Megan Navarro
DRIPPING SPRINGS — The renovation of a historic building in downtown Dripping Springs is getting closer to fruition.
Building history
At its Oct. 7 meeting, Dripping Springs City Council voted to approve a construction contract between the city and QA Construction Services, Inc. (QA) for the Stephenson Building and Parking Lot Project.
The building, located at 101 Old Fitzhugh Road, was built in 1939 during the Great Depression era by the Works Progress Administration, which employed millions of job seekers for public works projects. According to the city’s Historic District brochure, it was constructed initially as a high school, to accommodate the growing student population at Dripping Springs Academy.
The Stephenson Building was only used for 10 years for its original intention and, since being replaced in 1949, it has served multiple uses, including a community meeting center, a school, county offices and more. Also, the building was officially acquired by the city from Dripping Springs ISD in approximately 2009.
Project
Now, the city has been working on preserving and restoring the building for future civic and community purposes.
According to previous reporting by the News-Dispatch, highlights of the process include:
• Stephenson High School was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2013
• Architexas — the architect for the project — conducted a feasibility study of the building in 2020
• Named as a priority project for the tax increment reinvestment zone in spring of 2022
• The Historic Preservation Commission approved a Certificate of Appropriateness for the adaptive re-use and addition of the Stephenson Building April 6, 2023
• City council approved a Professional Services Agreement with Architexas for full architectural design services with authorization to proceed with design development phase June 6, 2023
• The design development phase was completed and presented to council, including a cost estimate, Nov. 14, 2023
• Council approved the acceptance of the Stephenson Building Rehabilitation and Improvement Project 100% construction documents June 18, 2024
Most recently, the project’s committee met with QA throughout the month of September to hold multiple value engineering reviews on the budget. Then, on Sept. 25, QA submitted final value engineering and alternate selections based on committee consensus.
On Sept. 29, committee recommendations were submitted, including value engineering, before council considered the construction contract at its most recent meeting Oct. 7.
The recommended base bid items, explained city administrator Ginger Faught in the agenda item’s presentation, are $3,014,000 for the building and $1,267,000 for the parking lot component of the project, coming out to a total of $4,281,000. However, that final number would look different with the add alternates and value engineering.
As part of the value engineering, the committee is also looking at the valuable things that could be included in the budgeted project, as well as how to cut the cost down to a more “reasonable level,” explained Keenan Smith, TIRZ project manager.
The recommended alternates include: $59,000 for replacing windows at the existing building; $26,000 for roof thermal and acoustic insulation; and $113,000 for parking lot power. These would add a total of $198,000 to the base bid.
“In the base bid [are] multiple layers of insulation, including some gib board to protect it for fire rating,” Smith explained. “But the alternate would just do a different kind of insulation, including a spray foam that would also get us better acoustical performance within that space and enhance the value of the space for performances, which is one of its primary purposes.”
Smith continued to state that the parking lot power stub ups, recommended by the Parks and Community Services Department, would be beneficial for farmers markets and community events, so that cables would not need to be strung up everywhere.
Additionally, value engineering reductions came out to a total of $31,800: “Last summer, we spent pretty much the entire summer looking at value engineering in the first round, so the second round is going after, really, getting it down to the bone, things that we can remove that would not deduct from the functionality of the space, but would still perform well,” Smith said.
This includes the following:
• Eliminated decorative pavers throughout
• City to provide quarry rocks
• Eliminated flagpole
• Eliminated most window treatments
• Eliminated picture hanging system at gallery
• Eliminated overhead cabinets at catering
• Eliminated overhead cabinets at Addition Entry Lobby
• Eliminated counter at Green Room
• Eliminated carpet tile and finished concrete in Addition Entry Lobby, instead doing sealed concrete throughout
• Voluntary deduct for lighting fixtures
With the base bid, add alternates and value engineering, the net contract amount is $4,447,200 and, with a 10% contingency added, that total is $4,891,920, presented Shawn Cox, deputy city administrator.
“In the FY 2025 debt issuance, we accommodated [$4,695,163]. We have an additional $200,000 in landscaping funds. We looked through the contract specifically for what items were specifically related to landscaping, and we are able to use our landscaping fund that is paid by developers for the tree replacement programs and those types of things on those items, so that’s why you have that $200,000 there,” Cox said. “So, we have a total funding of [$4,895,163], which, again, provides you a fully-funded project.”
Council consideration
Moving into discussion across the dais, council member Geoffrey Tahuahua questioned the cost of removing the flagpole “in the grand scheme of things on a $5 million building,” to which Smith responded that it cost $2,500.
Council member Sherrie Parks, who participated on the committee, said that the staff did as good of a job as they could do, but “we are left with a really expensive project.”
Reverting back to Tahuahua's question was council member Taline Manassian, who asked the reason for the removal of the flagpole.
“We looked at it as this is an area for some cost savings. It’s also an area that is easy to add back at any time, so, in a future budget or a future budget amendment, should we not use all of the contingency funds, we might be able to add that back in,” Cox responded. “But, again, looking at bringing a fully-funded contract, we looked under every couch cushion [and] under every rug, making sure we could find every cent we could.”
Tahuahua asked if it would be possible to split the item for council to take a vote on the parking lot plus the power, and, then, take a separate vote on the building with the related add alternates.
“It would be council’s discretion, but I would say that I don’t know if it will change the cost of each base bid since they were done together. So, that’s my only concern regarding that,” city attorney Laura Mueller said.
The council member continued to state that he has consistently had issues with the cost of the building, as he still thinks it’s a lot, considering what it is and how it will be utilized. He said that the parking lot has a larger benefit, so he would like to split the question between that and the building, so “I can vote for the parking lot and vote against the building, but if that’s not something available to me in terms of it would mess up everything too much to be consistent like that, then I am fine just moving forward as it is presented and I’ll just vote for the totality of the item.”
Mueller said that her concern is that the cost would change because it was done as a package, even though the base bids were separate in the agreement.
Council member Travis Crow said that he understands that it’s been a difficult two years of meeting with longtime Dripping Springs residents to ensure their voices are heard and, to him, he is not happy with the cost, but he thinks it’s the key area of what the city is trying to build in tying downtown together. He added that he appreciates everyone’s work in getting the project off the ground.
“Now that we are at the place where the work is actually going, yes, it’s a big price tag, but I think it’s an incredibly exciting project that we are getting to the point of actually seeing the fruit of,” Manassian said.
Ultimately, council voted 4-1 — with Tahuahua dissenting — to approve the construction contract with QA for the project. This includes both the building and parking lot items in one motion.
Now that the contract was approved, the city will issue a Notice to Proceed on Oct. 20, after obtaining performance and payment bonds, and the anticipated timeframe for the contract is 365 calendar days to completion, Cox said.
Dripping Springs City Council meets next at 6 p.m. Oct. 21.
