Frequently Asked Questions

The Town maintains a Project web page. The Town strives to update this information regularly. However, please feel free to contact anyone on the project team for questions and updates.

Measure L was passed by voters in 2012 requiring that the majority of the funding for the Admin, Police, and Public Works facilities come from private donations or grants and the already established Building Fees Fund. This was for design as well as construction. General Funds could be used before the project was officially approved as a project - in other words, the Town could use General Funds for environmental review and other pre-project work. The Library is FULLY funded via separate Library Funds and Measure L did not restrict their use. Measure L essentially restricted the use of the Town's General Fund for the project. As of May 2017, design costs for non-Library portion of the project is $3.3 million. Basic construction costs are estimated at $22.6 million. This brought the required funding total to approximately $25.9 million for design and basic construction. Approximately $1 million was allocated to pre-project costs dropping the requirement to $24.9 million. There was $2.9 million available in building fees funds dropping it further to $22 million. Approximately $7 million was raised by Atherton Now leaving a required funding gap of approximately $15 million. Acknowledging this, the City Council returned to the voters in 2017 with Measure A. Measure A authorizes the Town to use available unallocated General Funds toward the project - $10 million or 38% of the total project is funded by private donations and building fees.

The City Council receives a monthly report from Atherton Now on the status of fundraising for the project. The Reports are part of the monthly City Council Packet for its Regular Meetings. These can be found in the Town's Archive. As of June 2017, Atherton Now has raised nearly $7 million toward the project.

Sort of. In the current historic Council Chambers, off to the left of the Council Chambers entry there is a restroom and a small conference room. The conference room is largely used for storage and small break-out meetings, when needed. With the new project, the Council Chambers is being renovated to serve as a multi-purpose room for the Library and an expanded space for Atherton's Heritage Committee. The multi-purpose room will open up on the Library deck and the small, existing conference will be plumbed for future use as a cafe or catering kitchen. That is the extent of what is currently designed for that space.

No. The Police Department staff are required to maintain a level of physical fitness - most of which, like the rest of us, is handled during off work hours. However, the Police Department staff are also required to train in various defensive tactics - hand to hand training, restraint, baton and riot training, weapons training, and other sorts of training that requires training mats and equipment. Currently, the Police staff use approximately 600-800 square feet in the garage for this training. In the space is workout equipment (all donated by the community and the officers themselves), mats and other training gear. The space is actively used - with one caveat - because parts of the space doubles as the weapons cleaning station, parking of motorcycle vehicles, vehicle repair area, and evidence storage - there are limitations on its use. This will be remedied in the new buildings where the spaces are built as they are required to be built by law and up to OSHA standards.

The non-Library costs are $25.9 million for design and construction. Atherton Now has raised approximately $7 million or 27%.

Yes, but....it includes a lot of other stuff as well AND the fully funded Library. There are a lot of ways to look at the numbers. Of that total $52 million cost, the Library represents $18.8 million. The Library portion of the project is fully funded. That leaves a remainder of $33.2 million. Included in that remaining $33.2 million is the pre-project environmental work and other geotechnical work totaling approximately $1 million. That leaves $32.2 million left for the project. Of that total, $3.3 is architectural and design costs leaving $28.9 million. Of that total, $22.6 is construction, $2.2 million is for furniture, fixtures, and other building equipment (mostly post project), and $4.1 million is built in for contingencies. These are both design and construction contingencies.These contingencies are built in to accommodate potential changes to the project design as the project moves along and potential change orders for construction or cost escalation at bid. At the end of the day, the true construction cost for the project will be what the market bears at the time of bid. However, the Town has hired Mack5, a professional construction estimation firm, to analyze the project in detail and provide as accurate a cost estimate as possible. The estimated cost of the project's construction is $22.6 million.

Currently, the project is in the Construction Drawings Phase. This phase is expected to complete in November/December 2017. The next phase is the Bid Phase. The Bid Phase will last until February/March 2018. After review of bids, the Council can award a bid to a qualifying contractor. That is anticipated in March/April 2018. The project has a 27-28 month construction timeline. Construction would begin in April/May 2018 and continue until at least August 2020. With that construction timeline, the project will cross over multiple Fiscal Years and Town Budgets - FY 2017/18, FY 2018/19, FY 2019/20, and FY 2020/21. This is where the funding timeline comes in for the project. Given that the project crosses 4 Fiscal Years, the Town is able to use funds from each of those fiscal years in its projections for funding availability.

Bid Alternates and Bid Deducts are designed into the project plans to be bid by all contractors bidding on the project. The Town can add in an alternate or deduct to make adjustments to the project. These bid alternates (whether adds or deducts) must be incorporated and designed into the project "pre-bid" to allow all contractors to bid the project in the same way. The Town then awards the bid based on its selected alternatives. Changes AFTER award of bid are change-orders with costs that may or may not be shared in some way with the contractor. Presently, the project is designed with 7 Alternates (some could add cost some could deduct cost) Alternate 1 - Deduct: Hyrdoseed at City Hall instead of the designed planting plan -$223,000 Alternate 2 - Add: Energy Monitoring at City Hall - $13,000 Alternate 3 - Add: Microgrid at City Hall - $594,000 Alternate 4A - Add: Photovoltaic at City Hall - $539,000 Alternate 4B - Add: Photovoltaic at City Hall - $527,000 Alternate 4C - Add: Photovoltaic at City Hall - $1,130,000 Alternate 4D - Add: Photovoltaic at City Hal - $124,000 Alternate 5 - Add: 25,000 gallon thermal energy storage tank - $192,000 Alternate 6 - Add: Use copper gutters instead of painted aluminum - $75,000 Alternate 7 - Use Stone Veneer instead of pre-cast concrete at wall base - $21,000 The deducts and/or adds are NOT included in the base costs of the building. They are only added or eliminated (deduct) if selected by the Council at the time of award of bid. The City Council is also looking at additional items to add to this list. These include: - Eliminate the Corporation Yard - Postpone the New Council Chambers - Replace the Clay Tile Roof with Asphalt Shingle - Replace the CMU Fencing with Chain Link - Simplify or Reduce Interior Finishes - Change Traction Elevator to Slower Hydraulic Elevator - Postpone the renovation of historic Town Hall - Remove any custom built furniture (counters) - Replace rammed earth walls with typical wall construction (library) - Replace wood window framing with aluminum - hydroseed in lieu of planting These would need to be designed so that they could be bid as deducts. If selected, these would reduce the cost of the construction by approximately $4.5 million.