Palm Springs chooses architect for homeless navigation center – Desert Sun

Plans to build a homeless navigation center in Palm Springs took another step forward Thursday as the city council approved a roughly $860,000 contract with a Los Angeles-based architecture firm to design the facility. 
But while the body unanimously approved the contract, multiple members expressed concerns about whether the contract was clear enough about what the city was expecting from the architect and whether it provided for appropriate levels of city oversight and input into the project. 
Thursday’s approval was the culmination of a process that began earlier this year when the city put out a request for proposals for bids from architects to build the center at 3589 McCarthy Road. The city says it received four complete bids, all of which were from Southern California-based firms. 
The bids were evaluated by a committee consisting of city and Riverside County staff. The evaluation committee “unanimously agreed that John Friedman Alice Kimm Architects had put together the most qualified team to provide the requested services for the project,” stated a staff report provided to the council by Palm Springs City Manager Justin Clifton. 
The planned homeless navigation center will provide temporary housing and a suite of “wraparound services” aimed at helping those living on the streets transition out of homelessness and into employment. Last fall, the council voted to purchase the site at the urging of Clifton and others who said it presented a unique opportunity to immediately buy an available site that would be well-suited to such a facility.
However, since then, many residents of surrounding neighborhoods have criticized the city for choosing to locate the center away from downtown and so close to multiple residential communities, including Desert Highland Gateway Estates. Starting in March, the city held three meetings at which residents could provide feedback on the center plans, which the city then said it would consider as it moved forward with planning the center. 
A vast majority of commenters at those meetings were critical of the planned location with many residents raising concerns that the center would bring crime and other problems to their communities. 
At the end of the most recent meeting, Clifton said he understood the stakes and that he could lose his job as city manager if the navigation center has a negative impact on surrounding communities. However, he also defended the city’s decision to move forward with the center and asserted that the city would make sure the center did not bring negative impacts and that a planned advisory board consisting of residents would help the city ensure that. 
The staff report also noted that the city is anticipating that it will be awarded up to $19 million in grants it applied for to fund the project sometime next month. Those funds will come from the state’s Homekey 2 program, which is providing $2.75 billion to communities to construct new housing units.
However, Clifton noted that he was requesting the council approve the contract with the architect because facilities built using the Homekey 2 dollars must be built and operational within a year of the grants being approved.
“This would give staff time to execute the agreement, and then have [the architect] in position to commence work immediately on the project pending notice and award of the Homekey2 funds,” he wrote. The city website states that the center is projected to open “in early 2023.” 
Clifton’s report also notes that the $860,640 bid is approximately 7.5% of what the city estimates it will cost to construct the center. 
The bid from John Friedman Alice Kim Architects touts the firm’s design of the recently completed Navig8 homeless navigation center in South Los Angeles and two low-income senior housing projects in that city, as well as its involvement in the planning for a navigation center in Palmdale. It also notes that the firm is women- and minority-owned with 53% of staffers being women and 47% minorities. 
Clifton’s staff report did not include information about the other bids, including their amount. 
The 3.64-acre parcel on McCarthy Road currently has three buildings on it containing around 46,000 square of space that are to be incorporated in the center. However, Jay Virata, the city’s community and economic development director, said that certain restrictions on how Homekey 2 funds can be used, including requirements that facilities have windows and other amenities, meant the city has decided that the largest of the three buildings is not being included in the design of the center at this point. 
Clifton’s report stated that the architect is being asked to provide “comprehensive architectural, civil, mechanical, electrical, lighting and landscape design services related to the project. The scope of services includes schematic design, design development, construction documents, permitting assistance, bidding assistance, and construction observation.” 
The contract also states that representatives of the firm must be present at all project meetings “reasonably deemed necessary by the city.” 
Councilmember Dennis Woods, however, repeatedly voiced concerns that the contract was short on details about which city staff members were overseeing the project and how the ultimate layout and composition of the center would be determined. 
“That’s a big concern, because how that site is designed and ultimately operates is really what is going to impact the neighborhood and it’s going to impact the success of the center,” he said. “And that seems to be a missing part of this. Because designing buildings and putting windows and ADA and all that, that’s minor compared to how the whole thing is done. So that’s my concern is: Who’s going to fill that gap in and how are they coordinating?”
City staff members later clarified that a “big picture” schematic plan for the site had already been created and that the architect would be basing its design on that, with the city engineer overseeing the process with input from other city staff members, including the city manager. 
However, Woods said he was still concerned that such an approach would not provide enough city oversight of the process. 
“The team should include somebody from the planning department, somebody from [the engineering] department, somebody from the city manager’s department that comes together and works with these, not just the engineering department overseeing a contract because this is too vital for us,” said Woods. “It needs to be successful. We’re throwing millions of dollars at it, the county included, and I just want to see a bigger plan.”
Woods also said he was concerned that the contract did not specify how many meetings the firm would be expected to attend and that the lack of clarity could lead the city to need to make costly amendments to the contract as the process progressed. Councilmembers Christy Holstege and Grace Garner said they were concerned that the contract did not seem to include enough requirements around community engagement in the process. 
“I do think that this firm looks incredible, I looked at their website and their work is stellar so I feel comfortable moving forward with that,” Garner said. “But what I’m hearing is that there’s a need for more information provided to council and to the community and just updates, and making sure that [the community] is included in the process so that we don’t have the issues that we had at the start of this project and people feel like they were blindsided by it coming before us.” 
Mayor Lisa Middleton, however, questioned the basis of some of the rest of the council’s concerns. 
“What we have before us is a design team contract,” she said. “And if what we are going to do is design the project from the dais and design all the project elements on the dais, then we’re going to be here for a very, very long time. And we will not have the expertise of an experienced design firm to work with.”
The council ultimately voted to approve the contract after Clifton pledged to bring city staff together around a plan of how the design process will work, including who will be involved and how — and how often — community input will be taken. He said he would then present that plan to the council and seek their feedback. 
“Then you can scale that up or down or whatever you want to do from there, but that would give you a  place, on one or two pages, to kind of see the whole thing and make sure that it’s what you’re looking for,” Clifton said. 
Paul Albani-Burgio covers breaking news and the City of Palm Springs. Follow him on Twitter at @albaniburgiop and via email at paul.albani-burgio@desertsun.com.

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