Juneau committee approves staff direction to transfer CIP funds toward Burns Building renovation

City Manager Katie Kester presented updated cost estimates for renovating the previously approved Burns Building purchase and asked the committee to authorize transfers from existing CIP accounts to fund immediate renovations.

Kester said a full reverse reconfiguration of the Burns Building had escalated to an estimate near $20 million and that staff were advocating for a partial remodel with a target cost brought down to $8.5 million through value engineering. To move forward without undermining core maintenance needs, she proposed sweeping specific CIP balances (Capital Civic Center, North State office building parking garage, Waterfront Museum passenger-fee general fund, Lemon Creek multimodal path, and River Road junk-vehicle project) and asked the assembly to direct $2 million from general fund balance into the deferred maintenance CIP to be backfilled in the FY27 budget.

Assemblymembers questioned the timing, payback period, and which deferred maintenance projects would be delayed. Kester said moving to the Burns Building would reduce operating costs roughly 50% compared with current leased space, and she estimated a 20-year payback period under the status quo assumptions. She also said deferred-maintenance projects that could be delayed include a downtown library conference-room repair and an HVAC replacement at the fire hall; staff proposed replenishing deferred-maintenance funding from future sale proceeds of the current City Hall or other budget actions.

Assemblymember Smith moved the package of transfers and the $2 million appropriation to deferred maintenance; Assemblymember Hughes Candice proposed an amendment to appropriate $525,000 back into the Lemon Creek multimodal-path CIP. The amendment failed on a recorded vote (4 ayes, 5 nays). The main motion, as amended earlier in the meeting (including the manager’s direction to prepare transfers and include backfill language for deferred maintenance), was moved and carried with no recorded objection; staff said they would return with ordinance language and schedule the transfer on the consent agenda for formal action.

Kester emphasized staff would continue work to value-engineer the project and pursue grants where possible; she also said some capital items on the sweep-list had been previously funded and that delaying those projects would not directly reduce FY27 operating costs.

Next steps: staff will prepare the transfer/ordinance language for a future meeting, proceed with value engineering to bring the renovation estimate closer to $8.5 million, and propose FY27 budget backfill options for deferred maintenance.