On Wednesday, March 1st, City Council held a Capital Outlay & Infrastructure Committee Meeting to discuss the Plante Moran Cresa space needs assessment and a proposed building controls system upgrade project. Committee meetings are not recorded and the VRS team attended in person to learn more about this critical topic.

Committee Chair McCullough was joined by fellow committee members McIntyre and Bahr. Council members Donovic, Jolly and Morgan were in attendance as was Mayor Brosnan and Department of Public Works leadership.

In March 2022, Plante Moran Cresa began a space needs assessment of 9 city-owned facilities. Livonia owns approximately 120 properties (including smaller facilities such as bathrooms), but these facilities were selected based on their importance in relation to Livonia Vision21. The space needs assessment is a visual inspection of each facility (including the exterior and interior of the building) and analysis of space utilization to understand how each of the 9 buildings were utilized. Based on all of this, Plante Moran Cresa developed a comprehensive report detailing building needs and utilization findings. Plante Moran Cresa did not analyze adjacent facilities, such as the LPD gun range located off campus.

The overview of the space needs assessment can be viewed at the link here – https://bit.ly/3m9zPdW.

Here are a few highlights:

• The 9 buildings evaluated were City Hall, Police Department, Fire Department #1, Civic Center Library, Senior Center/Community Transit, Livonia Community Recreation Center, Housing Commission, Carl Sandburg Library, Alfred Noble Library, City-Wide Technology.
• Each building had areas designated as needing improvements deemed critical, able to defer and future consideration. $41M was deemed critical need; however, approximately $2M of these building repairs are in the process of being completed. $30M was identified as deferrable for 4 to 6 years and $34M was identified as a future need, 7 to 10 years.
• PMC Recommendations: Building a new City Hall, building a new Police Department and Fire Station #1 or making a major renovation to each property, building a new Senior Center (current efforts to build a new facility not considered in this process), Reconfiguration of the Livonia Rec Center, move Housing Commission to City Hall, Reconfigure the Civic Center Library and consolidate services offered at Carl Sandburg Library, and demolish Alfred Noble Library.

This matter will remain in committee. Plante Moran Cresa recommends a Space and Site Assessment be completed next, this process includes meeting with department directors to go over usage and needs to design a picture for what new, more efficient space could look like. It was proposed that this assessment, which needs to be approved by council, be included in the next budget cycle or that funds be reallocated from the current budget to begin the process sooner. The mayoral administration will have to bring the request forward.

The second agenda item was City of Livonia HVAC Controls Upgrades at the Livonia Police Department, Civic Center Library, Courthouse and Carl Sandburg Library. The current systems are decades old, have limited control options and must be operated in person. Most of the systems are no longer produced and to find replacement parts the city has to search eBay, this creates a risk that if the parts cannot be found the buildings would not be able to operate. The Library is able to pay for these upgrades from money already set aside in its budget.