SUBJECT/RECOMMENDATION:
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City Hall Temporary Relocation
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SUMMARY:
Following council’s discussion in April on City Hall temporary relocation staff reviewed the office inventory within the downtown plan area and identified all potential sites.
As discussed previously, the main driver for the move is to free up the City Hall site for future development. Should we push forward, this would not necessarily mean that City Hall would be redeveloped prior to the Harborview site, but it would provide flexibility for implementation of the project. Both the city/county joint facility and PSTA intermodal facility have the potential to slow our implementation in the future and restrict our choices as it relates to packaging multiple city sites in an RFP for redevelopment. In addition, a review of the expenses of the current City Hall and the expenses related to a lease with One Clearwater Tower show an annual operating benefit of around $50,000 if we choose to do a temporary move and allow the city to avoid continued capital infrastructure improvements to the current City Hall.
To identify potential sites staff used GIS (Geographic Information Systems) to select properties with appropriate uses and sizes within the Downtown plan area. The area size that was used was 10,000 interior gross square feet. Once these properties were identified, we searched for any availability for these spaces. We used internet-based tools to ascertain availability and for those which did not have data online, we reached out to the property owner or management company to see if they had availability in their structures that was over 10,000 SF. The result of this review was the identification of four sites which met the geographic and size requirements.
We then looked at these four sites for functionality of the space and determined that one of the spaces, fifth third bank, would not be functional for our use. The available spaces are smaller and spread out throughout the building and did not provide the level of departmental continuity needed.
The remaining sites that met the overall square footage requirement and have leasable space available are below:
1. One Clearwater Tower
Address - 600 Cleveland St.
Size of potential lease area - 13,065 SF
Length - 5 years with a 5-year option
Furnished - Yes
Orientation - Space is located on 1 floor and the City would be only tenant on floor.
Walking time to/from MSB - 5 Minutes
Drive time to MSB - 1 minutes
Drive time from MSB - 2 minutes
Comments - Recommended site. It is furnished and is in close proximity to MSB. Also, provides for a five-year lease period and the most efficient layout for our purposes.
2. Idatix
Address - 1499 Gulf to Bay
Size of potential lease area - 18,000
Length - 5 years with a 5-year option
Furnished - Yes
Orientation - Space is located on floors 1, 2, and 4 and the City would be only tenant on floors.
Walking time to/from MSB - 29 Minutes
Drive time to MSB - 5 minutes
Drive time from MSB - 5 minutes
Comments - As with One Clearwater Tower, the site is furnished and provides for a five-year lease. The site is physically much further from MSB, though drivetimes are relatively close. The biggest challenge with this site is the layout of the space. We would need to take up about 5,000 additional square feet as compared to the other options, which will equate to additional cost, and the layout of the space is not preferable.
3. Suntrust
Address - 601 Cleveland
Size of potential lease area - 13,000 SF
Length - 1 year
Furnished - No
Orientation - Space is located on 1 floor and the City would be only tenant on floor.
Walking time to/from MSB - 5 Minutes
Drive time to MSB - 1 minute
Drive time from MSB - 2 minutes
Comments - The layout and location of the site is very similar to that of One Clearwater Tower, however the building is only providing one-year leases. This would give a high level of uncertainty annually, which staff would not recommend. Additionally, the space is not furnished.
Staff is requesting additional direction on how you would like us to proceed.
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