Special Bd. of Aldermen — 5/2/17 Page 11
Alderman O’Brien
For our investment of $15 million, what do you think is the life expectancy of this facility?
Mr. Aquilina
The kind of construction that would be incorporated into renovating it typically has a 25-30 year life expectancy.
What | am talking about is the mechanical systems. When | talked about Court Street outliving its lifespan it
really has to do with mechanical systems installed probably 40 years ago. Then certain areas of the roof and
the masonry that requires maintenance. There’s a lot of Court Street that was built in the 80s that is still very
viable. It just need an investment to renew some of those pieces. The building at Main Street would probably
have require some investment in its system replacements within 20-35 years.
Mr. Webb
On the bottom of the budget here, there’s a line called “allocation of capital reserve” Every year the bottom line
improves a little bit with contributing income basically staying flat. A little bit of inflation escalation. Every year,
we get a little bit busier, attendance gets a little higher. The bottom line improves. Starting in year four, we are
grabbing money and putting it into a capital reserve in order to fund the capital replacements that are required
over time. If that reserve is allocated and used properly, the building has a very significant lifespan.
Alderman Deane
That’s wishful thinking, but we don’t do that in this city. Our school district is a perfect example of that. We go
in to replace HVAC systems and 15 to 20 million dollars later, we renovate the entire school. | find your
economic impact, your quantitate/qualitative interesting. We just spent about $80 million on a roadway out
here that was supposed to generate all this economic impact down in the Millyard. All sorts of things were
supposed to happen. | believe that road is receiving maybe 15 percent of the traffic. It’s not doing much of
anything. It is costing us. We bonded about $40 million to build this roadway, but it really hasn’t delivered any
goods. Unless the economic development director wants to correct me on that, there’s been little or no spur of
economic growth down there.
Director Cummings
Alderman Deane, you are absolutely correct. | would just caution that the parkway just opened and these
types of infrastructure improvements takes time. | believe the Millyard will increase in value as well as other
opportunities closer to Broad Street. As of today, you are correct. The roadway is not used to the projection
level or to capacity.
Alderman Deane
Nowhere near. Let’s be honest about it. It was years in the making. It’s not as though that roadway popped
up. People knew about it. That’s another issue. I’m really leery of these economic impacts, although this is
different. We're talking about business and industry and these incubators, | think that was a little key word
used during the last election, about all the incubators that were going to be down there. This is different. This
draws a different crowd of people. It has a different interest. I’m just leery of these economic impacts.
Mr. Webb
It’s certainly not a guaranteed thing. The one suggestion | would make is when you are able to do so, | would
encourage individually or as a group you go and visit some theatres in towns like this in the northeast, whether
