferred contracting team, or we're going to, 21 you know, negotiate in good faith -- 22 MR. ADLER: I'd love to help, yeah. 23 MR. HUSER: Wouldn't that be something where 24 you might have a town meeting or you'd have something where 25 you would ask us to talk about it or come in and explain it 12-17-02 83 1 to the people? I mean -- 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Could be any number 3 of ways, Steve. 4 MR. HUSER: I guess our interest is -- 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Publicity could be 6 presented in the media. It could be any number of ways. 7 MR. HUSER: And we're here to help you, 8 whatever you need. 9 MR. ADLER: If we got through the Phase 1 10 part of it, the design/build contract, you go through 11 preliminary pricing, which also helps establish the budget, 12 and you go through preliminary design, at which point you 13 could go for a rendering. And we could do -- you know, take 14 another step. Instead of a concept, we have a -- this is 15 what we're going to build kind of thing. And that -- 16 MR. GONDECK: I'll address it this way. I 17 know very well that the Court is not intending to expend too 18 much professional services until the bond election. 19 MR. ADLER: Okay. 20 MR. GONDECK: At least I know that from 21 personal experience. 22 MR. ADLER: That being the case, y'all have 23 my permission, yeah. 24 MR. GONDECK: So, we would -- I think that 25 the issue is that, even though there's not a -- a formal 12-17-02 84 1 contract in place, and even though the project going forward 2 is on a contingent basis, based on the successful passage of 3 the bond election, do you have any problem with releasing 4 the drawings to the Commissioners Court? Or actually 5 providing maybe more than one copy of those so that those 6 can be either placed here in the courthouse, used for public 7 meetings? 8 MR. ADLER: Yeah. I mean, that would be a 9 very sensible thing to do. 10 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Okay. 11 MR. GONDECK: Y'all have presented this 12 fairly -- are y'all through, or do you have additional 13 questions? 14 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Go ahead. 15 MR. GONDECK: Y'all have presented this as a 16 very traditional approach; however, there is some 17 contemplation under the statute that would provide for, I 18 guess you might say, more risk on the contractor's part, or 19 the design/build team, and more openness on the County's 20 side, that would establish the guaranteed maximum price at 21 an earlier date, based on basically a design development set 22 of documents. And then, from there, those need tightening 23 and everything, but once the program and the outline specs 24 and everything was really defined, the quality of all the 25 materials and everything is totally defined, that you 12-17-02 85 1 provide a guaranteed maximum price within the owner's 2 budget. If that was all approved, that y'all would go 3 forward and beat each other over the heads rather than have 4 to beat Commissioners Court over the head as to what has to 5 give and take everyplace. Have y'all done that type of -- 6 of project? And, secondly, would you be open to the option 7 of negotiating that type of contract? 8 MR. HUSER: Yeah. I think what we'd have to 9 do is, we would offer a design development on a project like 10 this; we could certainly do that. We just -- you know, 11 there's things like whether I add another 10,000 square feet 12 or not. You got to kind of get those -- you got to get 13 those in the -- 14 MR. GONDECK: I understand that. That would 15 all have to be established. 16 MR. HUSER: Right, but -- absolutely. It's a 17 simple-type structure where it's basically wide-open spaces, 18 and you -- you've set a very outlined set of specifications 19 and parameters that would state, well, it's going to have 20 this much air-conditioning, it's going to be this big. It's 21 tied down, so we would be comfortable with that. We did 22 that, believe it or not, on a hospital renovation at Sid 23 Pete, where we -- you know, the hospital looked in and said, 24 you know, if we do this rehab space, it's going to make "X" 25 number of dollars of revenue. We can only do it if we -- we 12-17-02 86 1 can't spend more than this much doing it. Can you make that 2 happen? And it was a little bit more traditional in that we 3 said yes, we can, based upon a preliminary -- essentially a 4 floor plan-type, moving walls around. We had plaster walls, 5 outdated plumbing, asbestos to deal with, some of which we 6 couldn't see until we tore into the walls. 7 MR. ADLER: A lot of columns that weren't 8 there. 9 MR. HUSER: We didn't have, you know, a lot 10 of the historical information. And the hospital was up 11 against a deadline. Their deal was we had to have beds -- 12 we have to be open, we have to be trained, and we have to 13 have a patient in this bed or we don't qualify for 14 reimbursement. So, what we did is we said, you know, this 15 is what we think it's going to cost. It's not going to cost 16 more than this amount. And we -- you know, we all went to 17 work. The caveat to making that a good project is that you 18 have to be flexible. You have to -- you have to define 19 the -- in our particular case at the hospital, there were 20 some issues where we had some columns that, like Allen says, 21 weren't there, and so we had to move a wall around. Because 22 the column's holding up the hospital; you can't take it out, 23 you know. So, that's part of the team approach that makes 24 it work. The advantage, quite honestly, to an owner, you 25 get your building a lot sooner and you don't have to -- you 12-17-02 87 1 know, it moves quickly that way. 2 MR. GONDECK: I think the concern will be -- 3 and I know that this probably won't really start surfacing 4 as much until after, you know, February, or at the beginning 5 of February, but once negotiations start on the actual 6 contract, that the concern may be that, okay, we've got the 7 team on board and -- and, you know, we're going to go 8 forward. We've agreed to a certain price for Phase I, which 9 is the main proposal end of the scope and the final design. 10 But the actual guaranteed maximum cost may not come until 11 May. 12 MR. ADLER: At the end of Phase I. 13 MR. GONDECK: They've committed themselves to 14 something, you know, that is going to be, you know, six 15 months down the road. And, you know, either it has to be 16 established very concisely how that guaranteed maximum price 17 is going to be arrived at -- you know, if it's going to be 18 arrived at, you know, at the -- whatever is out there in the 19 market and the bids plus something, that may not be a viable 20 way for the Commissioners Court to look at that, because 21 they have to stay within that budget. But if it's arrived 22 at that, okay, we can establish a guaranteed maximum cost; 23 we agree with what's in there up front and within the short 24 period of time, I think that's probably where the -- you 25 know, I'm not going to speak for the Court, but I don't 12-17-02 88 1 think that they want to be left exposed. I think they want 2 that exposure to go back on the other side of the fence; the 3 contractor and the architect to put their heads together as 4 to how they're going to -- 5 MR. ADLER: If you select us and commit to 6 us, pending the passage of the bond issue, then it is likely 7 that we will spend time in January working on that budget on 8 our own recognizance. However, part of that would have to 9 be, first and foremost, a meeting with you guys to sharpen 10 the scope so we can get ahead of the train. I mean, I think 11 that's a commitment we're -- I know that everybody's willing 12 to make. 13 MR. HUSER: Which we're willing to do. 14 MR. RAIN: And, quite honestly, in our 15 original schedule, we had a construction cost budget 16 established. We actually had that as a guaranteed max. We 17 changed it, because we have not sat down and understood the 18 program or the design, and so we are hesitant to make a 19 commitment that early without having the opportunity for 20 further design conversations. 21 MR. HUSER: Well, and things like -- 22 MR. GONDECK: So, just -- not to cut you off, 23 Steve, but I want to make sure that we get this stated. 24 MR. HUSER: That's all right. 25 MR. GONDECK: So, in essence, y'all will be 12-17-02 89 1 open to -- 2 MR. HUSER: Yes. 3 MR. GONDECK: -- that option, or at least 4 discussing the negotiations? 5 MR. HUSER: Absolutely. We would be willing 6 to do that. I think our -- our piece to that would be that 7 we would want to make sure that, on a preliminary basis, 8 that our customer understood what they were buying. Okay? 9 MR. GONDECK: Absolutely. 10 MR. HUSER: What I would not want to have is 11 to get a building finished and the guys say, "I thought I 12 was going to have a loading dock here." You know, "Back 13 three years ago, they told me I was going to have a loading 14 dock," you know? So, what you would want to do is to do the 15 programming work with whoever is involved, so that if we're 16 supposed to furnish -- we're supposed to price, furnish, and 17 build a loading dock, that it's clear in y'all's mind and in 18 our mind that's what we're supposed to do. We wouldn't want 19 to get into a situation where somebody said, "Well, gosh, I 20 thought we were getting another 10,000 square feet, and how 21 come it..." So, there's a process to refine all of that. I 22 think that keeps everybody on the right page, keeps 23 everybody happy, which is what we're about doing. 24 MR. RAIN: It's a lot of work, I mean, as a 25 team, to get to that point early in the deal. There has to 12-17-02 90 1 be a huge consensus of the group; you know, the actual 2 meeting of the minds, so that everybody does really 3 understand what they're getting. 4 MR. HUSER: Sure. 5 MR. RAIN: The price that we're committing 6 to. 7 MR. HUSER: And not to the extent that, you 8 know, "Well, I want a plug here and a plug over here," but 9 it's more to the extent of the rooms are the right size and 10 the dock's on the right end of the building, and I like the 11 way it's going to look and I like this porch or -- you know, 12 we're talking concepts again, big concepts. But, yeah. 13 MR. GONDECK: If I may, I just want to make 14 sure that the Court understands what I'm presenting here, 15 and why I'm presenting it. I'm not -- I don't want to cut 16 into your time that you have the opportunity, but basically, 17 in all construction projects or public work, as it is, the 18 main presentations of the architect to the Commissioners 19 Court, for example, is in the -- the programming, the 20 schematic design, and the design development. And even 21 though the -- there is a formality of submitting that final 22 set of construction documents to the -- the Commissioners 23 Court, in a conventional design, bid, and build type 24 project, that the details that are presented in there are -- 25 are not seriously reviewed. You are utilizing the design 12-17-02 91 1 professional basically to certify to you that we meet your 2 program elements, and everything that you need for what we 3 agreed up front is provided in this full set of documents. 4 You would be getting, in the type of program 5 that we're talking about, that same element from any of the 6 design/build teams if you negotiate that way. That based on 7 that design development package, that does have outlined 8 specifications; it does delineate, you know, what spaces are 9 conditions. It does have all the basic materials. You do 10 have that all in there. We have a plan that is worked with. 11 Any deviations of that, you know, as they're -- they're 12 pricing it out, there would have to be a well-defined 13 rationale on how and what could be deviated, and that would 14 be agreed upon. But, beyond that, it's up to the -- the 15 design/build team to actually put together the -- the final 16 elements as far as, you know, whether or not it's going to 17 be, you know, straight-type columns or tapered-type columns 18 on the building. And each of them have their different 19 reasons or rationales as to why to use one or the other, and 20 have a cost implication, but those issues stay on that side 21 of the fence. They stay with the design/build team. 22 And the Commissioners Court is then looking 23 at that program, the design development package, the 24 contract of what is included, which would be very 25 well-delineated, and then the final product. And, yes, we 12-17-02 92 1 are paying on -- each month on the progress of the work; 2 and, yes, we do still receive the final documents, but it's 3 a little bit different basis that really takes -- and it's 4 really what the design/build delivery method is intended to 5 be, rather than -- and it works well in this type of 6 project, because there are relatively few elements to this 7 project. It's big, but there's relatively few elements. 8 But, I just wanted to take the time to go over that as to 9 what the real concept of design/build was in this context. 10 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: And, so, what you're 11 saying is we should sign up for what we want, and then do 12 our best to keep from meddling in the project, which is 13 exactly -- 14 (Laughter.) 15 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: -- which is exactly 16 what I would say. 17 MR. GONDECK: In essence -- in essence, I 18 think that is a tremendous outcome in the project, but what 19 it does is -- that is one reason why the legislation also 20 provided for having the independent consulting architect to 21 make sure that someone is looking over everybody else's 22 shoulders, looking out for the benefit of the County. 23 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: And let me add that I 24 couldn't agree more with the rationale for the legislation 25 and your approach. 12-17-02 93 1 JUDGE HENNEKE: Does anyone else have any 2 questions of this gentleman? I've got a couple. On your 3 new barn, you show one central location for restrooms. 4 MR. ADLER: Yes. 5 JUDGE HENNEKE: It may be central, but it's 6 not particularly convenient, given the expansion of that 7 structure. 8 MR. ADLER: Well, it was to service both the 9 arena building and the livestock building, so it's at dead 10 center there. Plumbing's on the outside wall for -- for 11 possible future expansion, possible expansion as we define 12 the project. Also, in the wash-off area we have plumbing. 13 When you wash out of the arena building, you're over here. 14 It's a long haul if you're over here; it's a little longer 15 haul if you're here. It's pretty convenient. If you're in 16 the office, you have a unisex toilet, but you can still get 17 to it. I can't think of a -- a location in a building of 18 this size that could be any more convenient. We can split 19 them; we can do that, and we can locate one here. I think 20 we want one here anyway for the arena building, and we still 21 want this for this part. We could add, you know, in the 22 final analysis, another location, just like I did here, 23 'cause I got to thinking the same thing. Here's a unisex 24 toilet, and this is in the office area. Well, that's -- 25 that's a common sense kind of thing. So -- so, I put that 12-17-02 94 1 there. We might be able to do something else like that in 2 the other areas that might be a little far from that center 3 point. 4 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay. The second question 5 has to do with change orders. Assuming we don't have any, 6 it's not a problem, but if we have them, how do y'all handle 7 those administratively? 8 MR. ADLER: A change order, to me, is -- I 9 like to look at it, particularly in a design/build approach, 10 as a change in scope. In other words, you have the -- you 11 say, "I want to add a whole 'nother toilet to this project. 12 I want the same size; I want it in that corner." There's no 13 control whatever we have over that. It's just, "I want 14 something else." That is a change order, to me. That is 15 the majority of the ones that I deal with. We work very 16 well together to minimize them, and the way we do that is we 17 have a give and take. I don't -- I don't just nail their 18 feet to the floor and say, "By god, you're going to do it 19 this way." On the other hand, they say, "Okay, if you help 20 me here, if you do it this way, we can probably do it." So, 21 we modify things and we make them happen. If -- if there's 22 a real dollar crunch -- I mean, that's part of the reason I 23 think we -- and, Steve, you can -- 24 MR. HUSER: Is that answering your question? 25 Or are you talking about if you were to add a section or add 12-17-02 95 1 a phase to the building later? 2 MR. GONDECK: I -- 3 JUDGE HENNEKE: Go ahead, Wayne. 4 MR. GONDECK: I think one question I want to 5 ask, or what we need to ask is if there is something that is 6 omitted in the original design that needs to be there for 7 some public requirements, building codes or something else. 8 How is that handled in a design/build situation? 9 MR. ADLER: Well, our -- I think our carriers 10 and everything will say that it is the -- the classic way to 11 say that is what it would have cost originally is all you'd 12 ever pay. If it -- you have to pay a premium twice because 13 we missed it -- 14 MR. GONDECK: Let me see if I can ask it 15 another way. If we thought it was in there based on your 16 documents, and you thought it was in there based on your 17 documents -- 18 MR. ADLER: We both thought it was in there? 19 MR. GONDECK: Right. 20 MR. HUSER: Then we would pay. 21 MR. GONDECK: So, in a design/build issue, is 22 it not more the -- what is typically the change orders that 23 go back and forth between what the architect says it is and 24 what the builder says it is, are those pretty well 25 eliminated? 12-17-02 96 1 MR. RAIN: Absolutely. That's the advantage 2 of working closely with -- 3 MR. GONDECK: That's what -- I was trying to 4 lead the witness. 5 MR. ADLER: No, that's true. That's a 6 different answer, yeah. 7 MR. HUSER: I thought you meant what if you 8 added a significant phase, 10,000 square feet additional 9 space. 10 MR. ADLER: That's the benefit of 11 design/build, yeah. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Let me ask a question 13 about that. 14 MR. HUSER: You would go through another 15 wall. 16 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Assuming, after we've 17 gotten a guaranteed maximum price, if, somewhere in that 18 time frame, the good fairy drops a big bundle of money on 19 the Commissioners Court desk and says, "Let's expand the 20 exhibit hall," hypothetically, would the square foot cost to 21 do that be equal to what's in the guaranteed maximum price, 22 greater than, or lesser than? If you think you know? 23 MR. HUSER: Okay. I think timing has a lot 24 to do with that. If you are at the issuance of a guaranteed 25 maximum price, then it's probably the same or less. If 12-17-02 97 1 we're two weeks away from handing you the keys, and the 2 fairy drops in and you say, "Time out, we want you to build 3 this other deal," okay, then our general conditions, such as 4 the supervision and the phones and the trailers and the 5 port-a-pottys and all of those things would extend past the 6 completion date, obviously, because you just started. In 7 that scenario, it might be more per square foot, okay? If 8 -- but if it was in such a way that I could buy all of the 9 steel for the -- the G-max and for the addition at the same 10 time, you're going to be at or less. Does that make sense? 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah. That's -- 12 MR. HUSER: If you got to start all over with 13 concrete people and pad people, then -- and you're adding a 14 10,000 square foot addition to a 50,000 square foot project, 15 those are the kind of change orders that hurt. Because, you 16 know, they're almost really not -- change order's really not 17 a good term for that. It's a separate project. It becomes 18 a remodeling project at that point. So -- 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Just kind of depends 20 on the time frame? 21 MR. HUSER: It's the time frame, absolutely. 22 MR. RAIN: Well, it depends on what you're 23 adding. Are you adding square footage in the exhibit area, 24 which is just lights and open space? Or are you adding more 25 bathrooms? You know, the type of space certainly dictates, 12-17-02 98 1 I mean, the cost. Sort of adding open space is going to be 2 less than adding another 1,000 square foot of bathrooms. 3 MR. HUSER: Bathrooms or kitchens or 4 something that has a lot of intensive -- 5 MR. RAIN: There's a lot of variables. But 6 our philosophy since I've been with Huser Construction, and 7 I believe this is true with Steve, is we don't get rich on 8 change orders. They're -- they're a necessary part of the 9 process. Nobody likes them. The owner doesn't like them. 10 Contractors don't like them, 'cause it slows work down. You 11 know, our job is to get this thing built for you as quickly 12 as and efficiently as we can. And if somebody in the middle 13 of it calls a time-out; says, "I want to do this," well, 14 then everything just stops. And you -- well, okay. What 15 are we going to do? How -- where are we going to do it? 16 What are we going to add? Typically, what we do on change 17 orders, we'll give you all the backup you want. We give you 18 the subcontractor's proposal; you get to see all the costs 19 right up front. So, it's not like something we're trying to 20 hide and make up for something we left out. And, you know, 21 it's a part that nobody likes, guys, but we have to do it. 22 MR. GONDECK: We're getting short on time, so 23 we need to move -- 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: While we have that -- the 25 arena and the new barn there, can you show real quickly 12-17-02 99 1 where the -- what areas are going to be concrete versus 2 dirt? 3 MR. ADLER: You said that you wanted this -- 4 this part in the front to be concrete. And, of course, this 5 is right here and that is right there. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. And the arena? 7 Isn't there -- 8 MR. ADLER: Well, in the program, as -- as 9 these -- that's -- I don't know exactly where that starts 10 and stops. Because there is a point where you want to 11 unload horses and cows and stuff like that, and you don't 12 want concrete. 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. That basically 14 answers that. My next question goes with that. There's 15 going to be lots of dirt areas. 16 MR. ADLER: Mm-hmm. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And another thing that 18 I've learned from six years on the Court is that A.D.A. 19 becomes an issue anytime you build anything. What happens 20 on a -- well, who's responsible for making sure that that 21 building is in full compliance with A.D.A., and who eats the 22 cost -- who eats the cost if there's something left out and 23 we have to add it later? 24 MR. HUSER: Typically, the way we do that is 25 we'll have some sort of an A.D.A. consultant review the 12-17-02 100 1 plans, and then have them come back and review the 2 construction. Usually, you know, the laws change 14 times 3 in those eight months between when we -- 4 MR. ADLER: We have -- I have a senior 5 architect who could probably quote the code verbatim to you, 6 and he will go through it. We then have to submit to 7 T.D.L.R. Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation 8 reviews the A.D.A. drawings that we have. In fact, we have 9 to do them in 35 days. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Our problem -- our 11 experience has been that they change their mind between 12 approval and signing off when the building's complete. 13 MR. GONDECK: There is one of the contract 14 providers that has done similar buildings to this that the 15 Court may want to ask them if they want to use when we get 16 to that point, or whoever it is. 17 MR. RAIN: Well, there is some -- 18 MR. GONDECK: There is specific -- it is like 19 in doing jails, you know, it's nice to have somebody that 20 understands accessibility within a detention area. I do 21 have another specific question on the exclusion. What do 22 you perceive as far as what would be excluded, that y'all 23 would not do, when there's a guaranteed maximum price? 24 MR. HUSER: I think that would be something 25 we would work out. We can do everything. We can go all the 12-17-02 101 1 way down to the landscaping and, you know, whatever. When 2 we built the -- the Ag Extension Office out there, the 3 County chose for -- you know, imagine this; the County was 4 trying to save money, but Road and Bridge did the parking, 5 you know. They had prisoners do some of the landscaping. 6 We built the Animal Shelter, you remember; we had prisoners 7 come out and do some of the -- the painting and the clean-up 8 and stuff. So, I guess -- I guess our comment is, it's part 9 of the programming and thinking through it. We'll take it 10 from beginning to end and hand you the keys if that's what 11 you want. If you come back and say, you know, we want you 12 to, you know, not do this part of the parking lot because 13 we're going to have Road and Bridge come do that, or we want 14 you to, you know, leave the landscaping off of this area 15 because we've got, you know, 25,000 man hours of community 16 service and we need something for them to do, we'll -- 17 we'll -- you know, that's up to -- that's in your court, 18 okay? 19 JUDGE HENNEKE: Different engineering pieces, 20 though, the geotechnical engineering the environmental 21 engineering, do you consider that to be part of your G.M.P., 22 or is that -- 23 MR. ADLER: I don't think so. I don't think 24 that's part of the scope, is it? 25 MR. GONDECK: As far as the geo -- the soils 12-17-02 102 1 analysis, we would perceive that as being part of that 2 project, to keep all the actual design elements, again -- 3 MR. ADLER: Geotech's on our side. How about 4 the survey? 5 MR. GONDECK: The survey, I think, is, by 6 law, by the County. And the independent testing laboratory, 7 by law, is by the County. 8 MR. ADLER: That would be, to me, one of the 9 first things we need, is a very good, detailed survey, 10 'cause I haven't seen one yet. I mean, that is -- and that 11 is something that's -- you know, if you select us, we would 12 need to start walking through a preliminary G.M.P. on our 13 recognizance. 14 MR. GONDECK: It's my understanding there has 15 actually been more work done on the property and the survey 16 than what has been found or made available. 17 MR. ADLER: I had a perimeter that was a 18 little difficult. Utilities -- I got more utilities on my 19 pictures here than I do -- 20 JUDGE HENNEKE: Anything else? We need to 21 wrap up. 22 MR. HUSER: We'll work with you however, 23 whatever's the best for you guys, okay? 24 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay. 25 MR. ADLER: Look forward to it. 12-17-02 103 1 JUDGE HENNEKE: Thank you, Steve, Allen, 2 Scott. Thank you for your time. 3 MR. HUSER: Appreciate it. 4 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay, boys. Let's take as 5 little as possible, but not more than 10, so we can get the 6 next guys in. 7 (Discussion off the record.) 8 (Recess taken from 3:25 p.m. to 3:35 p.m.) 9 - - - - - - - - - - 10 JUDGE HENNEKE: We'll now reconvene this 11 special session of the Kerr County Commissioners Court. Our 12 next presenters are STR Construction out of Austin. 13 Gentlemen? The stage is yours. 14 MR. KENNEDY: All right, thank you. Good 15 afternoon. My name's Rick Kennedy with STR. I'm the owner 16 and president. This gentleman handing these brochures out 17 to you is Jim Brown, who is the manager of our San Antonio 18 office. I brought with us Bill Epp of William Epp and 19 Associates, Architects, the design side of our package here. 20 What I -- the handout that Jim's just given you addresses 21 the seven items that you listed on the Request for 22 Qualifications. Basically, what I'm going to do as a way of 23 presentation is go through these -- these seven items, which 24 consist of your requirement to see a proposed site plan, a 25 proposed front elevation, a brief outline of the type of 12-17-02 104 1 construction, our estimate -- estimate of your feasibility 2 of the project, a description of our costing methodology, 3 the cost that the guaranteed maximum price includes, and 4 then a proposed project schedule. In addition, there's an 5 eighth item listed there that shows projects -- or 6 similar-type projects that we've constructed in the past. 7 Items 1 and 2 actually fall within the expertise of Bill 8 here, as our designer, so I'm going to let him stand up here 9 and show you what we've got in mind -- or he's got in mind 10 at this point. 11 MR. EPP: Good afternoon. My name's Bill 12 Epp. I'm an architect out of San Antonio, been in practice 13 since about 1978. And STR came before me and asked me to 14 participate in this, and gave me the proposal, and we've 15 gone through it and -- and made the simple proposal here 16 that we have on the boards. Or do you want to work from 17 these small site plans, or does it matter? 18 JUDGE HENNEKE: If you use a board, some of 19 the other people might be able to see what we're talking 20 about. 21 MR. EPP: Okay, that's fine. This is -- the 22 first board is basically the second page of your little 23 booklet, which is an overall -- it's not an overall site 24 plan. It's a -- a scaled-up version of that, where we show 25 the arena building, which is the existing arena building 12-17-02 105 1 right here. And our proposal at this time is to work to the 2 east side of that building, leaving intact the existing area 3 that we -- exhibit hall that you have in place, so you can 4 use that during the period of time that we're renovating and 5 constructing the new exhibit hall and livestock barn. 6 There's two possibilities -- reasons for doing this. 7 Basically, one is for the time period you'd have the 8 existing facilities available to you, and second of all, 9 that I think with all the utilities inside -- I don't know 10 how old they are at this time, how long they've been in the 11 ground. I think it's going to be better to bring in new 12 utilities to the site, or to the buildings, anyway. 13 At this time, we're developing three separate 14 buildings. One is the existing arena building that is to be 15 renovated. The second building is the livestock barn, 16 which, shown here, is 200-by-250. And the exhibit hall, as 17 shown, is 100-by-130 feet. We're showing a separation 18 between the exhibit hall and the livestock barn of a 20- to 19 25-foot road, per se. And that's basically to serve as a 20 drop-off point for animals. It could be a gated alleyway 21 where we could bring in different loads of trailers and 22 such, gate off certain areas and unload animals as required 23 during any possible activities. Then we could close the 24 gates and transport the animals back and forth within that 25 gated area without having any exposure to the general 12-17-02 106 1 public. The exhibit hall we'd also separate from the 2 livestock barn, and this, of course, would allow for -- 3 mainly for odors and noise. And, right now, that 4 13,000-square-foot building, the 2,500 square foot required 5 office space is in the very front of it. 6 And if you go to this board, basically, which 7 is the next sheet, it will probably show you a little more 8 of the overall concept. The -- all the teams are basically 9 working with the fact that we're going to be using 10 pre-engineered buildings, which is probably the most 11 economical way of doing it. I think all of us are aware 12 we've got to bring the facilities up to A.D.A. standards. 13 And then I'm pretty sure that all of us are going to put a 14 new facade on the existing building and try to bring it over 15 and to try and dress up the overall facilities. My main 16 concept I'd like to bring in at this time is that we bring 17 in a little park concept in between all the buildings, 18 basically, which is the yellow grassed area right there, to 19 allow for maybe fountains or some kind of exhibit or a 20 statue, something to where it can open that exhibit hall 21 into a break-out space for meetings and -- and different 22 type of organizations. 23 I've taken the break-out into that small 24 picnic area; we would put picnic benches out there, 25 sculptures, anything to do with the city that they'd like to 12-17-02 107 1 put out there, but it's to bring a little relief to the 2 large amount of asphalt and very large buildings that we 3 have in the area. Right now, that -- that little park area 4 or picnic area I showed you right now is about 135 foot 5 square; it's not a huge area, but enough to bring a little 6 greenery into the overall concept of the buildings, and 7 that's basically our concept. We do have the very basic 8 preliminary elevations down below that, which shows a -- a 9 new facade on the existing arena building, and then we'd 10 follow that same facade over into the new buildings. Does 11 anybody have any questions as far as concept? Yes, sir? 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: If we were to 13 determine at some date, sooner or later, that we wanted to 14 expand the exhibit hall to perhaps double what you're 15 showing on that, how would you do that in your plan? 16 MR. EPP: I would hopefully not take up the 17 parking area, but take it further to the east, if at all 18 possible. But one concept is to come in though that park 19 area, enlarge it that way. I -- again, I think to have that 20 nice little park area would be nice during different -- 21 different activities. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What's the space 23 between the exhibit hall and livestock barn? 24 MR. EPP: This area here? 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Mm-hmm. Yeah, the 12-17-02 108 1 open space between the two facilities. 2 MR. EPP: 15 to 20 feet. 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: 15 to 20 feet? 4 MR. EPP: Yes, sir. 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: There is no 6 combination of air moving between those buildings? 7 MR. EPP: No, sir. No. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So -- 9 MR. EPP: That's one of the main reasons for 10 separating it. 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. 12 MR. EPP: No, sir, that would be one of the 13 main reasons. 14 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We know what that's 15 all about. 16 MR. EPP: Yes, sir. I've done a lot of 17 veterinary clinics in my day; had problems with that before, 18 so I've solved most of those problems. One of the things we 19 were talking about as far as ventilation in the arena 20 area -- that's an existing facility; unfortunately, I did 21 not visit during the original stage of the project -- is 22 when we do our ventilation, we're going to probably 23 recommend that we do a forced air into the building in a 24 strategic area. It'll be a ducted system, and then we will 25 extricate it out the top of the building. That's what those 12-17-02 109 1 new little domes up here would be for, sort of like a 2 chimney effect. But we're going to -- on the arena 3 building, we're going to specifically bring the ventilated 4 air to the specific areas, wherever they may be. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: What kind of support 6 structure do you have in the livestock barn? I mean, is it 7 clear open span, or -- 8 MR. EPP: Right now, yeah, that's our goal, 9 would be open span, if at all possible. Basically, what 10 I've done before in smaller facilities, not in this large, 11 is we'll make a certain amount of rails and gates in one 12 direction, so you can bring in a tractor, clean the entire 13 thing, but make it moveable gates you can make different 14 size pens in. 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Do we have anything 16 that shows what the interior breakdown of floor -- the floor 17 plan would be for -- 18 MR. EPP: No, sir, I didn't get that. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: -- the barn? For the 20 new barn? 21 MR. EPP: No, sir, I did not get that detail. 22 You mean as far as the pens and different areas? 23 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, how the space 24 would be utilized, what part would be concrete floor, what 25 part would be dirt floor and so forth. 12-17-02 110 1 MR. EPP: No, sir, I didn't do that. Didn't 2 get that detailed into it. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: On the -- the drawing, 4 the parking areas, how many parking spots were there? 5 MR. EPP: I just showed the initial parking 6 out in front of the building. I didn't get involved in -- 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: You didn't go into detail 8 that much? 9 MR. EPP: No, didn't develop into the entire 10 site. I didn't have any exact dimensions on your little -- 11 I don't know if that's to stay or not. That wasn't on the 12 initial package that I was given. It can go? 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It can go. 14 MR. EPP: There was also no comments on the 15 riding arena that you have. Is that staying? 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yes. 17 MR. EPP: Okay. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: At least for the time 19 being. 20 MR. EPP: For the time being. Is the seating 21 going to stay, too? 'Cause its pretty rickety and looked 22 like it was -- 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yes, for the time being. 24 MR. EPP: For the time being, okay. You do 25 have to -- 12-17-02 111 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Unless somebody donates 2 some funds. 3 MR. EPP: You do have to concern yourself 4 with A.D.A. on that to a certain degree. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: In the -- I guess on 6 the -- actually, I'll wait till the other part of the 7 presentation. 8 MR. EPP: He can stand next to me, that's 9 okay. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: He may very well answer 11 the question I have. 12 MR. EPP: We're both Aggies, it's okay. 13 MR. KENNEDY: Well, the next portion here, 14 with regard to the feasibility and my interpretation of 15 feasibility there, you were looking for our evaluation of 16 what the -- what the Request for Proposals outlined from 17 both a constructability standpoint and a budget standpoint. 18 Based on what we've seen here and what we've discussed with 19 Bill and these investigations, I feel that it's certainly 20 feasible to provide the facility for that amount of money. 21 There is -- there's an unknown out there that concerns me a 22 little bit. You made mention in the -- in the Request for 23 Qualifications of the fact that there will be an asbestos 24 survey to be performed. I don't know that anybody -- at 25 least I know from our side here, nobody is aware of what 12-17-02 112 1 extent the asbestos might be in the facility. When you 2 abate asbestos, obviously, there are a number of other 3 things architecturally, and sometimes even perhaps 4 structurally, that have to happen to enable that abatement 5 contractor to get in there and abate the asbestos. 6 MR. GONDECK: Rick? 7 MR. KENNEDY: Yes? 8 MR. GONDECK: I believe one of those cryptic 9 addendums that went out at some point had one little phrase 10 there that said that the survey had been completed. No 11 asbestos. 12 MR. KENNEDY: Oh, I missed that. Well, good. 13 That takes that aspect out of it. 14 MR. GONDECK: Somebody else got that fax, I 15 guess. 16 MR. KENNEDY: But that was our main concern 17 as to what might be involved in renovation. 18 MR. GONDECK: There will be some lead 19 abatement from the little shooting range there. From 20 talking with the environmental engineers, that is not very 21 evasive, and it's not very costly or entails -- 22 MR. KENNEDY: Well, with that -- with that 23 issue out of the way, then, I feel like that the project, 24 based on our -- our evaluation, lends itself to a 25 pre-engineered structure. That's for two main -- major 12-17-02 113 1 reasons. One, the -- the economics of that system, and then 2 secondly, because of the clear span requirements where 3 you can't -- you don't want any interior supports. We've 4 got a long history with a major building manufacturer; I've 5 been a -- a rep for Ceco Building Systems for in excess of 6 17 years. What that provides you is, we're extremely 7 economical. We have good prices from Ceco. We get good 8 service from Ceco, and they're -- they're an excellent 9 building manufacturer. They'll participate with us and with 10 our architects in the design phase of this to see that the 11 facility, one, meets all structural requirements and codes, 12 and also meets your requirements as the user and owner. 13 There's nothing in this -- in this type of 14 construction that we haven't done, and haven't done for a 15 number of years. The -- we typically do about 50 percent of 16 our own concrete work. We do all the work that we -- that's 17 done with carpenters, with the laborers. We do that 18 ourselves. Now, the specialty items; mechanical, 19 electrical, plumbing, we'll sub out. We work statewide, so 20 we've got an extensive data bank of subs and suppliers that 21 follow us that will -- that will help with economics of this 22 -- this project. 23 You asked for a -- I guess a brief 24 description of our costing methods. In a situation like 25 this, during the design development portion of the work, 12-17-02 114 1 we'd be working closely with Bill to evaluate different 2 systems that -- that are being contemplated in the design 3 from a cost standpoint. At certain phases during his design 4 process, we will -- we will prepare an entire budget of the 5 entire facility, so what I'm saying is, we'll evaluate 6 systems as it goes along, and at some point -- let's say 7 40 percent completion of his drawing process -- we'll do a 8 complete budget. We'll do that again one more time prior to 9 the documents being complete. The purpose of that is so 10 that, if necessary, we can tweak the design so it does stay 11 within budget. We'll continually advise you or your 12 representative of what those things are, what those prices 13 are. 14 If there's some decisions that -- that you 15 want to make or need to make in that regard, you'll be able 16 to do that. You'll know the exact cost by line item of 17 everything we're proposing. You can be furnished with that, 18 and on a computer format that will say, HVAC system, "X" 19 dollars. You'll know what that is in the breakdown. We -- 20 we've got a -- our estimating system is based on our 21 historical information of what it's cost us to build 22 projects. There are some items that we'll depend heavily on 23 our -- on outside contractors for, that being HVAC 24 contractors -- we'll have an HVAC contractor in here 25 advising us on the cost of whatever HVAC system we are going 12-17-02 115 1 to propose to you. Same thing with electrical. For 2 example, if a building had an extensive amount of 3 technology, we'd have a techno contractor in here. Finally, 4 we'll -- when the -- when the design is complete and we put 5 the project out for bids, we'll solicit those bids through 6 our databank. We'll solicit them by e-mail and by fax. 7 We'll advertise the project in three statewide trade 8 publications, and we'll advertise it in the local area 9 newspapers, so I feel like that -- that we will make an 10 extremely competitive price available for you. 11 The next item, you wanted to know the cost 12 that would be in our guaranteed price. The costs that would 13 be in that guaranteed maximum price is everything that it 14 costs to design and build the facility. The only thing that 15 comes to mind that would not be in there would be the 16 obvious things, like furnishings and equipment that an owner 17 or tenant would typically provide themselves. But, as far 18 as the actual cost of the building, the design cost of that 19 building, the insurance premiums, the bond premiums, the 20 general conditions, the management costs, that would be 21 included in our guaranteed maximum price. And last would be 22 the schedule, and I think Jim has prepared a schedule that's 23 attached there. It's -- again, it's a preliminary schedule, 24 and includes our design time, and he can briefly go over 25 that with you. 12-17-02 116 1 MR. BROWN: We use the schedule -- a building 2 schedule as a tool to keep our projects on budget and on 3 time. I've come up with this very basic, very preliminary, 4 but basically, we get -- after the contract is negotiated 5 and all, we get into about three months of going back and 6 forth on what type of design we're going to get into, and 7 then before the preliminary design is totally done, we can 8 actually advance this project some by going ahead and 9 starting on some of the site work and some of that work 10 before we get the final design in. The only drawback to 11 that is we have to watch our costs. And, of course, you 12 know, site work is probably the one thing that, in this 13 particular project, is probably minimal compared to -- to 14 some of the other costs. 15 Also, as we -- as Bill pointed out, the 16 renovation of the existing arena and the demolition of the 17 existing exhibit hall we're putting at the end, latter part 18 of the project, to -- to only -- only be out of service for 19 a maximum of probably four months at the maximum, and try to 20 work it in to where the -- you know, it doesn't impact what 21 y'all do on -- on the facility at that time. And we're -- 22 we're very capable of taking on a project and making sure 23 that the public is safe while we're there working, 'cause we 24 do a lot of work on public projects, and we know how to work 25 around people. So -- but that's the way we put this 12-17-02 117 1 together. It's approximately a 13-month schedule after the 2 contract's negotiated, however long it takes them to 3 negotiate the contract. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's one of the 5 points of concern to me, is that it extends considerably 6 into '04. And some of our utilization criteria is such that 7 we'd like to see it done by December of '03 at the very 8 latest. How would that work out in your scheme of things? 9 MR. BROWN: Well, the way to do that in our 10 scheme of things, first of all, is to get the contract 11 negotiated as quickly as possible, and then we can come back 12 with some preliminary -- if we can get the design, we can 13 get things started with the site work and some work like 14 that. That is what will take the time, is the design. If 15 we can get the design quickly, then we can push this thing 16 and come off of that schedule somewhat. 17 MR. KENNEDY: Another way to achieve that 18 would be if you could take your existing facility out of 19 operation. We've assumed that you can't do that. And -- 20 and they've put that to the end of the project, once we had 21 the balance of the -- of the facility up and running. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: The critical part -- 23 the critical part or point has to do with the staging of the 24 Hill Country Junior District Livestock Show and -- and the 25 show's use -- utilization of existing facilities and/or new 12-17-02 118 1 facilities. If the show -- the '03 show will be in January, 2 so by the end of January or February, then you're free to go 3 to work. But we also want to be certain that the show has 4 facilities for its next one in '04. Now, what I'm seeing in 5 your timeline here gives me pause for concern. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think, the way I read 7 your schedule, you're leaving the existing barn until after 8 the next year's show. 9 MR. BROWN: Yes, sir. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Demolition of the 11 existing barn doesn't start until next February. 12 MR. BROWN: If we started the renovation in 13 January, I mean, that could be pushed off till the end, one 14 or the other. 15 MR. KENNEDY: The work that would be 16 disruptive in -- in the existing facility actually shows to 17 start the last quarter, let's say, of December, but that 18 could be shifted. The actual demolition's not until 19 February 1. 20 MR. BROWN: So that could actually be shifted 21 down, and there's possibilities of being finished with the 22 other part before that, you know. 23 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: But they're then 24 suggesting that the renovations of the existing facility 25 wouldn't take place until after the '04 show. 12-17-02 119 1 MR. BROWN: Yes, sir. 2 MR. KENNEDY: That's correct. 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So they would be 4 using the same tired arena that they're using now for both 5 '03 and '04. 6 MR. KENNEDY: Unless there's a way to back 7 up -- as Jim said, shorten the negotiation, actually start 8 fast-tracking the project earlier, and we show site work 9 beginning around the end of May. We'd need to push that 10 back at least two months; we need to pick up 60 days there 11 on that. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: At what point in your 13 timeline and design and so forth would you actually order 14 the metal building? What would -- 15 MR. KENNEDY: Well, we're talking about -- 16 we're talking about being able to order the pre-engineered 17 building here on this -- this timeline around May, mid-May. 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. 19 MR. KENNEDY: But the renovation work, in my 20 opinion, needs -- the scope of that work needs to be firmly 21 established. I can hit very close right now by telling you 22 what the cost is on the balance of the facility, but that's 23 an unknown to me. So, in order for me to feel comfortable 24 with a final price of G.M.P., I need to know what -- how 25 extensive that renovation work is, and Bill has got to do a 12-17-02 120 1 good bit of work, in my opinion, to arrive at -- at a scope 2 that we can give a reasonable -- or a price with a 3 reasonable expectation that it's accurate. And if we were 4 just talking about the new work, then this could be a much 5 more aggressive schedule, but with that -- the aspects of 6 that work hanging out there and the total costs that might 7 be involved there, I'm hesitant to commit to this other cost 8 prior to having that nailed down, and that's one reason 9 you're -- you're seeing on our schedule nearly 90 days of 10 preliminary -- or of design work prior to us being able to 11 start. 12 JUDGE HENNEKE: I have a question about 13 supervision. We had an out-of -- non-local contractor 14 renovate the courthouse annex, and I think we had seven 15 different supervisors. And I'm -- you know, I'm pleased 16 that you all are going to do another major project here in 17 Kerr County starting Thursday. 18 MR. KENNEDY: Thursday. 19 JUDGE HENNEKE: For those who don't know, 20 these gentlemen won the contract to expand the Detention 21 Facility. Will you assign a separate supervisor or project 22 manager to this project who will be totally devoted to this 23 project? 24 MR. KENNEDY: We'll have a separate, on-site 25 superintendent full-time, on-site, separate from that 12-17-02 121 1 facility that you're referring to. Now, Jim is the project 2 manager on that facility. He's -- he handles that project 3 or the project management duties out of our San Antonio 4 office. He will also be the project manager on this project 5 that we're discussing today. But, as far as on-site, it 6 will be a separate person. It wouldn't be -- obviously, if 7 we finish that job, we might move this man over here, but 8 the timing is such that that's not going to happen, so we'll 9 have another individual who will be the superintendent. Our 10 superintendents are considered key people to us. I don't 11 hire them for a job and lay them off at the end of that job. 12 They -- superintendents have all been with me a long time. 13 If I get in a situation where I start a project and we don't 14 have a man available, well, then we'll hire one, but the 15 intent is to keep him on long-term. I've got 16 superintendents that travel, and I've got some that don't, 17 and this would be a superintendent that would travel and 18 come to this site. And I have never -- and I won't say 19 never, but in the last 10 years, I've only had one project 20 that my superintendent started that didn't finish it, and he 21 had to quit for medical purposes. So, typically, they're 22 long-term, permanent employees of ours. 23 JUDGE HENNEKE: That's good. Any other 24 questions? Okay. 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Did I understand, 12-17-02 122 1 Mr. Epp, that you have not physically examined the -- 2 MR. EPP: No. I've seen the site and I 3 walked the site. I've not been in the arena building. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Tell us about change 5 orders and how those are handled. 6 MR. KENNEDY: Well, what's typical in this 7 type of project, a change order is going to be where you, as 8 owner, request something different than what's on the plans 9 that you approved. You're going to come to us and say -- I 10 don't know a good example -- "I want to move this wall 11 40 feet." You want a different configuration here because 12 of something that's happened during the construction phase 13 that you've changed your mind about. Bill will prepare a 14 document based on a scope, a drawing based on his 15 understanding of what you want, and we'll price it. It will 16 be just like our proposals that we've done here. You or 17 your representative will have available all the backup and 18 cost that goes into that pricing, and if we need to sit down 19 and negotiate it, we will. It'll be give and take. 20 We'll -- we'll prove up our cost to you, and it will have 21 a -- a normal, fair mark-up on it that we -- we will 22 pre-establish with you in the negotiating phase of the 23 contract. 24 This process is different from, say, a 25 typical hard-bid public project, in that we are actually -- 12-17-02 123 1 not only are we your contractor, but we're also your 2 designer, your design team. So, it's not going to be some 3 deal that we come down in the project and say, "We didn't 4 understand that this is what your architect meant here," 5 because we are your architect, in effect. But Bill is part 6 of our team and our proposal, so I think that the -- one of 7 the great benefits of this approach is that you're not going 8 to be concerned with that. But, again, if, halfway through 9 it, you say, "Well, I want to turn this building 10 180 degrees" or something, well, then, yes, we're going to 11 come to you and present those costs to you and expect to be 12 fairly compensated for it. 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Would the -- the costs we 14 gave of $3 million, you're confident that you can build -- 15 and with what the requirements are, that facility can be 16 built for -- 17 MR. KENNEDY: Yes, sir. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: -- that or less? 19 MR. KENNEDY: I feel like that's the case. I 20 think you've -- you've done some things in that RFQ that 21 we'd -- we'd recommended also with that budget, and that is 22 to hold the masonry out as an alternate, as a proposed 23 alternate. I think you've got approximately two-thirds of 24 that slab in there as -- proposed as an added nonstructural 25 floor slab in there. I think that's a good idea. I think 12-17-02 124 1 that -- I don't think there's a lot of fluff in that price. 2 I think it's a competitive number and can be met. Again, I 3 have a little bit of concern about how much renovation we 4 have to do in there, but it's certainly an achievable 5 budget, yes, sir. 6 JUDGE HENNEKE: Anyone else -- Wayne, do you 7 have some questions? 8 MR. GONDECK: On the guaranteed maximum 9 price, how far along in the design would y'all say that 10 number could be established and, you might say, Part 2 to 11 the contract could be consummated? 12 MR. KENNEDY: I think that -- I'd like to say 13 that we would -- and I hate to throw out a percentage, but 14 I'd say 80 percent complete with design drawings is when I 15 would feel comfortable. We could enter into a G.M.P. 16 earlier than that, with the understanding of everyone that 17 we have a contingency number in there to cover some 18 differences in the way we see it and what it ultimately 19 evolves into. In the event that -- at the end of the day, 20 when we reach the final price, that contingency money would 21 revert back to the owner. But to minimize that type of 22 number just floating out there, I'd say at least 80 percent. 23 I'd want to know if the scope is -- is nailed down on the 24 renovation, and then that the balance will work 80 percent. 25 MR. GONDECK: So, if we went forward or 12-17-02 125 1 negotiated with y'all -- the Court negotiated with y'all 2 that we're going to establish a G.P.M., say, a design 3 development, y'all would foresee that you would have a 4 contingency in there, but at the -- and a contingency and a 5 guaranteed maximum price. And then, as the design is 6 finalized, that y'all would give a final price on that, 7 which I guess would be auditable? 8 MR. KENNEDY: Sure. 9 MR. GONDECK: That could come back and say, 10 okay, this is our final cost. If it's less than the 11 guaranteed maximum price, that y'all would say those 12 contingent moneys would revert back to the owner? 13 MR. KENNEDY: Yes, sir. 14 MR. GONDECK: With that difference? 15 MR. KENNEDY: Correct, exactly. 16 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: If you were the 17 design/build team that we selected, would you -- would we 18 have your permission to utilize these drawings for the 19 promotion of the bond issue? 20 MR. KENNEDY: Certainly. 21 MR. EPP: I'd like to improve them a little 22 bit. 23 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What? 24 MR. EPP: I'd like to improve them a little 25 bit more for you. 12-17-02 126 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We would welcome 2 that. 3 MR. EPP: No problem. In full color, without 4 yellow grass. 5 JUDGE HENNEKE: Does your G.M.P. include 6 geotechnical engineering, environmental engineering costs? 7 MR. KENNEDY: Yes, it would. 8 JUDGE HENNEKE: Does anyone else have any 9 questions or concerns? Wayne? 10 MR. GONDECK: I think we've covered most of 11 it. 12 MR. EPP: Can I ask a question? Is there any 13 anticipated unknowns associated with the arena that would 14 have an effect on this? I mean, I'm sure there's no 15 drawings or as-builts available. 16 MR. GONDECK: There's no drawings. There's a 17 lot of interesting aspects to it. What the RFQ anticipated, 18 and I anticipated, was that the architect and engineer of 19 record would go through the facility and determine exactly 20 what would be entailed to bring it up to building codes; 21 electrical codes, specifically. 22 MR. EPP: That's one of the lines, is to 23 determine are the as-built drawings in place. 24 JUDGE HENNEKE: Anything else? Gentlemen, we 25 thank you for your time. 12-17-02 127 1 MR. KENNEDY: Thank y'all. Appreciate it. 2 JUDGE HENNEKE: Appreciate it. Look forward 3 to seeing you Thursday morning. Rick, are you going to be 4 there? 5 MR. KENNEDY: Bright and early, yes. 6 JUDGE HENNEKE: In Juvenile Board in Kerr 7 County, you get used to getting up early. At least we put 8 it back till 7:30 instead of 7 o'clock. 9 MR. KENNEDY: That works good for us. We've 10 got a 3 o'clock bid that day, so it's time to get here and 11 get the ground broke and get back. 12 JUDGE HENNEKE: I'm glad it worked out well 13 for you. 14 MR. KENNEDY: Thank y'all. 15 JUDGE HENNEKE: Thank you. 16 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Thank you. 17 JUDGE HENNEKE: Does anyone want to take 18 another break, or shall we launch into discussions? 19 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Press. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Press? 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Press on. 22 JUDGE HENNEKE: Just for the record, then, 23 let's go into posted Item Number 2, which is consider and 24 discuss the selection of design/build team for HCYEC 25 renovation/expansion project. Wayne, do you have any 12-17-02 128 1 preliminaries you want to put out on the table before we 2 discuss it among ourselves, or would you rather wait till 3 the end? 4 MR. GONDECK: Judge, if you'll give me a 5 couple minutes, I'd like to tally a couple things, make a 6 couple more notes. 7 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay. 8 MR. GONDECK: If y'all -- I'm listening to 9 your discussions, but if y'all have any comments first, I do 10 want to present some things before you get too far into it. 11 JUDGE HENNEKE: Well, let's -- let's go ahead 12 and take just a stretch. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Five. 14 JUDGE HENNEKE: Yeah, take five. Take a 15 stretch five. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Take five. 17 JUDGE HENNEKE: There you go. We finally got 18 to that, Buster. Let's take five. 19 (Recess taken from 4:08 p.m. to 4:15 p.m.) 20 - - - - - - - - - - 21 JUDGE HENNEKE: All right. We'll reconvene 22 this special session of the Kerr County Commissioners Court. 23 Mr. Gondeck, do you want to let us know what you've 24 determined, or your thoughts on the process and candidates? 25 MR. GONDECK: Judge, I would have to say 12-17-02 129 1 first that I think we saw some diversity in presentations 2 today. I think some ideas were presented that I don't know 3 that any of us had really thought of with the last group. I 4 would say also that I was disappointed that the third group 5 didn't quite have as much detail work done on some of their 6 design concept. In looking at that and -- and trying to 7 come up with, you know, objective scoring on my end, I was a 8 little bit surprised when I tallied up where we were at, 9 because I was very detrimental -- or not detrimental, but 10 very negative on STR's amount of documentation, as far as 11 architecturally and the design end or conceptual design. 12 However, I was -- did sort of boost that back up again 13 because of their alternative concept, and sort of how that 14 worked into the schedule. I do think that they looked at 15 it -- have looked at it a lot more from the construction 16 end, and from what I'm looking at, at their team, they seem 17 to be more of a construction-driven team or a 18 contractor-driven team. That's not an objective criteria, 19 but I'm just going over sort of a broad overview right now. 20 In looking at the Faulkner/Lowe/Quorum group, 21 I think that the -- that they are well-rounded, 22 well-qualified, and addressed all the issues, sort of on an 23 above-average, you might say, scale. I didn't see anything 24 from that that jumped out at me as to an overwhelming 25 brilliant idea or anything, or any unknown information that 12-17-02 130 1 we really gathered from them today. On Huser and Adler, I 2 was impressed with the design concept, and the idea that 3 they had already looked back and forth, that maybe -- if -- 4 you know, if we have a number, a $3 million cap, then maybe 5 some things can come in and go out. They looked very 6 closely at what they thought this budget was going to be, 7 and had already gone forth with even the conceptual design 8 on, you know, limiting or having to give up some things, and 9 ready to come to the Court and say that, you know, we think 10 that you can get this, but you may have to give up X, Y, and 11 Z over here. You may have to give up some paving to get 12 some of the things that you really want in your building. 13 Architecturally, I do think that they looked at it, that 14 they wanted to upgrade the appearance of the facility, 15 really make it a nice public facility with not -- with 16 adding some functional things to it. Not just a bunch of 17 jillyfratz -- that's a true architectural term. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What's the word? 19 MR. GONDECK: Jillyfratz. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Jillyfratz? 21 MR. GONDECK: I know it's been -- 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We use that in here. 23 Jillyfratz. 24 MR. GONDECK: I know it's been around the 25 industry for a long time. So, in my rankings, I guess 12-17-02 131 1 numerically -- and it was surprising to me that Faulkner, 2 you might say, fell to the third position. STR was in the 3 middle, and Huser was at the top. My recommendation would 4 be -- is that I would -- from the discussions today, would 5 find that Huser would be very workable in this type of 6 method that you have chosen to go forward with. I think, 7 secondly, that STR seemed to be very knowledgeable in the 8 process. And I really got the impression from the 9 Faulkner/Lowe/Quorum end that they were still looking at it 10 a little bit more traditionally, and not as much as an 11 interactive team that comes forward and, "Here's the 12 proposal," and they will take care of all the -- you might 13 say minutiae and elements that go on within the project. 14 So, that would be our recommendation as to the ranking, and 15 I'm open to whatever discussions that y'all have. 16 JUDGE HENNEKE: I think what would be useful 17 now for us is basically to -- if anyone wants to give their 18 own opinion, and we'll check around among ourselves and be 19 prepared to take a vote if we can. I'm not -- I'm going to 20 go first, 'cause I get to go first sometimes. And I'm 21 surprised with Wayne's comments; it's almost like he and I 22 heard different presentations, but he comes from a different 23 perspective than I do. I think STR has a -- is a good 24 contractor, but I was very adversely affected by their 25 design, because it didn't -- I mean, the qualifications 12-17-02 132 1 specifically said the exhibit hall had to be east, and they 2 chose to keep it located centrally. And the way they've 3 done it with a park and separation, it probably maybe meets 4 all the technical requirements, but what I don't think is it 5 meets the perceptual requirement of what the Court was 6 trying to do, which was to separate the event center from 7 the more agricultural facilities. And I think that was a 8 real important step that the Court took when we -- when we 9 finally did that. And -- and I think that the STR design 10 doesn't lend itself at all well to expansion of the exhibit 11 hall, because your option is to take away the park, which is 12 their principal design feature, or to extend it out so that 13 the footprint of the building becomes awkward. 14 On -- on the Huser/Adler presentation, I'm 15 not sure it's as -- it's as functional as the presentation 16 from Faulkner and Lowe and Blankenship -- Quorum. I don't 17 know -- I'm not enough of an agriculture person to know 18 whether the barn being basically horizontal instead of 19 vertical compared to the arena is a drawback or not. You 20 separate your animals further from the arena, and you also 21 have a situation where, if you're bringing animals into 22 those portions of the arena that are closer -- portions of 23 the barn that are closer to the arena, you basically have to 24 come through the rest of the arena. Centrally located 25 restrooms, you can always break that up, but that's a long 12-17-02 133 1 way for people to go, and I'm not sure that that functions 2 as well. Having the exhibit hall turned the way it was, 3 again, I think it's -- it's an interesting design concept, 4 and it may be more visually presenting, but I'm not sure, 5 again, it's as functional, particularly when you look at the 6 notion of -- of expanding. 7 I was struck by the amount of time they 8 had -- or resources or interest they devoted to landscaping, 9 which I think is important, but this Court's trying to build 10 a very functional facility, and the landscaping comes in at 11 the end, if at all. I think that the Faulkner/Lowe/ 12 Blankenship design was truer to what the Court had in mind 13 from a -- from a perceptual point of view, in the public's 14 eye. And I think the Huser one -- and the Faulkner bids 15 were very close. I was just struck by the fact that I think 16 that the Faulkner/Lowe concept was perhaps truer to what the 17 Court had in mind. Buster, do you got anything you want to 18 weigh in on this? 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Sure. My thoughts 20 are -- I probably would be a little closer to the thoughts 21 that Wayne had. There's -- I have a little difference in 22 there, but I'm not going to go into details. I thought 23 number three -- great details, but I thought number three 24 were more in the construction mode and lacked a great deal 25 in the drawing end of it. The other two -- so I totally 12-17-02 134 1 eliminated them, anyway. The other two teams were both 2 absolutely excellent, I thought, and it would be difficult 3 to choose between the two. And I -- the reason I'm saying 4 this is, when I vote no on any of them, I want everyone to 5 understand -- and for this record, 'cause this -- this could 6 come back and try to bite me. It will not, but someone will 7 attempt it. That I think both of those first two teams were 8 men of integrity and very, very professional, but my vote 9 against them is not anything personal with them. It's 10 simply that I'm following my path of resistance to the whole 11 project. That's all. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Of the three 13 proposals, I like the last one the least, so that puts me 14 between the proposals number one and number two. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: See, we're agreeing so 16 far, Bill. 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So far we're on the 18 same page. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We're doing good here. 20 Want me to leave? 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: It's going to fall 22 apart in a minute. I think the -- I think the utilization 23 scheme, as presented by team number one, I like a little bit 24 better than I do team number two. And while I -- while I 25 was impressed by the aesthetics as presented the by Huser 12-17-02 135 1 team, I am concerned by the -- the plan for the exhibit 2 hall. The canting of it, that's fine, but if we ever get to 3 a point of expansion, I'm concerned about that. The way 4 it's designed, I think if we went ahead and built that 5 13,000 based on the way it's designed, we would run into 6 some major problems at some time down the line, and that 7 gives me pause for concern. So, I -- and I'm not sure 8 about -- about the layout of the livestock barn tying into 9 the existing indoor arena. I just don't know the details of 10 the stock show's utilization to know whether that's good or 11 bad, and I would have to ask Bob or Ernie Kaiser and a few 12 others about that, whether or not that really fit your -- 13 unless you want to answer me now? 14 MR. DITTMAR: Well, quite frankly, I didn't 15 really get a good look at team number two's -- 16 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: One's horizontal 17 and -- one's vertical and one's horizontal. 18 MR. DITTMAR: I guess I would have to say, 19 basically, we're looking at building a shell anyway, and -- 20 unless I misunderstood what they were proposing as far as 21 temporary partitions. But we're looking at building a 22 shell, which is what we have anyway. And you can utilize 23 that. 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I guess I'm more 25 concerned on how you move your animals and how you -- how 12-17-02 136 1 you place your animals, and how you get them from place to 2 place and all that good stuff. Knowing you folks know the 3 intricate details of that, you -- 4 MR. DITTMAR: We have two separate buildings 5 now, and I'm -- I don't see that changing, right? 6 JUDGE HENNEKE: Right. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, I guess bottom 9 line, if I had to rank them, I'd rank them in the order of 10 presentation; one, two, three. 11 JUDGE HENNEKE: Jonathan? 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I agree with -- my 13 problem with STR -- we'll go with them first -- I would rank 14 them third. And the problem I have with them is that the 15 architect -- I just don't think he didn't give the -- 16 prepare the drawings. He hadn't spent time at the facility, 17 and I don't think he's ever done this type of facility. I 18 mean, I just got the impression that just his experience 19 level was not there. And they made up a lot of ground with 20 the -- with STR being the contractor; they obviously know 21 what they do. And the best thing there -- and, you know, 22 maybe this should move them up to either one or two in my 23 mind -- is that they were the most confident that they can 24 do it for this price, and they're a big contractor and they 25 know price. Which was -- you know, that was the only -- you 12-17-02 137 1 know, it was a lot of comfort there. But the design is an 2 important part of it, and I thought they were looking there. 3 When it comes to the other two, I think 4 they're pretty close, in my mind. I think that they're -- 5 some of the -- the differences and some of the -- what I've 6 heard of the shortcomings in the Huser plan was really a 7 lack of knowledge. I mean, he didn't -- the other team, 8 because of Blankenship being involved with it, knew so much 9 more information about what the Court has looked at, what 10 they wanted, you know, than the other two teams did. So, 11 you really gave them a little bit of an advantage there. 12 The other teams, you could tell by their -- the first time 13 we mentioned expansion, that was the first time they'd ever 14 heard those words, whereas Blankenship clearly knew that was 15 a criteria, because he was the one that came to us 16 originally and said we need a 27,000 square foot building. 17 So, the fact that they didn't -- you know, the Huser 18 drawings doesn't allow for great expansion, or the exhibit 19 hall part didn't allow for that very well, well, that's 20 because they didn't know that was supposed to, so I don't 21 count that as against them at all. 22 I personally -- I like the exterior layout a 23 lot more with Huser. I think that it is the only plan that 24 kind of -- well, competing between it and the Faulkner plan, 25 it broke up the front. It put that porch across there and 12-17-02 138 1 did some things that really, you know, improved the looks of 2 the building at very little cost. The landscaping, I think 3 you need a plan for that. I think I -- they wouldn't do it; 4 I think we'd have community service or prisoners or 5 something do it, but I think it's good to plan for it, and I 6 think he did spend a fair amount of time on traffic flow and 7 patterns like that. I think that with -- you know, and I 8 think, you know, they're certainly very qualified and 9 capable of doing it. 10 With Faulkner and Lowe, they can do it as 11 well. I think they were -- in my mind, it was the hardest 12 to get them to agree that they could do it for this price. 13 They really -- I asked that question three or four times, 14 and they hedged more than the others did. Huser hedged the 15 second most, and then, you know, STR said, yeah, we can do 16 it for that. So I'm a little bit concerned about the cost 17 part of it, and how far -- and, you know, we go. So, I 18 would -- I would probably -- I'm not real strong, you know, 19 against Faulkner or Lowe versus the other one, versus Huser, 20 but I would put Huser first, Faulkner second, and STR third. 21 JUDGE HENNEKE: Larry? 22 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: I won't talk about 23 STR, 'cause most of the comments I would make about that 24 team have already been made, and I agree with what other 25 members of the Court have said. It, to me, boils down to 12-17-02 139 1 the first two. And in any contract, even in the private 2 sector, there are three primary things to consider: cost, 3 performance, and schedule. Here's a case where, with the 4 design-to-build concept, we gave -- we sort of take cost out 5 of the competition, because we have a design-to-cost target 6 that everybody's -- everybody is going to have to play to. 7 We have to negotiate and they're going to have to agree to 8 it, no matter who we pick. 9 Some of the concerns I've heard about -- I 10 would also agree with Jonathan that, because Huser didn't 11 know, we couldn't -- I won't hold that against them that 12 they didn't realize that there was a -- a potential 13 expansion involved here. And also, Wayne, correct me if I'm 14 wrong, but in the design/build approach that we have 15 committed to, we can negotiate any changes like that. If we 16 want the building squared up instead of cocked at an angle, 17 we can do that. If we want two bathrooms instead of three, 18 we put that all -- that all goes into the design criteria 19 that we establish up front with them when we get into 20 detail. And they still are going to have to agree to bring 21 it in at cost, or they say no, we can't do that, and we do 22 trade-offs. So, if we don't want any landscaping, for 23 example, we can say we don't want any landscaping; we want 24 that out of the equation. We'll address that separately or 25 whatever. 12-17-02 140 1 So, when we look at performance and schedule, 2 then either of those first two teams can perform. I think 3 they've both got good track records; they could do that. 4 And I -- their schedules are where you could almost lay one 5 over the top of the other. They were very, very close. I 6 know we're all concerned about being able to do the -- the 7 youth exhibition -- or the livestock show for the following 8 year. That's important. But I'll tell you what, gents. 9 You can't get nine women to make a baby in one month. 10 There's no way to do that. And I would be very careful and 11 I would admonish the next Court to be careful about trying 12 to squeeze it, because that's where you can really create 13 not only contractual problems, but you'll blow the schedule 14 and the budget. So, if it -- those two teams are hitting on 15 about the same schedule, that tells me something. That's 16 about what it's going to be, and you got to keep it on 17 track. You got to keep changes to a minimum or to zero so 18 that they can perform to that schedule and have it ready in 19 early December. And I think that's sort of the bottom line 20 of that. 21 When we look, then, at sort of costs being 22 out of the picture within the competition, then we look at 23 the management team. They've both got great management 24 teams. I think I would give the Huser team a little higher 25 mark on understanding design-to-build. They didn't come up 12-17-02 141 1 with exclusions, which sort of bothered me in the Faulkner 2 proposal, that list of exclusions that he had. Some that 3 they said, yeah, we can take that out. They didn't say we'd 4 take them all out, you know, so -- so my -- my thought would 5 be to go along with the number two team, for all those 6 reasons. 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We have a problem 8 here, Houston. 9 JUDGE HENNEKE: Unless -- I'm going to ask 10 Bob if he wants to make any comments, cause they're really 11 the major partner in the community that we have. 12 MR. DITTMAR: I appreciate that. I was 13 sitting here thinking I'm glad I don't have to make you 14 guys' decision. Because, to me, basically what you're 15 asking these guys at this time is to design a -- a shell, 16 and then sometime later on, figure out where the light plugs 17 are going to be. And so I -- you know, I thought they were 18 all very good proposals, and I agree in a lot of ways what I 19 heard from all of you. I think what Jon said, particularly 20 about the third team being the most sure that they could do 21 it for price, I think, was important. Whereas the first 22 team was a little -- they hedged, to me, more on that. And 23 I'm not a construction person, I'm just a human being 24 sitting here listening to what they had to say. I guess 25 my -- my -- a lot of my concern is making sure this is done 12-17-02 142 1 in time, and that's a very good -- I don't know how to tell 2 y'all to address that. Y'all have any specific questions 3 for me that y'all might -- Bill's question about how to do 4 that, I -- like I said, in my mind, from what I'm hearing, 5 is we're asking them to build a shell and we're going to 6 talk about how we're going to form that later. Is that 7 incorrect? 8 MR. GONDECK: That is not really correct. 9 MR. DITTMAR: Okay. 10 MR. GONDECK: At this time, we're looking at 11 it conceptually, but they are going to provide a full design 12 of the facility, and probably a full design of the facility 13 before construction begins. 14 MR. DITTMAR: Right. And -- but your 15 decision today is not based on what their total design is, 16 right? 17 MR. GONDECK: No, our -- our decision -- I 18 don't have a decision in this; it's y'all's decision. The 19 decision that is to be made today is really selecting the 20 most qualified presenter team. If I may, can I expound a 21 little bit more on my comments? I know that you think 22 they're just opposite, but they're -- there's some means to 23 my madness. 24 JUDGE HENNEKE: I'm not sure I want to let 25 you do that. Go ahead. 12-17-02 143 1 MR. GONDECK: In looking at this -- and I 2 know we've done this in a very short period of time. 3 What -- the decision that needs to be made today is really a 4 ranking of these three teams; first, second, third, to 5 select who you want to negotiate with first, who you want to 6 negotiate with second, who you want to negotiate with third. 7 If, in the situation that you come up with an "uh-oh" on the 8 first one, you can't get to that point to where you can 9 negotiate out all the terms, you terminate that negotiation. 10 You have to look at that in two areas, I think. You need to 11 look at it that, one, it may not ever get to that, but if it 12 does, those actual negotiations will begin sometime in 13 February if we have a successful bond election, and will go 14 on for some period of time. If they are difficult 15 negotiations, we know that this can get extended out fairly 16 long. 17 The -- if you go to a second group, you're 18 going to need to go to a group that you know that will give 19 you a number and will stick to it and will give you your 20 product that you want to have. I know from looking at the 21 previous packages that STR has more experience in 22 design/build. In other words, "I've given you a guaranteed 23 maximum cost," and saying that that is what they will stick 24 to. That's why they were not as hesitant to say yes, we can 25 do that, because they are -- they know what they -- you 12-17-02 144 1 know, what that number will be based on some very outlying 2 information. So, it -- as much as I am very disappointed in 3 someone coming up here when it's clearly listed to have 4 floor plans and elevations and site plans, and to not have 5 that information -- 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Wayne, can I 7 interrupt you just a second? While you're on the latter 8 one, all that's true in terms of design/build; probably 9 applies tremendously in new. But he hedged his bet 10 considerably about the renovation of the arena. He did that 11 because the architect obviously hadn't been in there to take 12 a look at it, so he really did hedge. He said I don't know 13 what I'm going to find there. But, to me, that weighed 14 really heavily. That's all I want to say. 15 MR. GONDECK: Again, you know, it's your 16 decision. You are the ones that are making the decision. 17 I'm just bringing up thoughts and issues that I would hope 18 the Court would consider. Either one of these -- I mean, 19 any one of these groups, I think, can serve the County very 20 well. We can work very well with any of the groups in 21 representing the County as your agent on that, so I don't 22 see any problem with that. It's not going to hurt my 23 feelings whichever way you go on this. But that was some of 24 my thought process also in looking at that ranking. As far 25 as the presentations strictly today, I think that 12-17-02 145 1 Faulkner/Lowe/Quorum gave a more professional presentation, 2 a more complete presentation, and based on that, would 3 summarily look to be ranked higher than STR. So, now I've 4 made a complete circle of discussion. 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Circle away. 6 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Somebody -- do we want 7 to make a motion on the order? 8 JUDGE HENNEKE: We want to do that 9 eventually, but I don't know that we're ready to do that 10 yet. I'll entertain a motion at any time, but, you know, 11 the point was made that -- that Faulkner/Lowe/Quorum team 12 may have had an advantage because Bill Blankenship was their 13 architect, but that's an advantage for us too, because he's 14 worked with us for three years and he knows what we want. 15 You know, the other groups, if they were paying attention to 16 what's going on in local community affairs, would have known 17 very well that the expansion of the exhibit center was a 18 very hotly debated and greatly desired topic, and would have 19 perhaps taken that into consideration in their design. I 20 was looking at the Huser design, and I see loading docks in 21 there. And I'm going, What do you need loading docks for? 22 You know, we're talking about a livestock barn. What do you 23 need a loading area for? Are you talking about a -- a chute 24 to put a lot of cattle in the back of an 18-wheeler, or what 25 are you talking about? And if they have loading docks at 12-17-02 146 1 the exhibit center, I'm going, we don't have anybody rolling 2 in and out of loading docks. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think that's good 4 planning. I mean, I think that all those buildings -- one, 5 if it's for livestock, I tell you, the people that come pick 6 up the hogs in their 18-wheeler would sure love to have a 7 loading dock for the high chute. 8 JUDGE HENNEKE: Well, that's -- you know -- 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But I think -- you know, 10 I think a loading dock thing -- I mean, that building -- the 11 plans need to include -- need to be flexible, whether you're 12 going to use it for shock show or whether you're going to 13 have forklifts unloading 18-wheelers for an exhibit of some 14 sort. That, to me, is good. And, you know, about Bill 15 Blankenship, I mean, you know, I don't -- Bill has done a 16 good job, but Bill has also had a bias throughout when we 17 used him a lot, and that bias -- we got more done when we 18 got Bill to stay in Fort Worth for a while, because he has a 19 bias towards horses, bottom line, and his design had a lot 20 of that early on. So, you know, I don't -- you know, I 21 think Bill would do what we told him to do, but, you know, I 22 don't -- I just -- my only comment on him having an 23 advantage was that he had knowledge about the exhibit hall 24 that the others didn't have. I guess they could have read 25 the papers recently; I don't know if I read that, if I'd 12-17-02 147 1 understand what was going on if I didn't -- wasn't in the 2 middle of it. 3 MR. GONDECK: If you read it out of the 4 paper, you probably just wouldn't understand it, because I 5 read the article in the paper. That's not -- it was just 6 all the different things that were happening. That was not 7 against the paper. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, you know -- I mean, I 9 don't -- I think that Blankenship and Faulkner and Lowe 10 could do the job. I think Huser could probably -- my 11 preference is Huser did a better job, and I -- I'm 12 thinking -- this goes back to the -- the makeup of the 13 Faulkner/Lowe -- and a little bit of a negative in my mind 14 is to why is Mike Lowe in with Faulkner? Why is he even 15 there? And it doesn't make a lot of sense, because Faulkner 16 is a contractor, and Faulkner has their own superintendents. 17 They're a huge company. And so I guess, you know, they're 18 trying to get a local flavor to get points, is how I see 19 that. But Faulkner is the primary company. And my mind 20 is -- I have a preference, and everything else equal, and 21 they're pretty close to being equal, Huser is a local 22 company. I would rather give business to a local company 23 than a local/non-local company. I know, you know, Lowe 24 brings in a little bit of a dotted line to "local." And I 25 -- you know, I really was -- you know, early on I was 12-17-02 148 1 surprised that Lowe went and grouped up with -- or with 2 Faulkner. But -- and that doesn't weigh real heavily with 3 me one way or the other. I just like -- I really like the 4 fresh approach, fresh design that -- and the ideas that 5 Huser had. I know Huser's reputation. I think he's 6 qualified to do it. I think he understands the cost issue, 7 from what he said here, better than any of the others, and 8 knows that it's a tight budget. And, you know, there's some 9 things that, you know, he's willing to use his expertise and 10 knowledge and say we can adjust things here to get what you 11 want. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I have a comment when 13 I get back. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But -- you know, so 15 that's kind of where I am. 16 JUDGE HENNEKE: Well, I don't know. You 17 know, I -- I think with Mike Lowe involved, that it would be 18 a local construction project. It won't be a project -- I 19 think it will be purely a local construction project. I 20 think that's important. We have these two fine, big-time 21 construction people, and maybe we should utilize them 22 wherever possible, either one of them. 23 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: They're both Aggies, 24 so -- 25 (Laughter.) 12-17-02 149 1 JUDGE HENNEKE: Makes it easy for you. 2 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: That's good. I mean, 3 can't go wrong. 4 JUDGE HENNEKE: I just -- as I said before, I 5 think that Lowe's proposal is one that's truer to where the 6 Court's trying to go than the Huser one. Which is not to 7 say the Huser one is a bad one. I just think that it better 8 reflects the utilitarian approach the Court has taken to 9 this whole bond issue. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Who is -- which one? 11 JUDGE HENNEKE: The Faulkner -- the Lowe 12 proposal. 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'm kind of like Jon 14 in that I'm curious why Mike linked up with Faulkner. But 15 he did, and that's his business. I know he's built barns; 16 he just finished one. But I have a question about Adler 17 that maybe you know. Has he ever really done a facility 18 like this? In his qualifications, did it indicate that he'd 19 done facilities like this? 20 MR. GONDECK: Commissioner, let me -- some of 21 that gets muddled in my head as to who did what. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah. 23 MR. GONDECK: Somewhere there's a box of 24 these around here that I'm not sure -- 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Not in my office. 12-17-02 150 1 MR. GONDECK: -- where they were delivered 2 to, but as soon as I can get Michael back in town, I'm going 3 to find out. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Left it on the door 5 stoop. 6 JUDGE HENNEKE: County Attorney will discover 7 it sometime this next year. 8 MR. GONDECK: I know that they -- in looking 9 through quickly, that, yes, they have done exhibit 10 facilities and recreational facilities. My question was 11 going back as far as the -- I don't see anything 12 specifically about animal facilities. 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's really what 14 I'm talking about. 15 MR. GONDECK: I mean, as far as other exhibit 16 conference -- community conference facilities, yes, they do 17 have that. 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Which I appreciate, 19 on Adler's, that what we've asked of them is conceptual, and 20 he can -- he can get into the inner workings of that 21 building so as not to create havoc if we decide to expand 22 it, which, you know, if that decision comes at a later date, 23 which I hope it does and I hope that's possible. I rank 24 them -- you know, and I'm going to rank them one, two, and 25 three. I'm not -- but, in my mind, Huser's -- the 12-17-02 151 1 Quorum/Faulkner/Lowe combine and Huser and Adler, to me, are 2 just very, very close together. I don't have a problem with 3 either one. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I will say this. I 5 disagree with y'all a little bit on the point that Huser 6 wasn't maybe up to snuff as others. I thought he was very 7 well prepared. And, you know, he was -- he was the one -- 8 to me, there wasn't any hesitancy about, "Can you do this 9 job for this amount of money?" I thought he -- you know, he 10 asked some questions in that, trying to clarify exactly what 11 your question is, but I thought he was very forthright and 12 straight to the point; "Yes, we can do this." 13 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: You got to do puts and 14 takes. He understood. 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Whereas the Faulkner 16 fellow, he hedged several times on that question. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That has been so long 18 ago, I have no idea what the Faulkner -- 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, you weren't in 20 here, were you? 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Oh, I wasn't. No 22 wonder I can't remember. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: You were Christmas 24 shopping. 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: We all heard different 12-17-02 152 1 presentations. That's the wonderment of the whole process, 2 you know. 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's why there's 4 five of us. 5 JUDGE HENNEKE: That's right, because I never 6 heard the hesitation in the Faulkner presentation that you 7 guys have characterized. I didn't hear -- I heard that they 8 said, well, you know -- 9 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Only thing I heard -- 10 the only thing I heard in that regard was the exclusions, 11 which is on that page, and he talked to it a little bit 12 there. And on one of them, he said, hey, we can take that 13 out, because it had to do with abatement -- abatement was 14 already -- asbestos abatement was already taken care of, so 15 he said we can take that one out. He didn't volunteer to 16 take the other ones out. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, I want to go ahead 18 and make a motion that we put the order of teams Huser, 19 Faulkner, STR. That way we can move on. 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's for 21 negotiating purposes. That's where we start, right? That's 22 what's you told us a minute ago. 23 MR. GONDECK: Yes. 24 JUDGE HENNEKE: But I think that's specious; 25 the number one guy we select is the guy we're going to end 12-17-02 153 1 up with. If we don't, this project's not going to fly. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I agree totally. 3 MR. GONDECK: Under the statute, you're 4 supposed to rank them so that if -- in case you do. I mean, 5 you have to rank them so that you can abandon negotiations 6 with one. Otherwise, you abandon negotiations totally, and 7 then you -- you could just say one and no others, but then 8 you would have to start the whole process all over again. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: One, two, three. That 10 was my motion. Huser, Faulkner, STR. 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'll second it. 12 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion by Commissioner Letz, 13 second by Commissioner Williams, that the Court rank the 14 design teams number one, Steve Huser/Allen Adler; number 15 two, Faulkner Construction/J.M. Lowe/Quorum Architects; 16 number three, STR and William Epp. Any other questions or 17 comments? If not, all in favor, raise your right hand. 18 (Commissioners Williams, Letz, and Griffin voted in favor of the motion.) 19 JUDGE HENNEKE: Opposed, same sign. 20 (Commissioner Baldwin voted against the 21 motion.) 22 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Okay. 23 Anything else? 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Good work, guys. 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: Before we take off, a couple 12-17-02 154 1 things real quickly. They're having a going -- retirement 2 dinner for Calvin Weinheimer Thursday. I was asked to 3 prepare a resolution. Very innocuous. Hopefully, if 4 everyone would sign it, I'll put it on the agenda for Monday 5 to ratify it. Second thing, I had a phone message a while 6 ago -- y'all may have gotten the same message -- that the 7 Sheriff's Department is having a Christmas party Thursday 8 from 6:00 till 9:00, and we are -- the Commissioners Court 9 is cordially invited. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: This Thursday? 11 JUDGE HENNEKE: Yes, day after tomorrow. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: A lot of advance 13 notice. 14 JUDGE HENNEKE: Yeah, I know. I don't have 15 anything else. Anyone else? 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, yes. I also 17 have a resolution that I need to leave town with Friday, and 18 just realized that we don't have it done -- 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Judge Sagebiel. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- ready to go for 21 Judge Sagebiel. The thing's just not ready to go, so I may 22 have to wait and drive out to Hunt to get you tomorrow or 23 something. 24 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Just holler. Just 25 holler if it's ready to sign. 12-17-02 155 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'll have to put Letz 2 down; just scribble like that. 3 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Can't read it anyway. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Can't read it anyway. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think you need to drive 6 out to eastern Kerr County. Might get lost, though. 7 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: He gets -- 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: If the bridges get 9 across the river. 10 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Can't get through the 11 checkpoints. 12 MR. GONDECK: I have one final question -- or 13 business matter. One of the statutory requirements is that 14 the results of the evaluation, if requested by anybody, have 15 to be available within seven days. I don't know exactly the 16 form or format; it's not prescribed anyplace in the statute 17 as to what that has to be, but my own thoughts on that, we 18 have presented the letter from the first go-round as far as 19 the analysis. I would presume that the minutes or whatever 20 level of records that y'all want to make available will be 21 ample for the second round on the interviews. But it is my 22 understanding that the interview portion does not have to be 23 solely based on an objective criteria; that the statute 24 actually reads that you can select them on objective 25 criteria in Phase I, and then also on the interview. So, I 12-17-02 156 1 don't know how that comes out from an attorney's point of 2 view. We have provided the objective criteria, and I was -- 3 I guess what I'm saying, I'm not planning on formally 4 presenting another number to -- evaluation to the Court 5 other than what I presented today in open court. 6 JUDGE HENNEKE: All right. If that's all, 7 gentlemen, we are adjourned. 8 (Commissioners Court adjourned at 4:56 p.m.) 9 - - - - - - - - - - 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 12-17-02 157 1 STATE OF TEXAS | 2 COUNTY OF KERR | 3 The above and foregoing is a true and complete 4 transcription of my stenotype notes taken in my capacity as 5 County Clerk of the Commissioners Court of Kerr County, 6 Texas, at the time and place heretofore set forth. 7 DATED at Kerrville, Texas, this 27th day of December, 8 2002. 9 10 11 JANNETT PIEPER, Kerr County Clerk 12 BY: _________________________________ Kathy Banik, Deputy County Clerk 13 Certified Shorthand Reporter 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 12-17-02