City Hall space needs and LEC parking come to forefront at council meeting

By Kelly Terpstra, kterpstra@charlescitypress.com

A discussion was started — that much is clear.

One of the main agenda items at Wednesday’s City Council planning session dealt with Charles City’s current City Hall building and the future of the structure that was built in 1971.

Ron Fiscus, consultant and CFO of Planscape Partners, helped facilitate a discussion that addressed several questions regarding the building that houses several city departments including the Charles City Police Department.

“This is an attempt to just start the conversation about where your heads are at on where you’d like to go with solving some of the existing problems,” said Fiscus.

One problem is the age of the building. 

“I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve come to this building in the winter and you can’t see in the windows because they’re all frosted over — not an uncommon problem for a building that’s coming up on 50 years old. That’s kind of a big-ticket item,” said Fiscus.

Other issues that were touched on Wednesday were limited space and the actual layout of the building on the riverfront.

“There are a lot of constraints with this building,” said City Administrator Steve Diers. “Structurally it’s sound. We’re out of space. It’s not very ADA compliant. Layout isn’t probably as good as it could be. What do we do and how do we move forward?”

Fiscus said the north City Hall parking lot isn’t a “welcoming kind of gesture.”

He also elaborated on possible expansion and what that could do to the layout of the building.

“One of the things that has struck me ever since I’ve started coming here is the fact that City Hall seems to turn its back to downtown,” said Fiscus. “You’ve oriented yourself to the library. You haven’t oriented yourself to the river or to the downtown. All of those things can be changed with an addition.”

Fiscus also said replacing the old building at is current location is another option.

Then there’s the possibility of what the future holds for the building at 500 North Grand, where the Charles City Middle School used to reside. There has been talk recently about a developer turning the 1930s portion of the building into market-rate housing, but there is also the 1970s area of the building that could also be utilized for office space.

“I suggested to Steve (Diers), if we could explore having a private developer buy the middle school building and lease property back to the city, lease property back to the school district. Use the historic tax credits in order to make the project financially feasible,” Fiscus said.

Mayor Dean Andrews said, “That was one of the problems we saw when we were discussing the middle school; our lease rate was unbearable.”

Diers said the building at 500 North Grand might not be the best fit for the city.

“The general consensus that was carried back from a lot of the elected officials was that wasn’t as appealing and probably wouldn’t make that good of a location for City Hall,” Diers said.

There was also the possibility of an events center that could be developed at the North Grand Building.

“I still think we have a need for a local events center,” said Andrews. “That being said, the one out at the fairgrounds is booked every weekend.”

Talk also turned to where the data center of a new fiber-to-the-home broadband internet project could be located.

“That’s probably one of the more pressing issues coming up, is we need to decide on what that location of the telecom data center is going to be,” said Diers. “As we do the engineering on that — which they are about a third of the way done at laying out the town — where is that home office?”  

The relocation of City Hall downtown seemed to be a popular choice among many at the meeting, but just where would be the building be put?

Council member DeLaine Freeseman said, “Unless you’re going to take a parking lot out someplace, there’s not a lot of places down here.”

Freeseman also touched on talk over the past several years of finding office space for city departments in the new county law enforcement center that is scheduled to be completed near the courthouse in 2020.

“We definitely got very serious with the county. That, once we really started putting hard numbers to it, didn’t really seem to work for us,” said Freeseman. “We have to make sure we’re satisfied with what we’re doing.”

Talk about City Hall ended the meeting. It had begun with discussion of possible diagonal parking along the south side of Court Street once the new county law enforcement center project is completed.

Floyd County Auditor Gloria Carr said she researched a dozen counties just in northeast Iowa alone that have diagonal parking around and near their courthouses.

“It’s quite common,” she said.

Carr also said with the possible addition of the Department of Human Services moving to the courthouse and the relocation of the emergency services dispatch center into the new LEC, there would be more foot traffic in and out of the building, not to mention more cars needing a place to park.

“Any additional parking I think is advantageous to the county to help meet some of those needs,” said Carr. “I don’t know that we’d ever solve that problem, just trying to alleviate a little bit in the process.”

City Engineer John Fallis said the current code does not restrict diagonal parking within the city limits, but a city ordinance would be needed to allow it near the LEC.

“The state code actually says cities can allow diagonal parking by ordinance,” said Fallis.

One suggestion by members of the council was to look at the courthouse’s north parking lot by the river as to whether that could be expanded.

“I’d guess I’d like to see more of a design before we vote on anything permanently,” said Freeseman. “The county has to go back and look at that (north) parking lot because that’s the only other spot you’ve got unless you start buying some other property around there and creating more parking to help.”

Mayor Andrews said, “Our purpose is not to design their parking. Our purpose is to tell them if they can have diagonal parking or not. They’ll figure out what to do with parking if we say no or we say yes.”

Floyd County Supervisor Doug Kamm said at the meeting, “There’s another concern. If you tell us we can’t have angle parking, we should design another parking lot. That might be another couple hundred thousand dollars onto our project, but it would also have to be done at the same time as we’re doing the project, which eliminates parking again.”

Construction on the new LEC won’t begin until next summer, but there could be a proposal on a new parking ordinance as soon as the next regular City Council meeting on Monday.

Also at the City Council planning meeting Wednesday:

– The preliminary plans for the SW Development Park Drainage project, the sanitary sewer line project and the wayfinding project were discussed. Scheduled bid lettings for all three projects is Jan. 31.

– The windows and doors at the the Charles City Area Chamber of Commerce building at 401 N. Main were talked about being replaced due to poor insulation.