The Burlingame Voice

Rec Center is Up and Running

Last night was the preview opening for donors who sponsored various parts of the new building and its furnishings.  I'll leave the critique of the architecture for another day since this was a great event with a lot of civic pride and gratitude for something getting done in town under supply chain and labor duress too.  The final cost was not mentioned, but that will eventually be known and compared to the $58.3M budget.

Mayor Ricardo Ortiz did the introduction and turned the new stage over to Donna Colson who has done a lot of the work on the project since the very beginning--along with Ann O'Brien and Cathy Baylock (back in the day, about 12 years ago).  Donna had a long list of people to thank and a reminder that there are still some choice sponsorship opportunities to be had.  Here she is on the two-way stage (the doors open fully so the audience can be on either side).  I snapped the green roof and the Elm room upstairs to give you a feel for the lovely design aesthetic.

There is a lot more to see so head on over.  It's a winner.

 

Santa, I Want a Swimming Pool

Another long-running B'game saga is coming to a conclusion in the next two weeks as the BHS pool is ready for swimsuits.  Here is your personal invite to the Grand Opening courtesy of the Trustees:

Be among the first to dive in when the San Mateo Union High School District and City of Burlingame celebrate the Grand Re-opening of the Burlingame High School Aquatic Center: 

Wednesday, January 8 at 5 p.m.

Burlingame High School 

 With strong financial support and through a partnership with the City of Burlingame, the San Mateo Union High School District has just completed renovation of the Burlingame High Pool including a new shell, deck and substantial sustainability upgrades.

It's likely to be chilly at 5pm in two weeks, but go for it anyway.  You can click through to here for what it looked like in January and this is what $6.4 million can do

Bond Disclosures and Sea Level Rise

As I was reading yesterday's WSJ article about coastal cities decrying the impending sea level rise on one hand and essentially ignoring the risk in their municipal bond disclosures, I flashed on the B'game bayfront and the bonds we are about to issue for the Rec Center rebuild.  The Journal article notes

The Government Accountability Institute undertook a yearlong study of 40 major cities to find out if mayors’ apocalyptic projections about climate risks are factored into the interest rates on the municipal bonds their cities issue. The results revealed a gulf between the words municipal leaders speak and the disclosures cities make. There was no statistically significant difference in the interest rates for bonds issued by cities in high-risk locations for climate-change devastation versus those issued by low-risk cities.

The study also found scant mention of climate change in bond disclosure documents. The disclosure statements of the 20 at-risk cities totaled 4,361 pages. Phrases like “climate change” and “sea-level rise” appeared fewer than 100 times across all 20 at-risk cities in the context of the issues addressed in this study. Further, 12 out of the 20 disclosures for at-risk cities did not mention climate language in the same context.

When they got to discussing Oakland, it felt very close to home indeed since our sea level is their sea level

Worse, “by 2050, a ‘100-year flood’ in the Oakland vicinity is expected to occur on average once every 2.3 years and by 2100 to occur 44 times per year or almost once per week.” The lawsuit added that “Oakland is projected to have up to 66 inches of sea level rise by 2100.” The city alleged this would “imminently threaten Oakland’s sewer system” and harm property with a “total replacement cost of between $22 and $38 billion.”

Contrast that detailed, dramatic language with Oakland’s bland, measured 2017 bond risk disclosure to investors: “The City is unable to predict when seismic events, fires or other natural events, such as sea rise or other impacts of climate change or flooding from a major storm, could occur, when they may occur, and, if any such events occur, whether they will have a material adverse effect on the business operations or financial condition of the City or the local economy.”

That looks like an "oopsy" to me.  Which is it?  Is Oakland 30 years from disaster on a semi-annual basis which for a major port city would be a financial Titanic or are they unable to predict any of this?  We will have to have our local bond expert(s) weigh in on the B'game disclosures of same.

B'game Fiscal Risk: Yellow!

There are several news pieces highlighting the California Auditor's release of a top-to-bottom ranking of California cities' financial risk using ten metrics that combine into an "overall risk" rating of red/yellow/green.  Most of them don't bother to include the website link so here you go.  Naturally, the first question I had was "Where does Burlingame rate?"  I was expecting bright green, but alas we are ranked #220 riskiest out of 471 cities earning us a yellow overall rating.  San Bruno, Millbrae and H'borough are green overall while San Mateo joins us in the yellow category.

You have to work at it on the site to see how each of the ten contributing factors play into the rating-- but that's what I'm here for:

Liquidity:  Green

Debt Burden:  Yellow  (And rising.  Will the Rec Center bonds move us to Red?)

General Fund Reserve:  Green

Revenue Trends:  Yellow  (Adding a lot of housing won't help this)

Pension Obligations:  Yellow

Pension Funding:  Yellow (But lots of red in the cities around us)

Pension Costs:  Green

Future Pension Costs:  Yellow  (But again, lots of red around us)

OPEB Obligations:  Green  (Other post-employment benefits like medical and dental)

OPEB  Funding:  Red

So overall we are in the middle of the pack and yellow.

Rent Control: +5% Sends a Message

The Law of Unintended Consequences is often not understood in Sacramento.  In fact much of what emanates from the Legislature and the Gavinor appears to reinforce the Law of Totally Expected Consequences.  OK, I just made that last Law up, but that doesn't mean it's not accurate.  The LA Times describes the latest instance

“We are pleased to announce we have come to an agreement on a series of amendments to AB 1482 that would create strong renter protections,” said a statement from Newsom, Senate leader Toni Atkins (D-San Diego), Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood) and bill author Assemblyman David Chiu (D-San Francisco). “The bill will protect millions of renters from rent-gouging and evictions and build on the Legislature’s work this year to address our broader housing crisis.”

Applying the KISS principle to analyzing AB 1482, one can only conclude that the bill guarantees 5% + inflation rent increases for a huge majority of renters every year for the foreseeable future.  Why would any landlord do anything else after being told that is the limit of what is acceptable (and legal)?  As someone who is neither landlord nor renter, but an interested observer this is a totally expected consequence--as will be the calls for more taxpayer dollars to go to state-subsidized, "affordable" housing.  Bet on it.

Top Golf Offers a Preview

I'm excited by the prospects of something to do in B'game besides eat, workout and get one's nails done.  Building something other than offices and high-density, rack-and-stack housing is a good thing!  So the long-awaited Top Golf facility at the driving range that we discussed here is quite welcome.  Top Golf will be offering a preview of their plans this Wednesday, April 10 at 6 pm at the Rec Center where reps from the company will also listen to community ideas and concerns.

I took the opportunity to get in touch with the Top Golf PR team and learned a bit more in advance of the meetings.  There are 49 US venues and four international sites already operating with 10 venues scheduled to open in 2019 including San Jose which is to break ground soon (2Q19).  Like the other sites, the B'game proposal includes 3 stories (approximately 53’ max height of the building) with 102 bays and three main full service bars with seating areas, food and alcohol served throughout the whole venue.  The company estimates that sites draw from a 45 mile radius so San Jose would overlap a bit but not if you use drive time instead of distance to estimate draw.  Clearly the concentration of hotels on our Bayfront make for a build-in draw.

It should make for a nice addition to partially ease our entertainment drought in town.  Of course, traffic and lighting will need to be addressed, but at least it offers something to do.  I will miss Gabriel & Daniel's Mexican Grill that operates in the Pro Shop and it wouldn't be crazy for Top Golf to offer them a good lease on site to continue as a tenant.  I will also be interested to hear if B'game residents will be offered a discount the way San Mateo residents get a break at Coyote Point or Mountain View residents get at Shoreline Amphitheater.  Anyway you look at it, it is an upgrade from the current set-up.

 

BHS Pool Fix at $6.4 Million and Climbing

Oddly enough, I was a long ways from B'game last week when the issue came up of the BHS pool being closed for the long-term.  It was just after this meeting took place as described in today's Daily Journal:

With the price tag for rebuilding the swimming pool at Burlingame High School continuously floating higher, city officials are examining ways to help pay down the cost for the highly-valued community facility.  The Burlingame City Council discussed during a study session Monday, Jan. 7, strategies for collaborating with San Mateo Union High School District officials to address the reconstruction.  As officials from both agencies have watched the projected cost for the total rebuild rise to $6.4 million, Burlingame Mayor Donna Colson expressed some sticker shock over the continuous construction cost hikes.

City and school officials will share the reconstruction cost, as the pool is on school district property but city programming accounts for most of its use when students aren’t swimming.

As you dive into the rest of the article you see the weakness in the California approach to having the school districts being separate from their host cities--unlike where I grew up in Massachusetts where the schools were just another department.  C'est la vie.  Perhaps the Big Glass Box of a new Rec Center will get some further cost engineering to carve out a couple of million?  Here is a shot of the pool as it stands now--very sad.

Rec Center: $58.3 Million

After the design preference was settled back in July, the costing out of the Rec Center project has been able to proceed with more certainty.  As eagle-eyed observer Lorne has noted on that July post, the new numbers going to Council are sizable--more sizable than expected just a couple of years ago.  The parameters from the Staff Report are:

The project hard costs include local prevailing wage construction costs based on a design-bid-build procurement process with competitive bidding for all sub-trades of the construction work, general contractor’s job site management costs, general contractor’s insurance and bonding costs, and general contractor’s profit. The project soft costs include allowances for engineering and design fees, construction management, permit fees, inspections, and testing. The project contingency allowance is calculated at 10% of the project hard cost and 5% of the project soft cost, and the escalation allowance is calculated at 5% per annum on the project hard cost estimated to the midpoint of construction. Construction is anticipated to be January 2020 to December 2022.

I'm having trouble copying and pasting the chart from the Staff Report, so here are the totals by line item using the parameters above, i.e. all in with contingencies and escalations and rounded off to the nearest $100K:

Playground, Multi-court, Picnic Area            $2.4 million

Building, Associated Sitework, Parking        $49.9 million

Furniture, Equipment, Technology                $2 million

Everything Else                                            $4 million

                                                                   -------------

Total                                                            $58.3 million

Many thanks to Lorne for spotting this in a timely fashion.  We'll have to wait and see if there is any value engineering to be done.  In the meantime, here is the financing plan

In November 2017, the voters of Burlingame approved Measure I, a ¼ cent sales tax measure that will generate an estimated $1.75 million to $2 million annually. At the January 27, 2018 goal- setting session, the City Council discussed the City Manager’s recommended expenditure plan for the Measure I funds, which included an annual pledge of $1 million toward debt service on the issuance of lease revenue bonds. The City Council approved the recommendation on February 20, 2018. An additional $1 million annual General Fund transfer was approved in the 2018-19 fiscal year budget, also intended to fund the debt service, to allow for a lease revenue bond issuance of approximately $30 million for the Community Center project.

Rec Center: The Glass Box Wins

Well folks, the Glass Box Rec Center design won out last night at City Council by a 5-0 vote. The theme of the council members' comments reflected some good points and some hand-waving. The good points were about natural light and views of the surrounding park and trees. We will have to see about that when the building is finished.  The idea that a tighter connection between the inside and outside is uniformly good is questionable.  If you live near the Glass Box you might disagree as one active local resident, Tom Paine, said last night.  Tom also characterized the architecture as looking like an insurance office.  The idea that staff are going to run around raising and lower shades to keep the light pollution down for the neighbors seems ambitious to me.  And the idea that seeing a yoga class in action might spur more people to take yoga, as Mayor Brownrigg suggested, ignores the fact that few people taking a yoga class want to do so in a fishbowl with spectators.  The estimate that all that glass would only be cleaned once per year doesn't hold water either.

I found the whole solar power, photo voltaic argument a little thin. The flatter, "butterfly" roof design of the Glass Box allows for more square footage of solar panels by about half (50% verses 75-80%), but square footage is not as important as actual light energy collected.  With the flatter profile, the Mission design might have a substantial advantage in the winter months.  I have some experience with "Low E" windows that keep out some of the heat--they are not perfect.  With this much glass the energy profile of the building needs to take into account heating and cooling usage not just the solar energy collected.  If you end up roasting inside in the summer you will know who to blame.

In the end, we get the Glass Box regardless of the reasons.  It was noted several times that this is a 50 year decision.  Let's hope it's not a gamble that turns out to be a 50 year mistake.  On the bright side, all of the original bad ideas like tearing up a huge swath of the park, moving the tennis courts and the Lion's Club, or putting "affordable housing" on the top floors fell by the wayside.  For that we should be thankful.

  

Rec Center Design--Vote Now

As Measure I monies start to flow, the pace of work on the replacement Rec Center in Washington Park is picking up.  After lengthy discussions (years!), there are two radically different design proposals on the table and the City would like residents to weigh in on their preferences.  The architects, Group4, have offered a Mission design and a "Pavilion" design.  The word "Pavilion" doesn't really have any intrinsic meaning here and is just a way to avoid calling it the "Modern" or "Glass box" design.  Webster has a half dozen definitions ranging from "a large sumptuous tent" to "one of several detached or semidetached units into which a building is sometime divided.  My favorite Webster definition is "a temporary structure erected at an exposition".  Given all this, "Pavilion" reminds me more of the tennis center out on Rollins Rd. than a B'game centerpiece.  So you can guess how I am voting.  Here's the link to the survey.   You are paying for it, you might as well vote.  At least the plan to tear up a big chunk of the park for parking seems to have gone away.