Facilities Project Process with the City Council

This page tracks the City Council’s process to understand the needs of the citywide facilities project and explore the revenue sources available for municipal building projects, so that community members can stay informed about key steps in the process.

The most current information is listed at the top. The list will be updated regularly throughout the project. For questions or additional clarification, feel free to email Mark Shepard.

(Go back: Investing in Corvallis Facility Needs)

November 21, 2024 Work Session - The Council discussed the final report and recommendations from the Civic Campus Task Force final report. They also used the Sustainable Decisions framework to compare the Civic Campus and Police facility alternatives, using criteria drawn from City policy documents and community feedback received over the life of the project, including the Task Force’s Final Report.

November 7, 2024 Work Session - The City Council received descriptions of the four site layout alternatives for the Civic Campus and Police Facilities, along with staff perspectives on the reality of working with, and working around, the current building deficiencies. Council shared feedback about the alternatives layouts.

October 21, 2024 Council Meeting – The City Council took the next step in the Parks Maintenance Project by adopting an ordinance to issue revenue bonds to provide up to $35 million for construction of the new facility. With this authorization, staff has the flexibility to monitor the financial markets and to issue the bonds when conditions are most favorable for the City.

October 7, 2024 Council Meeting – The City Council took formal action on the Parks Maintenance Facility by passing a resolution to construct the capital project and to issue full faith and credit bonds to pay for it.

September 19, 2024 Work Session – The City Council discussed a funding strategy to move the Parks Maintenance Facility to full design and construction. The Council supported the proposal to issue full faith and credit bonds that will be paid back using current resources and anticipated future resources that will be freed up as the City’s current bonded debt is paid off over the next six years.

September 16, 2024 Council Meeting - The City Council supported separating the priority Facility Investment projects onto two tracks to simplify the upcoming deliberations and decision-making. The first track addresses the Parks Maintenance Facility to be discussed in September; the second addresses the Civic Campus and Police facility information that will be presented in November.

February 5, 2024 Council Meeting - The Council took action to formally create the Civic Campus Community Engagement Task Force and to appoint community member volunteers to serve on the Task Force. The Task Force is charged with developing and implementing a community engagement plan to gather input on the question of how to carry out improvements to the collection of buildings that serve as the Civic Campus in downtown Corvallis.

January 18, 2024 Work Session - The Council heard about the results of the 10% design work on the top priority facility investment projects — Parks Maintenance Yard, Police Facility and Civic Campus — and saw conceptual renderings of one possible arrangement of the Civic Campus site. The Council also discussed a public engagement proposal for the Civic Campus and expressed interest in developing a Task Force to lead the outreach later this year.

October 19, 2023 Work Session - Architects met with the City Council to present two possible designs for the Civic Campus project. One option would attempt to repurpose the existing City Hall building; the other proposes a new Civic Campus as an anchor along the Madison Avenue corridor. 

July 6, 2023 Work Session - With the project’s ‘fatal flaw’ analysis nearing completion, staff shared the results for Parks Maintenance and the Police Department, as well as providing information from the tours taken of new civic facilities in other communities.  

June 8, 2023 Work Session - Presentations by the City’s Bond Counsel and Financial Underwriter to provide the Council with information on the regulations for municipalities in Oregon to issue bonds or borrow money to fund facility projects.

April 18, 2023 Tour of Comparator Communities - Councilors and staff visited three Oregon communities to view their new civic facilities.  This was an opportunity to see how the design concepts the City has been discussing look and function in operating facilities. Councilor Jan Napack produced an impressive summary of each tour that captures the essence of the experience. The tour at Lake Oswego covered their City Hall, which includes most municipal services and Police Department facilities. The tour at Oregon City covered their Civic Campus, which includes Police, Municipal Court, City Council and Community Development. The tour at Hillsboro was of their Public Works offices and maintenance yard. The link below for this tour also includes a comparison of the Hillsboro site to the Corvallis’ Parks Department maintenance facilities.  

April 6, 2023 Work Session - Council heard about the recent progress on the Concept Design project, which included a report on the project sustainability workshops held in February 2023.

February 9, 2023 Work Session - Council received a briefing on the January 31 Open House, discussed their preferences for design components in a new Council Chamber space that is part of the Civic Campus project, and deliberated on whether to add Police Department facilities as a project for the in-process Concept Design work effort.

January 17, 2023 Council Meeting - The Council received an update on the preliminary planning process for the Civic Campus & Administrative Building, as well as information on the January 31 open house with the project architects.

September 22, 2022 Work Session - Staff shared with the Council the next steps to be taken over the succeeding months to get to the adoption of a Financing Authorization resolution, which positions the City to seek grants and issue debt to design and construct a facility project.

June 6, 2022 Council Meeting - The Council adopted the Priority Phasing Plan for the projects laid out in the Citywide Facilities Strategy.

May 5, 2022 Council Meeting - The Council discussed the priority order of projects to be accomplished over the next few years. 

April 21, 2022 Council Work Session – The discussion on funding tools for carrying out facility projects pivots to a focus on the most likely funding options, and on introducing concepts for how the funding mechanisms can be employed to create funding strategies to move projects forward successfully.

February 10, 2022 Council Work Session – The Council was presented with information about the various available options to fund a municipal building projects, along with the benefits and challenges of the tools and their limitations and restrictions, if any.

January 18, 2022 Council Meeting - The Council adopted the Citywide Facilities Strategy as a guiding document for the forthcoming discussions about addressing citywide facilities needs.

Citywide Facilities Strategy - The consultant team’s report on the assessment work effort includes findings and recommended conceptual-level projects.

November 15, 2021 Council Meeting - The City Council received a third briefing on the project at a regular meeting in November 2021, with a presentation that included an synopsis of the technical analysis performed over the entire project, a prioritization scheme for the recommended projects, and some thoughts on typical next steps for facility projects after the assessment stage is completed.

October 7, 2021 Council Work Session - The City Council received a second briefing on the project at a work session in October 2021, with a presentation on the solution development process, the recommended solutions and costing.

Facilities Planning Process - The process to move from an assessment of a site’s needs to addressing the deficiencies identified can take many years. This graphic depicts the stages in the major facility investment process, along with the typical steps that are taken in each stage.

Guiding Principles - In the second phase of the project, the consultant team addressed the key findings from the assessment phase through development of alternative solutions.   Guiding Principles were developed as a check that the alternative solutions aligned with the City’s and the community’s values.  These principles were drawn from the Strategic Operational Plan Policy Priorities, which are created by the City Council to move the organization toward the community’s goals laid out in the Imagine Corvallis 2040 Vision.  A solution was not considered viable if it did not meet the criteria in the Guiding Principles.

Current and Future Needs - The first phase of the project was an assessment of the current way staff spaces are used at each location, and how those spaces are functioning in terms of ability to deliver services to the community, green building practices, and resilient structures. This graphic shows the consultant team’s conclusions about the space deficiencies in the current facilities in providing current and future services.

Space Needs Projections - The consultant team used industry standards to determine the size of the areas needed for each department to operate with current staffing levels, and the appropriate storage for assets and materials, as well as with a projection of staffing levels for the next 20 years, to 2040. They also assessed the spaces required for the organization to effectively meet equity, inclusion, and sustainability objectives. This document details the consultant’s square footage projections.

Key Findings for the Portfolio – While each site had issues that are unique to the type of service delivered at that location, the consultants found common themes in the deficiencies uncovered across the portfolio that were inhibiting to efficient service delivery today.

Facility Ranking Graphic - The consultant team ranked each site on three criteria: condition, workspace quality and workspace function.  See the Facility Ranking Outputs link for more information about this assessment.  This Facility Ranking Graphic shows the average ranking across the three criteria for each location.

Facility Ranking Outputs - The consultant team noted the major findings for each site that were revealed during their site visits and through the interviews with department staff that they conducted.  These findings fed a numerical ranking for each criteria and an average ranking for each site.  This information was used to come to a conclusion about the capability of the existing structure to meet the current and future demands for space, as well as to inform potential alternative solutions to the deficiencies identified. This link shows the outputs from that process, which feed the average rankings captured in the Facility Ranking Graphic above. There was a fourth criteria, flexibility, which wasn’t used to assess the current condition, but was used to assess the potential of the current facility to be remodeled or repurposed.

September 9, 2021 Council Work Session - The City Council received a first briefing on the project at a work session in September 2021, with a presentation on the results of the assessment phase.

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