2010-0218 Regular City Commission Meeting

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Commission Minutes: Regular City Commission Meeting February 18, 2010 City of Sunny Isles Beach, Florida everyone agrees that this is a beautiful plan that someone has already taken a year or two to conceive, and we have at this point a willing partner in Wometco, it behooves the City to try to put together a master plan with these players. Mayor Edelcup said that the City has to protect itself to make sure its contribution to this overall effort is a fair economic cost to the City and a fair return to the residents of the City. It is his recommendation that if this concept is being enjoyed by the majority of our Commission and Wometco has indicated that they fully intend to go forward with this concept, that we start working with Wometco and the architect to see how we can divide this project into visible parts that it is going to be formed in, ie., a contract between Wometco and the architect, and a builder who is going to build the Wometco portion and a contract between the City and the architect and the contractor who is going to build the City portion and hopefully it is one in the same so there will be a uniformed design and benefit of having a cost of a common project being shared amongst all the parties. We have to remember that for the City or the public portion of it, there is a process that we have to go through to assure that we are spending tax payers money in an efficient and proper manner. His suggestion is that the Commission try to gel on this particular design and project and instruct staff to begin to work with the architect to carve out that portion of the project that is the City /public responsibility to build and carve out the portion with Wometco. The City also has to deal with Wometco as to the land under their portion because we own that land and so there has to be some sort of an equitable treatment that the City will get reimbursed from Wometco rather it be rent or purchase to cover the cost of the land underneath the Wometco portion. Mayor Edelcup noted that there are three different corners to this triangle: 1) the Wometco piece; 2) the City piece; and 3) the architect who has developed the overall concept, and amongst those three we are trying to put together a program that has the visible parts but in the total structure we get a park, a parking lot, an aquatic center, and a skybridge. Before we enter into any kind of a final agreement, separate costs will be developed so that we know what we are purchasing and what we are all paying for, and that both parties have satisfied themselves and that the contractor is giving the City the best price for its portion, as well as Arthur Hertz's portion, but we all have to be doing this in tandem and in unison so hopefully we all get to the finish line together. If any one of those fail to meet on the finish line you can't start the next portion until everybody is together. Commissioner Scholl said that there is a certain tandem element but he doesn't want staff to start spending money until we have a good handle on the Wometco piece. He feels that staff should focus their efforts on getting a deal with Wometco and an agreement on a design that Wometco is going to be satisfied with because the first piece is Wometco committing and then everything else will flow and we will have clear direction on what we need to do, because ultimately their piece is more expensive than ours. Mayor Edelcup said he doesn't think we need to spend money to flush out what our portion is, and so the architect and Joe Milton can furnish the City with an estimate of cost for the City's portion. Vice Mayor Thaler noted that Arthur Hertz of Wometco will be here tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. for a press conference and that will be the first step to get confirmation that he is willing and wants to go forward. Commissioner Scholl said we need to be careful with the public as well, it is a great idea but he doesn't want to build expectations. Mayor Edelcup said that the 10