Latest / Burbank / Library builder hired, union labor deal required; airport-area hotel advances

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Library builder hired, union labor deal required; airport-area hotel advances · Burbank

• 0:06
  Maya: On this week's episode: the City Council hires a team to design and build the new central library and civic center, and requires a labor agreement with the building trades. And the Planning Commission recommends a new four-hundred-twenty-room hotel at the Marriott across from the airport.
• 0:26
  Maya: From City Hall on Olive Avenue, here's your weekly debrief.
• 0:31
  Maya: Hotels came up more than once this week. At Tuesday's council meeting, the election announcements went over the local measures on the November ballot. One of them, Measure C, would raise the hotel tax, the one visitors pay, from ten percent to twelve.
• 0:45
  Theo: The announcement put that at about three million dollars a year for city services. And the city's own page says the rate hasn't changed since 1983.
• 0:55
  Maya: The other two, Measures CC and CD, are about how the council gets elected: citywide, as it is now, or by district.
• 1:03
  Theo: So, the dates. If you want to vote by mail, the deadline to register is next Monday, October nineteenth. An eleven-day vote center opens Saturday, October twenty-fourth, at Magnolia Park United Methodist Church. More open October thirty-first, and Election Day is Tuesday, November third.
• 1:18
  Maya: This episode was produced with AI from the public recording of the meeting. Links to the source are in the show notes.
• 1:29
  Maya: Our top story: Burbank has its team to design and build a new central library and civic center, and on Tuesday the council added a condition about the workers who'll build it.
• 1:39
  Theo: Remind me what's being built.
• 1:41
  Maya: City staff described a building of about ninety-seven thousand five hundred square feet, holding the library and city offices, across the street from the current library. It comes with a parking garage and about forty-three thousand square feet of open space. Staff noted that voters backed the project back in 2003. The design-build contract is with Clark Construction Group, working with the architects Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. It's estimated at a hundred fifty-five million dollars, and the whole project at about a hundred eighty-five to a hundred ninety million. The target opening is spring 2029.
• 2:15
  Theo: And how does the city pay for it?
• 2:18
  Maya: Staff said construction would be financed with a lease revenue bond. The debt would be repaid from the city's municipal infrastructure fund, which draws on Measure P, and not from the general fund.
• 2:29
  Theo: So where does the labor question come in?
• 2:32
  Maya: Clark estimated that a project labor agreement, which is a deal with the building trades unions, would add roughly two to three percent to the cost. Staff said the library wouldn't be covered by the citywide labor agreement now in the works unless the council amended this contract. Council Member Konstantine Anthony asked whether the decision could come back in two weeks. Staff urged a decision that night, saying delay costs money on this project.
• 2:56
  Theo: Was the council ready to decide?
• 2:58
  Maya: Not all of it. A council member objected that the staff report said nothing about a labor agreement or its cost. The finance director put that cost at roughly three point one to four point six million dollars, and a council member said the public should get to review a figure like that before it's approved. The same council member later asked the finance director whether four point six million dollars was a nominal amount. Going by the contractor, she said, three percent would be the city's maximum exposure, and it could come in lower. Here's the rest of her answer.
• 3:32
  City staff (from the meeting): But, yes, obviously, there's a value on that. Budgeting is values. Right? So everything is about what do we value more, having those extra funds available or having the union labor as part of this project.
• 3:46
  Theo: The city's project manager, from MoCA Systems, said the project's fifteen million dollar city contingency could cover it, though he'd rather not draw on it this early. He estimated that delay would cost about seven hundred fifty thousand dollars a month. Vice Mayor Zizette Mullins said she felt pushed to choose between cost and delay on information she'd only just received.
• 4:09
  Maya: The contractor said a union requirement would keep out non-union subcontractors who pay prevailing wage. A building trades representative countered that non-union contractors can still bid on public projects under a labor agreement. In public comment, three speakers asked for a labor agreement: two union members and one from a regional labor advocacy group. A library board trustee backed the design-build approach.
• 4:34
  Theo: So what did the council decide?
• 4:37
  Maya: It approved the contract unanimously. The approval requires a project labor agreement with the building trades before any construction starts, and a cost update to the council in January 2027. Staff said design can go ahead now.
• 4:52
  Theo: And next?
• 4:53
  Maya: Design workshops start in early November, and the project manager said they expect to hold at least four community town halls. Abatement and demolition could begin in the spring. The final guaranteed maximum price is expected back at the council next summer.
• 5:12
  Maya: Our other big story comes from Monday's Planning Commission meeting, where a new hotel across from Hollywood Burbank Airport moved a step closer.
• 5:21
  Theo: A new hotel where, exactly?
• 5:23
  Maya: On the surface parking at the Marriott hotel and convention center, 2500 North Hollywood Way, which would stay open. The plan is a seven-story, four-hundred-twenty-room hotel under two brands: Aloft for regular stays and Residence Inn for extended stays. It also includes a separate four-story garage with valet parking only.
• 5:44
  Theo: What was the commission deciding?
• 5:46
  Maya: Only a recommendation. The City Council makes the final call. The package covers zoning for the site, a ten-year development agreement, and the final environmental impact report. Staff said three impacts stay significant even with mitigation: greenhouse gas emissions, construction noise, and construction noise from utility work. Because of that, the council would also have to adopt what's called a statement of overriding considerations.
• 6:09
  Theo: What does the city get out of it?
• 6:12
  Maya: Staff valued the community benefits in the development agreement at about one point one million dollars. That includes thirty thousand dollars each for fire and police equipment, eighty thousand for Burbank Bus, and twenty thousand for Metrolink station maintenance. The applicant's team projected about two point six million dollars in hotel tax in the first full year. It also said the hotel would be all-electric, with solar panels on the garage roof, and built with union labor through a partnership with the Western States Carpenters.
• 6:44
  Theo: How did public comment go?
• 6:46
  Maya: About eighteen people spoke at the hearing. About a dozen supported the project: carpenters' union representatives, Chamber of Commerce leaders who cited tourism and hotel tax, current hotel employees, and entertainment workers who said visiting productions need more lodging. About six opposed it as proposed or asked for changes, most of them affiliated with Unite Here Local 11. They argued the environmental report understates emissions by counting hotel guests in its per-person math. They also called the employee transit subsidy too thin: three-quarters of a monthly pass, for at most a fifth of employees. Before the hearing, four speakers in general comment, three of them from the Burbank Tenants Union, asked for housing on the site.
• 7:29
  Theo: Could there be housing there?
• 7:31
  Maya: Staff said current zoning doesn't allow it, and the site isn't one of the city's housing element opportunity sites, though housing isn't ruled out there. The applicant's team said housing would take an entirely different financing structure, and that its preliminary search found no lenders interested. Staff defended counting hotel guests as a city policy the municipal code allows, since guests use energy and water just as residents do.
• 7:56
  Theo: And what did the commissioners themselves say?
• 7:59
  Maya: One asked for a firm guarantee that the transit subsidy would be a permanent employee benefit. The applicant's team wouldn't commit on the spot, but offered good-faith talks with staff before the council hearing. Commissioners who backed the project pointed to financing, union labor, the city's budget deficit and the projected hotel tax. One said he wished it had included something on housing, such as an in-lieu fee, and he also suggested setting aside some of the hotel tax for housing.
• 8:29
  Theo: And the vote?
• 8:30
  Maya: The recommendation passed five to nothing. The commission raised the required share of renewable power from ten percent to eleven, to match the environmental report, and the applicant's counsel accepted that. No council hearing date was given, and the applicant hopes to break ground about a year after approval.
• 8:51
  Maya: Now a few shorter items from Tuesday's council meeting.
• 8:54
  Theo: First, written comments. The city clerk said the city manager's office had told her that only comments sent through the city's eComment system go into the official meeting record, not emails. Staff said the goal is to keep written comments in one paid software system, because sorting emails, faxes and drop-offs was hard on staff, and that the city can't go back to the old way. Council Member Konstantine Anthony said he hadn't known about the change. The council asked for a short report on how Glendale and Pasadena handle emailed comments.
• 9:27
  Maya: The Burbank Book Festival drew more than fifty-three hundred visitors, staff said. Eighty of the hundred fifty-nine authors who applied were chosen. Self-published authors weren't accepted, and staff said a staff committee could change that rule. An independent author had asked for that change in public comment, and the council asked for a memo on how authors are chosen.
• 9:48
  Theo: The council also asked for memos on whether four-wheeled delivery cargo bikes are legal on city streets, and on the history of a Bible verse on the city jail wall, which a speaker who toured the jail objected to.
• 10:02
  Maya: On the consent calendar, which passed unanimously: a federal firefighter grant of about four hundred sixty-eight thousand dollars. The fire chief said it pays for paramedic training, so paramedic vacancies don't climb again. The same vote reaffirmed Burbank's sister-city tie with Ota City, Japan, which dates to 1983.
• 10:21
  Theo: The council reappointed the sitting member of the Burbank Housing Corporation board, and filled vacancies on the Cultural Arts Commission and the Sustainable Burbank Commission, each unanimously.
• 10:30
  Maya: And from Sacramento, the city's lobbyists said the state budget includes one point two million dollars for the Burbank Reservoir and for storing firefighter protective gear. A new law also gives agencies ten business days, instead of ten days, to answer public records requests.
• 10:49
  Theo: Before we go: if you hear something we got wrong, there's a link on this episode's page to tell us, and we read corrections on air.
• 10:55
  Maya: That's the news from City Hall. See you after the next meeting.