Cubberley Community Meeting 3 - Presentation

Good evening everyone. Let's get Ed fellow city manager herself and uh start and we'll begin tonight by saying thank you so much for dedicating your time and your energy, your thoughts to this really important process um process, right? So everything in a process and tonight is the third of our community meetings here on site. After tonight, we're going to move our uh discussions actually to the city council and in a series of conversations about this overall master plan and how it comes forward uh to PAL community. Uh but that said, I think if you've been one of these meetings in the past, you've heard us talk about this as an iterative process. But of course, you know, being an engineer, I should realize that unless you're a hydraulics engineer, you may not that term may not mean anything to you. So, let me just define it for a second in the way we're using it here.

An iterative process is when you take a whole bunch of data, a bunch of information, then you try to throw it on the wall and make some sense of it. And in effect, that's what we've had over the last couple of meetings. And quite frankly, tonight is another step in that iterative process of what you see in front of you being our team pulling together the information that we've received from you to date and try to put it on a plan that takes those inputs and tries to make sense of that. As Bobby pointed out, it's not set in stone. And so based on your feedback, there'll be another round of that. So, we really want to uh emphasize, as she did, how important your feedback is in allowing us to make progress on this plan. As you probably have peaked at the sheets in front of you, what you're seeing tonight presented is a lot different from what you saw last because it actually tries to integrate a bit of new with what's already here on the cover campus. And that will help us scale what's new and what we keep based on funding available as well as just how the pieces fit together. So I think you will hopefully be pleased with the evolution, the steps that we're taking in the development of this plan. So with that, I think we'll get to it, but we're actually going to show a little video that hopefully get you in the mood. Um, as city manager, you know, it's funny. You make off-hand comments sometimes and people take you seriously. And I I made an off-hand comment to our team last week. I said, "You know what? We ought to just on any given day, go take it take your phones and go video what's happening around the campus just as a reminder. We can hear it right now. I got a little bit of audio audio reminder of what it is we're here to build on. Uh because the activity is already here. We just want to make a space match the creativity and the energy in many ways is already here.

So next thing you know comment turns into a video. So with that said, let's go and have our church back to our All right, let's get to it.

Thank you, Ann. And thank you everybody so much for being here tonight. It's great to see such a good crowd and we're very excited about what we're going to work on together this evening. But um first of all um I just wanted to check in on a couple things. How many of you all are 49er fans? Just just a few of you.

Well, for those of you that are 49er fans, I I wanted to pay you a compliment. Um if you are a big fan, you might know that you beat the Saints last week. Um and it was not too bad. I mean, it was what maybe a one one score game, but then again, you know, we were playing their second game quarterback and you know, well, we're in we're in a building here or maybe we're in a building for a couple two three years.

Um, but you know, in New Orleans, we do love the Saints even if they're losing.

And I'll tell you a little story that you may not know. Um, many years ago, the Saints were so bad for so long, but the fans kept going to the game, but they went to the game and they put bags on their heads. Did Did any of you all ever see that? Um, and that's where the name Who came from if you didn't know that? Because we are the dad that nation. Um, because with the bags on your head, they didn't know who anybody was. Um, and we're proud of that. We might have to put the bags on our own again, unfortunately. But um but we're hopeful for the future. But the compliment that I wanted to pay to you uh tonight is that on the plane flying here, over half the plane were 49 people. I mean, there was red, white, gear, everywhere. And they were all very, very nice. They were really nice and well behaved. Um, you can't say that that about some other teams like maybe another team that's kind of north and across the bay. You know who I'm talking about. Um, and also that other team that's kind of across the way from New York in another state with them. They're not very nice either, but um, we're nice in spite of losing a lot. And um, and thank you to the 49ers that were so nice on having fun here. So, enough of that.

Um, we're happy to be here this evening and, um, George and I are going to do a little back and forth to prepare you for tonight and our activity.

This is the right direction. Bobby, I can I can advance you.

We make this work. Okay. All right. really quickly our agenda.

We've already done introductions. We're going to have um a relatively brief presentation to get everybody up to speed and then we're going to have uh activity one and activity two. Those are going to flow right next to each other because basically it's a two-part activity, but we're asking the same questions. So, you'll have plenty of time to get into the nitty-gritty there.

And then if we have time, we'll do a little report after and we'll talk about next steps. Because as Ed said earlier, this is not the final plan by any stretch. The information that we get tonight is going to be very critical in moving this forward.

Okay? So, um please be sure that you have signed a signin sheet at your table and given yourself a name tag. If there's anybody who does not want their photograph published, um, just put a red dot or whatever dot is on your table on your name tag and that way we'll know and we will assure you that we won't publish your photograph anywhere.

It works now. backwards.

All right, we ask this as we start every meeting. We really want everybody to enjoy their time tonight and um engage with your group. Get to meet your neighbors. Um share those ideas, be open-minded, and please listen um listen to what your neighbors have to say. make room for everybody to be heard and share any questions at the end um either with your facilitator or in your afteraction review.

All right. So, what are our goals here tonight? Our goals here tonight is to review the concept design phase and discuss program adjacencies, the site layout and circulation and parking. Now, um let me give you a little project background. Uh let me ask this question first. Are there any people who this is your first meeting for co? Okay, good.

We have a lot of new people. That's fantastic. So, we want to do a quick review so that we can get you up to speed and then you can participate fully.

Um, the Cumberley project encompasses this area that you see in sort of the bluish purple and yellow. The bluish purple is the property that is currently owned by the city and the yellow is the property that is owned by the school district that will be purchased should there be a successful bond measure.

Um all of these facilities are somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 to 50 year years old. Um it predates the ADA act and seismic updates and such. And in 3 years, most of the buildings will be nearing the end of their life. And within 10 to 20 years, all of the buildings will reach the end of their life cycle.

So, how did we get here? Let me hand it over to George and we will get you all up to speak.

Awesome. Thank you, Bobby. Um, so how did we get here? This has been kind of a long and winding road. Um, as Bobby just went over the background, we also wanted to kind of cover uh the iterative process that was mentioned earlier. So, here's our process timeline. So, we did start from, you know, square zero. There was a 2019 coverly master plan in full.

Um, and in that one, the goal was to have both a community center and a full high school on the same site. Um, in the years that have passed, that goal has shifted. as Bobby just went over. So that's why we're here for a new updated master plan. Um we have had two meetings thus far and we are currently in the third one. Um so the first one was in March and then June and here we are now.

Um a couple of other dates that are really really important. Bobby mentioned at the bottom of the screen there you can see that in March 2026 next year that is when city council will uh approve the final master plan. And then a very important date is November of next year is when the vote will happen um to make all all of this work come to uh realation.

So what's happened in meeting one? So this is really important to see how we built this up that we just didn't come up with this overnight. This is really explicitly built with y'all's input with a lot of input from community city apartments and all of that. So in meeting one it focused on program priorities and adjacencies. And when I say program, I that's a different word for uses. What goes on inside of a building? What goes on outside of a building? How can you use that space? So when I say programs, that's what I mean.

So we ask people to say, hey, what do you want to make sure is in this future site? And so we got together all of the mentions of all the different programs.

And this is our top 10 or 12 or so that were most mentioned. So, as you can see at the top, there's a lot of art, performance space, dance class, art studios, art classes, followed closely by gym facilities, cafe was another big one, wellness center. Um, so a lot of really great ideas and the list went on and on and on and on. Um, so we're trying to include as much as we possibly can there. So, we also asked about outdoor programs because there's a lot of outdoor space as well. So, in meeting one, a lot of people wanted to see more open green space. It's a lot of open space, but a lot of it's cement. Um, so maybe we could see ways that we can activate that a little bit differently.

Um, we also heard playground, amphitheater was a big one, a pool or water area, tennis courts, um, a variety of other kinds of courts, and then some other uh, walking biking paths. And so we have all those programmed ideas, indoor and outdoor. That was meeting one. In meeting two, instead of focusing on what's going on inside of the buildings, we wanted to focus on the site layout, how the buildings are arranged, what are the main paths, how you get around and through the site. So for this one, we actually presented the community three different options that looked, you know, different from each other, but had a similar square footage, um, similar space, um, being utilized to see kind of Frankenstein it together into one, you know, perfect concept design if we could. Um, so for the first time, we pulled this in a diagonal. As you can see, we had this diagonal main path going through. For the activity, we asked people to put green dots on the things that they liked, that they wanted to keep, and we asked people to put red dots on the things that they wanted to get rid of. So, couple main takeaways that we see here. A lot of green dots on the two kind of bigger green spaces, open spaces on either side. Um, and a lot of people did like the the diagonal.

Um, the second one we did was what we called the linear one because it was very uh vertical and horizontal. As you can kind of see the a lot of red dots and no very few people like the enclosed courtyard in that bottom corner and also some of the smaller green spaces. It seems like maybe the larger open spaces uh were preferred. And then this last one we call the prominade because of this uh larger central area. Um as you can see on either side a lot of green on those larger open spaces. The prominade was a bit divisive. A lot of people liked it. Um uh but some people that didn't like it, they said it was too big. Um but people who did like well it was very welcoming and getting people into the site. And finally at the end of that meeting we asked everybody to rank each concept in a variety of categories from one to five. One being not good at all, five being really great, really successful. So you can see kind of a snapshot here. Each of the concepts scored above average of three. Um but the most popular one, the most successful one was the diagonal with a 384 3.84 out of five. Then we had linear which was a three uh point49 and then the grid was 3.02.

And so that is a brief overview of how we built all of this together. We took all the programming information from meeting one and all the site layout from meeting two and put all of that together to uh have what we're presenting today.

So, I'm going to turn it back over to Bobby to get through the concept design.

Great. Thank you. Okay. So, today what we're doing is we're going to share with you very importantly the phasing of the master plan. And this is important for a number of reasons. Um, with a canvas that's this big, you couldn't possibly deconstruct and construct everything all at the same time. the the most negative impact of that would be that all the program that is here would have to stop and we have a lot of experience in doing these kinds of things because many times school districts and I know this has happened here as well have to do new school projects or renovations and so kids move to a temporary site while that construction is going on and then when it's done they move back to that site so it's kind of moving chess pieces around if you will so is very important and we had to do a lot of analysis and understanding the program that's here, the new programming that is being um asked for and figure out how to do that in a way that has the least amount of impact on that programming of those programmings um you know and hopefully can continue to happen. So the phasing is very critical. Um and so we're going to um walk you through what would be the entire master plan and what that looks like in phases. So the first phase we're going to start start talk um I'm sorry start if you will in that back corner and where you see the red dotted line would be the first part of demolition for this first base. And just to or orient everybody if you're not familiar with looking at uh at a map like this, this middle field right there along road which is right over there if you will and Montros. And so that back right corner is um is really kind of a little bit behind where the Charleston Shopping Center is a little bit past that. So hopefully you can understand that. So with that demolition, the first thing that would be built would be recreation and wellness focus and tennis and tennis court and and parking. So the tennis courts would be um torn down and there would be a onelevel parking underneath the tennis courts to be built on top of that. Um a twostory gymnasium. Each floor would have two gyms and ancillary programming area and offices and lockers and support room and such. So the focus of all of those would be recreation, wellness, tennis, and some green parking. And then you see just going counterclockwise. The next focus for demolition is those buildings right there. And you will also note the three buildings, the pavilion, the theater, and building I. those buildings remaining. So the demolition would happen there and then um those three buildings would be renovated. So we expand the programming to include education, early education, after school programs and such much of which is here. Um we would renovate the existing pavilion and theater. um and really focus on this this area becomes kind of the center of performing arts but also including um karate and martial arts and dance and um and all of that. So performing arts and then um the buildings along middlefield that you see in Brown could continue to remain in use. So this would be the end of phase one.

Moving on to go into a little more detail about the program because I know at the last meeting some people were concerned because they didn't really maybe they missed the first meeting and we were focusing on the layout of campus. So they might not have felt comfortable that the programmings that the program that they really wanted to see was designated to an area. So now we've done that. If I start at the top right corner here again, that's where the tennis courts are. Um, in the gymnasium, we have lockers, lobby, we have yoga, pilates, moving around.

That's there's parking. at Brave underneath the tennis courts, health and wellness programming, preschool in the blue, purple area, preschool and afterare, um martial arts and dance and moving around again per performing arts space, music rehearsal, lobby, theater, a lot of back of house that would support the theater and um and this pavilion turning into, if you will, sort of a multi-use performance space. Um and then uh beneath that in the buildings that would remain we still have we have gallery we have flexible rental space visual arts admin um and tenant and studios workspace maker space flexing rental. So this this plan here does incorporate all of the programming that exists as well as additional square footage. Second floor again we have um another level of gymnasium, yoga, basketball and such health and wellness rehearsal enrichment and dance and martial arts.

And there's the one building right there that is a three-story building that would have that.

So if we move then to phase two demolition again going counterclockwise the next component that would be demolished is right there kind of on middle field close to mantros and then that becomes the visual arts and technology maker space and such in that space. Um and then demolishing those buildings just a little bit farther down Middleton in that phase or phase three. And there we have the cafe and lounge. That's one of the things that came up a lot in um in people's request. Um a catering kitchen. That's something that is really not available anywhere around and there's a great need for that. And also people said, you know, we love coming to Cumberly, but we'd really like to be able to get some food. Maybe if we have something like Adidas, but maybe even a little bit bigger. Um, so community services and flexible space because flexible space is going to be really critical because by the time all this is done, there'll be new ideas. There'll be new new areas of programming. So, we have to have spaces that can adapt to new ideas and and new needs.

So when it's all complete, phase one, two, and three, we have a beautiful master plan in campus. Um, in addition to saving all of the protected trees, we want to bring in additional trees to create more of a, you know, a more tree friendly and more densely planted urban environment. Um, a lot more shade. Um if you can imagine how different that is in what we have now with a lot of concrete and black top in this space. Um places for um outdoor activities. Um um a an amphitheater, small group areas, larger group areas, all kinds of opportunities for incredible programming to go on both indoor and out.

So in this phase, I want to explain a little bit more about what happens in the programming. So, what you see on this screen, the top is what I just went over a little while ago, but below we have again the maker space, workshops, gallery, cafe, commercial kitchen, partially underground parking. If you'll note the black dotted line around that area along Middlefield, the plan is to put a half a an half underground parking deck that goes all the way underneath.

it would be open and partially so it doesn't require any kind of ventilation mechanical ventilation and such and then we can use the the dirt that ex is excavated in order to build that to create a little more interesting topography across the campus and um and then these facilities would be built on top of that area and again the second floor you'll see down below we have studios and um and more admin space. Now, I want to point out to you that on the back of your handout, you do have information that corresponds to these colors that shows you that the square footage that's dedicated to those program areas. And I'll show you a slide in a little bit to show you how we have increased that um above what is existing today.

And again, that um that third floor dance and martial arts So, just another little quick focus on the outdoor uses. Um, people said in our last master plan and in this one as well, we really want such beautiful weather here. We want to be able to be outside. We want to be able to have all kinds of opportunities for activities, large and small groups. And so, in this plan, you see, um, we do have, um, an amphigator that would be right in that sort of U-shaped area. It could be that that the the stage for that is actually built in a little bit under the roof of building I um and then there's um seating that's available on the ground. Um and then we have opportunities for a learning garden.

You'll also note we have at the top of the prominade and at the bottom we have a place barber. So, this is an opportunity if those of you that are familiar with the campus, there's a totem um right out there. Maybe it's that, maybe it's another um piece of public art that's created by artists who are here in the studio. Maybe it's also some really beautiful and creative um welcoming signage, but a really a way to invite people into the site and to designate the community center as a special place that it is already and certainly that it will be with this new renovation. We also have a an opportunity for a cultural plaza, baby hairs, a labyrinth. Maybe there's um a way through art or through murals and such to really celebrate all of the different cultural heritage um that is so rich in this area, in particular in this neighborhood, in this city.

Volunteer may be a volunteer. We we have heard people talk about gardens. Well, you know, community garden is a is a little bit of a heavy lift. people trying to grow vegetables and such.

Maybe that can happen, but maybe it's a pollinator garden. Maybe it's it's certain plants that draw butterflies and other um insects and such. And it's something that can also be a learning opportunity for kids in the area. So, um again, there are many many programs. Oh, one other thing I want to point out is um right across from the um from the shopping center is an area where we have some parking, but we also have designated this as you see the little green spaces right where Elizabeth's cursor is. Um this is such that you could bring food trucks in here. this could be an area to program many different opportunities um on a flexible basis.

So I want to also point out the circulation. This is of course very important. Um the dark is the vehicular ser um circulation and um you could actually get in your car and you could drive all the way around. You can enter any of those areas. You can enter any of those parking lots. You can go through them and drive out one way or you can go and turn around and drive out the way that you came. Um the little bit lighter blue area is the bicycle um area for um for circulation. And we've set that up such that um the they the cyclists will have as few as possible um crossings for stopping. And then the lighter blue is the Oh, I'm sorry. Did I do that right?

Yeah. And the light blue is the pedestrian walking path throughout the campus. So you could come in over by the shopping center and you could make your way all the way across and go to a performance in the theater or you could park and walk on closely right in um adjacent to those spaces. So it offers a lot of flexibility, a lot of access from just about any part that you um you enter.

And important to point out the parking diagram. So, um, again, the tennis court parking is right there. To the left of that is existing parking. That is actually property that is will continue to be owned by the school district and leased by the city for parking. If you continue to go around, the same thing with that sort of um rectangular vertical piece. That's existing parking.

That will stay. And then along middle field is where the half submerged parking would be. And then the other little piece right there across from the shopping center.

So this plan is one that we say it has a flexible timeline and a flexible design.

It offers the most opportunity to maintain programming um to keep things going here and to pace this in a way that is going to be um affordable and acceptable and and something that hopefully people will get behind. So phase one, you could end up with that and and have a complete program and then maybe move to phase two and three and get to the full master plan. So, I want to point out this to show you how we have increased um what's here that we heard there's such a great need um for more square footage, more green space, more parking if you want to increase what you do here. So, the existing site has 20 uh 250,000 square ft of outdoor space, um 180,000 84,000 square ft of indoor space and 520 parking spaces. That's what we have right now. Phase one gets us to 390 square ft of outdoor space. Um, pretty significant increase.

It gets us to 265,000 square ft of indoor space. So, we could really increase the programming and another 60 parking spaces and 580 parking spaces. Now coming all the way through to the entire master plan with phase 2 and three, we increased the outdoor space to 415,000 square ft. Um we increased the indoor space to 284,000 square ft and we increased the parking to 840 parking spaces.

So now I'm going to pass it on to George so he can tell you how to get to work. All righty. Thank you, Bobby.

So, let's get to work. Um cuz I know it's it's hot in here even for us um from Louisiana. Um so, I'm going to go through this quick. All of the information that Bobby just went over is on your activity sheets um or on the back of your handout for reference. So, the activities, it's a two-part activity as Bobby mentioned. So, you have one large sheet on your table and then you have another one right underneath it.

The first sheet is focusing on phase one. What does the site look like and have going on at the end of phase one?

The second activity is what's going on at the end of phase two and three, the complete final master plan. Luckily, we made it as simple as we possibly could that the questions on both activities are the exact same. So, after you review the concept designs, you have at the top one of the views with a lot of these spaces labeled. Underneath that you have the first floor and second floor programming diagrams from overhead. And then underneath you have an eyele view and a few precedent photos to kind of get some of the uh creative thinking going. So the three questions that we're asking you is what is working well? What excites you at the top? What is not working well and what can be improved?

And then finally the third question is what are your creative ideas to make this space exciting? Um, so those are ideas of how can we use these spaces?

What are some events? What are some kind of almost like a what's a what's missing um from from these plans is that question. So after you're done with that one, um you can move on to the second uh activity sheet, phases two and three. Um if you want to spend 20 minutes on the first sheet and then 20 minutes on the second sheet, that's awesome. If you want to spend five minutes on the first sheet because you really want to get to phases two and three, that is also okay.

Whenever your group really wants to move to the second activity, you can move to the second activity. Um, whenever you're writing down your ideas, and that is super crucial, that is the most important rule and in fact the only rule. Please write down your ideas. If you don't write down your ideas, we won't see it. So all of that awesome conversation you're about to have, please write it down. You can write directly on the sheet. you can write on a post-it note and put it on the map.

You can write in the squares. Um just make sure your notes are clear. Um and uh we'll have a great great session. So um we're going to have about 30 40 minutes to go through both activities.

You'll hear some time checks from me or Bobby um to make sure that we're getting through both activities. Um and if you have any questions, I'm sure there's a lot of them. Um just uh please raise your hand. We have a lot of people that are going to float around and um we'll try to answer your questions to their best of our ability. All right, let's get to work.

Do you mind helping more with questions?

Yes, I see lots of hands. I'll just start at some point.