Municipal Facility Planning

At the City Council Planning Session on March 1, 2024, the Council unanimously approved AB 6420 directing the City Manager to commence planning for a new Public Safety and Maintenance Building on the current City Hall campus. This new facility will replace the existing Public Works Building and provide a new combined home for the City’s Public Works teams and Police Department.

A preliminary scope and cost estimate will be presented to the Council in Q2 2024.

In early 2023, the City began a process to complete Facility Conditions Assessments (FCAs) for various municipal buildings, including City Hall, the Public Works Building, the Annex Building at the Mercer Island Community & Event Center, the Luther Burbank Administrative Building, the Mercer Island Thrift Shop, and the former Tully’s Building. Due to the emergency closure of City Hall in April 2023, this work was reprioritized to meet the most pressing needs.

Given the age and condition of the Public Works Building, the City Manager directed staff and consultants to complete a FCA for this building, while pausing assessment work on the other buildings.

The assessment identified multiple systems that are failing or in need of significant repair or investment. This information was presented to the City Council on February 6, 2024 (AB 6402).

Combined with the City’s urgent space needs for teams displaced by the City Hall closure, the City Manager recommended that the Council prioritize the Public Works Building for replacement. Council’s direction allows the City Manager to proceed with building this new facility on the existing campus.

More information about this project will be shared soon. You can review the full Let’s Talk page to learn more about the City’s Long Range Facility Planning work.

As part of the process to evaluate the condition of municipal buildings and develop a plan for their future, the City Council will review preliminary findings from the Public Works Building Facility Conditions Assessment at the February 6, 2024 regular meeting. Staff and consultants will present the preliminary findings from the assessment and answer councilmember questions.

The Public Works building, located behind City Hall, was constructed primarily as a workshop and mechanic facility in 1981. Since then, it's been repurposed several times to meet the changing needs of City operations. The building is 15,350 square feet and currently houses the following operational and administrative teams made up of Full Time Equivalent Employees (FTEs) and Limited Term Employees (LTEs):

• Right-of-Way and Stormwater Team (10 FTEs)
• Water Utility (8.5 FTEs, 3 LTEs)
• Sewer Utility (6.5 FTEs)
• Parks Maintenance (10 FTEs)
• Support Services Team (3 FTEs, 1 LTE)
• Public Works Engineering and Administration Teams (19 FTEs)

Following the closure of City Hall in April 2023, the City’s Utility Billing Team was also re-located at the Public Works Building (3 FTEs). In total, there are 64 employees (FTE and LTE equivalents) and 15 to 20 seasonal employees who currently operate out of this facility.

The Facility Conditions Assessment process identified the following preliminary findings about the building's condition:

• Roofing is at the end of its projected useful life and leaks are prevalent throughout the building.
• The current 150kVA electrical service is insufficient to support the current needs of the facility.
• The electrical distribution system is aged, with some critical components at the end-of-life.
• The original HVAC system is mostly obsolete throughout the building, delivering poor performance, high energy consumption, and marginal air quality.
• Plumbing is inadequate to meet the staffing levels for the building, requiring the use of portable toilets to meet sanitation requirements.

Based on the findings from the FCA and known operational deficiencies, the City Manager is recommending the Public Works Building be prioritized for replacement. Staff and consultants are currently working on preliminary replacement strategies for the City Hall Building and the recommendation is to combine the planning process to address replacement of both buildings.

While the initial assessment is preliminary, staff and consultants are finalizing the assessment and cost estimates - they expect to have this work complete by June 2024. Staff will identify critical system repairs needed to extend the life of the building temporarily (for five to ten years) while replacement strategies are developed. Staff will present those strategies to the City Council as part of the upcoming 2025-2026 Biennial Budget Development process.

A follow-up discussion on City facilities is planned for the March 1, 2024, City Council Planning Session. This presentation and discussion will primarily focus on the replacement strategies for City Hall and the Public Works Building.

You can review the City Council Agenda Bill 6402 for additional details on this presentation. The preliminary report is also available online.

Earlier this year, the City Council voted to permanently close City Hall. City staff, the City Council, and outside experts have since been hard at work planning for a solution to the City Hall closure, as part of the City’s existing Long Range Facility Planning process.

While City Hall may be closed, most City operations continue as normal. Approximately 80% of City employees continue to work in-person on Mercer Island, whether from shared workspaces in administrative areas of the Community Center, the Maintenance Building, the Luther Burbank Administrative Building, or out in the field. Remaining staff are working from a combination of home offices and in shared/rotating office spaces on-Island, often holding meetings at the Community Center or at other locations.

The City is standing up temporary facility solutions for specialized operations that were displaced by the closure of City Hall, including City Court and Police Department facilities:

Municipal Court: At the November 7 City Council meeting, the Council approved a lease agreement with the City of Newcastle allowing Mercer Island Municipal Court to temporarily operate out of Newcastle City Hall. Court staff are currently arranging operating details, with information on accessing court services in Newcastle coming soon.

Police Department: While our Police Department staff have worked hard to continue normal levels of service without access to the Police wing of City Hall, day-to-day operations have been challenging for our officers. At the November 21 City Council meeting, the Council reviewed a budget allocation for Police Department portable facility solutions. These temporary facilities will provide dedicated spaces for the many specialized needs of a police department and greatly ease day-to-day challenges for our officers and staff.

Work on a long-term replacement strategy for City Hall continues. The City will consider a wide range of options that will result in a responsible, efficient, and sustainable future for City Hall operations. While much of the planning related to real estate transactions must be conducted confidentially through the City’s broker, community engagement on the long-term options to replace City Hall is anticipated in 2024. Islanders are encouraged to stay updated and engaged with this project here on Let’s Talk.

As always, City staff remain available and ready to assist you. For the quickest and fastest service, community members should contact the City of Mercer Island Customer Service Team at 206-275-7600 or at customerservice@mercerisland.gov.

October 4, 2023

For the past six months, my office – alongside a team of staff and outside experts – have been working to address the unexpected closure of City Hall due to the discovery of asbestos in the building’s HVAC system. At last night’s City Council meeting, the Council unanimously supported my recommendation to permanently close City Hall. I want to provide an update on why that decision was made and what’s ahead.

In April of this year, maintenance staff identified broken floor tiles in the City Hall basement mechanical room and these tiles were confirmed to contain asbestos. Because this mechanical room houses key components of the building’s HVAC system, including an air handling unit, City Hall was immediately closed while further testing was conducted.

From April through July, the City worked with PBS Engineering and Environmental to conduct comprehensive asbestos testing of the City Hall building, which included air sample, settled dust, and bulk material testing, with a focus on the HVAC system. Fortunately, no asbestos fibers were identified in any air samples, but settled dust tests did confirm asbestos is present above background levels (which requires abatement) in several segments of the HVAC system. Based on these findings, the HVAC system was turned off and has been inoperable since mid-May.

The location of both confirmed and likely asbestos in the City Hall HVAC system makes abatement extremely difficult, costly, and time-consuming. There is limited accessibility to some areas of the HVAC system, as many of the oldest ducts are encapsulated behind heavy plastic sheeting, fiberglass batt insulation, and/or multiple layers of ceiling material. The testing inside the HVAC system was taken as far as it could but was halted in early summer due to limited access to the remaining areas of the system. The presence of fiberglass batt insulation throughout the system also means it is not possible to clean and return the existing system to operation. The only option to address the HVAC asbestos contamination is a full replacement of the system, and subsequently, the associated infrastructure (ceiling, lighting, cabling, etc.).

City staff and consultants provided a comprehensive report to the City Council on these findings at the July 18, 2023, City Council meeting and that information is available here on Let’s Talk.

With that information in hand, we evaluated different scenarios for re-occupying City Hall, either fully or partially. The preliminary cost estimate to re-occupy City Hall is in excess of $10 million, with an estimated timeline of nearly two years to complete the work. We also considered a more modest approach and evaluated re-occupancy of the police portion of the building only, and those cost estimates are in excess of $4 million. While these costs alone likely exceed the anticipated return on investment, there are other factors that were considered in the decision to permanently close City Hall.

City Hall was built in 1957 and has been repaired and renovated over the years, with the last major renovation occurring in the late 1980s. Prior to the asbestos situation, the City Council recognized the need for a replacement strategy for this building, and in early 2023, the City began working on a Facilities Conditions Assessment to guide long-term decisions. The initial assessment work highlighted the many other matters of concern related to the long-term use of City Hall. The building suffers from structural and seismic deficiencies. Almost all the interior walls have been identified as lacking lateral bracing and, unless reinforced, are at risk of failure in the event of seismic activity, potentially rendering the building inoperable. Additionally, the building does not conform with current energy or building code requirements, and multiple building systems are failing or need to be substantially replaced.

Given this additional information and the anticipated investment needed to re-occupy City Hall and bring it up to current standards, the decision was made to permanently close the building and turn our attention to identifying a replacement strategy.

What does this mean for City services in the short-term? While we’re still working through our day-to-day operations, I can tell you that City staff remain hard at work and almost all public services continue to be available as normal. I’m incredibly grateful to our staff teams for their flexibility and creativity as we’ve figured out how to double up in offices, move equipment to other buildings, and sort through this challenge. Approximately 80% of our team continues to work in-person on Mercer Island, whether from shared workspaces in administrative areas of the Community Center, the Maintenance Building, the Luther Burbank Administrative Building, or out in the field. The remaining staff are working from a combination of home offices and in shared/rotating office spaces on-Island, often holding meetings at the Community Center or at other locations.

We encourage all Islanders to review our Let’s Talk Page – you can learn more about the many details involved in the decision to close City Hall and ask a question that hasn’t yet been answered. As always, our Customer Service Team stands ready to assist you in answering questions or accessing City services.

While having to suddenly close City Hall was unexpected and unfortunate, we are turning our attention to the critical work involved in identifying a long-term replacement strategy and discussions with the community and the City Council are anticipated to begin in 2024.

Thank you,

Jessi Bon
Mercer Island City Manager