Prior to the post-graduate level thesis, a retrofit proposal -- reported by LBREPORT.com in December 2013 -- came to light from a professional, award winning Long Beach architectural firm (details further below.)

The existence of the latest retrofit proposal from a Columbia University Master of Science graduate thesis came to light in testimony by preservationist Nancy Latimer at a Nov. 11 Council "study session" [webcast LIVE exclusively on LBREPORT.com] on financial aspects of city management's favored "P3" transaction. The "study session" (held at NLB's Houghton Park community center) gave management roughly 45 minutes, while members of the public had three minutes each to testify. Ms. Latimer testified that she had conveyed a retrofit proposal to the City but it appeared to be going nowhere. No Councilmember followed up on her statement [and to our knowledge it has gone unreported by any other outlet thus far.]

The Columbia University thesis by Talene Montgomery, submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements of a Masters Degree of Science in Historic Preservation at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation in May 2014, states in pertinent part:thesis states in pertinent part:

[...The tower's seismic retrofit involves stitching together the outermost columns of the articulated external cores together to transform the structural steel frame into a ductile vierendeel tube. As illustrated on the next pages, the design intervention plays a careful game of embracing this flexible (rather than stiffening) structural strategy of directly tying the cores together, while attempting to maintain a reading of each of them as an articulated, vertical volume.

...PHASING PLAN

Goal: Minimize relocation costs with an outboard addition.

(1) Remove ex'g concrete panels
(2) Install welded plate connections at outer columns (per core)
(3) Re-affix original concrete panels
(4) Weld vierendeel beams between plates
(5) Install floor beams outboard of building
(6) Install curtain wall
(7) Remove original facade panels.

Retrofit showing connections across outer columns. Exhibit from thesis

Evacuated tube solar collectors convert energy from the sun into usable heat. This energy can be used for hot water heating, space heating and air conditioning. The evacuated tubes can be mounted on vertical or horizontal surfaces, shown here attached to the vertical piers to accentuate their surface effect. The tubes are fully demountable...The key is ensuring optimum exposure to the sun through the day. The SE facades...collect solar energy in the AM, and the SW facades, collect solar energy after noon.

Exhibit from thesis

The thesis continues:

[Excerpts from thesis, full document below]...The Long Beach Civic Center complex deserves a second look in the next chapter of the Long Beach Civic Center's redevelopment. Based on the local historical significance of the complex, and the notable urban architectural features of the city hall and main library buildings -- particularly the articulated cores of the city hall tower and the bermed street wall of the main library -- a strategy of structural and urban retrofitting is an appropriate means of renewal for the Long Beach Civic Center complex, rather than the wholesale demolition that the city is currently pursuing.

Regarding the Main Library (which the P3 proposals would tear down and replace with another library), the thesis proposes:

,,,Library Strategy: FREE THE EDGE

The library's retrofit involves displacing the bermed, external shear walls to the library's interior and opening the canted, formerly planted, edge up with a screened glass wall to allow views into the library from the street. The ambition is to transform the hidden institution into a recombinant library and community space that acts as an interior extension of the urbanism of the street.

...The library's retrofit involves displacing the bermed, external shear walls to the library's interior and opening the canted, formerly planted, edge up with a screened glass wall to allow views into the library from the street. The ambition is to transform the hidden institution into a recombinant library and community space that acts as an interior extension of the urbanism of the street...

The thesis concludes:

By re-examining the urban retrofit logic at the core of the American civic center type, this theory of retrofits suggests that a project of revitalization can be achieved within the existing urban parti, as a way to frame the future of downtown while situating it within the past. The design proposal does not categorically preclude the possibility of a public-private partnership at the Long Beach site -- the financial model for redevelopment that the city is currently pursuing. In fact, the sensitive integration of commercial and even residential functions, particularly towards the north end of the site could serve to bolster public activity and everyday use of the civic center space. What remains critical to the public and historical value of the site is that the core of the civic center -- including the city hall tower and the surrounding library structure -- remains truly public. And that the urban features that characterize the complex in the Long Beach skyline (the articulated cores of the tower) and on the street (the bermed, canted walls of the library) are preserved, while being strategically manipulated to accommodate the retrofit. Operating in this liminal edge territory of each building also reinforces this thesis's challenge to expand the criteria of preservation to include the urban design concept: in the case of Long Beach, the ‘tower in the park' as a civic urban type. The civic center's public offerings -- the plaza, park, library and tower -- should be preserved as a part of the city's history, and as a challenge to the outright demolition of the complex. The decision to intervene in precisely these territories of significance is also a challenge to preservation's prioritization of the exterior as an absolute and highest value.

Thesis: Seismic Retrofit to Rehabilitate Long Beach Civic Center

This is the second time that a retrofit estimate has come to light offering an estimated price significantly lower than what city management has told Councilmembers and taxpayers. In December 2013, an award winning architect who is the principal in Long Beach's Ultra-Unit Architectural Studio told LBREPORT.com that seismically retrofitting Long Beach City Hall could be accomplished as an adaptive reuse project for roughly $30 million [the same figure estimated by the thesis] and the building could additionally be made current-code compliant (for ADA and other purposes) for a total of roughly $45 million.

In an exclusive audio interview with LBREPORT.com, Mr. Crockett (AIA, LEED) estimated the total cost of the seismic retrofit/adaptive reuse and code compliance work should come in at under $50 million. Asked if his firm could respond to a Request for Proposals to retrofit Long Beach City Hall as an adaptive reuse project and make the building current code compliant for under $50 million, Mr. Crockett said "yes."

Mr. Crockett said he tried to meet with all Councilmembers, managed to meet with six Council incumbents or their office representatives and in his audio remarks describes the meetings. He says he also met with city management (public works) officials in a meeting he described as unproductive.

For LBREPORT.com coverage (including audio), click here.

Ultra-Unit Architectural Studio's website describes itself as "a boutique, leading edge Architectural - Design/Build firm...We don't do many projects, we just do them very well which means listening to our clients, using advanced construction technologies and doing architecture in the manner that it was done historically - as a Master-Craftsman. This makes us "ultra" qualified because we not only Design extraordinary buildings but that we can also accurately assess construction related costs and implications."

[Firm website text] We are a small award winning and premier Architectural firm that constructs what we design because we have found its the only way to assure the quality we demand in projects.

We are hands on. We create solutions through innovative problem solving, integrated construction services and sometimes just thumping a nail into a piece of wood.

Ultra-Unit Architectural Studio is team comprised of the professionals in the office and extends to the engineers, consultants, contractors and subcontractors in the field. This team shares a vision for creating the extraordinary, efficiently. Team leader Cameron Crockett AIA, LEED is both a California licensed contractor (#959011) and licensed architect (#31503) with over 25 years experience in single family residential, multifamily residential, commercial and retail, historic rehabilitation, structural analysis, remodels and new construction...

To date, neither city management nor the Mayor(s) nor the Council have allowed retrofit proponents to present their proposals at length (as P3 developer/operators were allowed to do) at a Council agendized study sessions. Instead, the Council has accepted without serious question a management estimated retrofit cost of roughly $190 million, a figure derived from seismic studies, not from bids or RFP responses from firms that actually do seismic retrofit work.

As previously reported by LBREPORT.com, city staff received a detailed report recommending a seismic retrofit of City Hall In Sept. 2005 (details, click here but never issued an RFP or sought marketplace bids for the work Instead, during Mayor Bob Foster's administration, city management instead pursued a "public private partnership" similar to that used to build/operate the new L.A. County courthouse. A fall 2012 report by the state's non-partisan Legislative Analyst's Office (LBREPORT.com coverage here) concluded that the P3 process as implemented in the courthouse, may have cost as much as $160 million more than traditional procurement. Supporters of the P3 process as used on the project have challenged the conclusions of the LAO report, which they call flawed.

City management and Council majorities under exited Mayor Foster -- but not yet under Mayor Garcia -- have voted to pursue a proposal for a "public private partnership" that (city officials say) would avoid a vote of the people. Two competing P3 developer/operators have offered proposals that would include a hotel, retail and residential components. Under a P3 transaction, a private developer/operator would receive land along Ocean Blvd. under the former Long Beach courthouse for private development as part of the transaction. The private developer/operator would also receive annual payments by the City based on a figure (escalated annually by a CPI inflator) that city management initially said would match what the City is now paying. City management has also assumed (for purposes of financial assumptions) that LB Harbor Commissioners will agree to "participate" (agree to partially fund, pay rent or otherwise facilitate) the P3 transaction by having the developer/operator build, operate and maintain a new Port HQ at the Civic Center site.

At the November 11, 2014 agendized Council study session, management effectively acknowledged [what LBREPORT.com op-ed author/analyst Terry Jensen has previously said] that the City would have to pay additional General Fund in addition to annual lease payments, that city management previously told the Council and public indicated reflected with the City is paying now..

Developing...with further to follow on LBREPORT.com.