Successful implementation of the Libraries for All capital building program will require the participation of a large number of people representing a variety of interests. This management plan describes how theses relationships will be developed and sustained.

Most broadly, implementation of the building program will be accomplished through a collaborative partnership among citizens, the Library Board, Mayor and City Council, the City Librarian, an internal staff team, and numerous consultants and contractors. The broad functional relationships among these partners is described in very simplified terms in

Figure 1, following. [web version: Figure1: Functional Relationships]

Figure 2 describes in more detail how the Library Board and City Librarian intend to organize the teams of staff and consultants to accomplish the building program. [web version: Figure 2: Organization Chart ]

A team of six or seven internal staff will manage a large number of consultant contracts, and will provide the interface between the contractors and the Library, and also between the Library and other stakeholders. These other stakeholders include the Mayor and City departments, the City Council, the Oversight Committee, the Citizens Implementation Review Panel, citywide civic organizations, neighborhood organizations, and the public in general.

The external consultants that will be deployed for implementation of the Capital Program include project management support, design teams, and construction teams.

The proposed organization chart in figure 2 shows two kinds of project management support: first, a "program manager consultant team" who perform a variety of functions that cut across all the various kinds of buildings projects in the program. Second, the chart shows "construction managers" assigned to individual projects or groupings of projects. A brief description of the program and project management functions, and next steps regarding those functions is provided in Section III.

Figure 2 also shows a greatly simplified concept of design and construction teams assigned to the different kinds of buildings in the program. For a discussion of design team procurement please refer to Section IV. For a discussion of how the design and construction teams will work together to deliver projects, refer to Section V.

Section VI summarizes the Library’s strong commitment to public participation throughout the program, from design team selection to financial reports at the end of construction.

Internal capital program staff will consist of a Capital Program Director, a Finance and Information Systems Manager, three to four Project Managers, and an Administrative Secretary.

All positions except the Administrative Secretary would be exempt positions with respect to Civil Service and the Fair Labor Standards Act. In addition, all, including the Administrative Secretary, would be subject to sunsets not later than the year 2007. The Capital Program Director would be sunset at the end of 2003. One Project Manger would be sunset at the end of 2003, another at the end of 2004.                                                                                       

The size and complexity of the 26-building Libraries for All capital program dictate a mixed approach to program management, with control and accountability held closely by the Library Board and staff but with the management assistance of contracted professionals. The contracted management services are meant to augment the management functions of the internal capital program team, not to substitute for them.

The organization chart in Figure 2, preceding, shows at least three different ways in which contracted management professionals are planned to be used in the implementation of the Library building program.

First, particular expertise such as real estate support for site acquisition will likely be contracted for individually, with those contracts managed by the individual in-house project managers.

Second, there will be need for certain areas of management expertise that cut across a number of the individual projects in the building program, and may be more specialized than the skills one would expect in the internal program staff. These skills may include environmental review and permitting, scheduling support, development of design standards, graphics, surveys and testing, and others. These skills might appropriately be contracted from a program or project management firm, with a contract that is sufficiently flexible as to allow additional support on an "as needed" basis.

Third, it is probable that the building of the Central Library and selected branches will require construction management support beyond the internal project managers. This support might be contracted for from individuals or firms.

The first steps for procuring this support are varied: some individual contract support will be needed to "bridge" until internal staff can be hired, and these contracts can be relatively small and simple. For the more general program management support, the Board will want to wait until the Capital Program Director is hired and more internal team members are in place, to decide more concretely what is needed in the early phase of the building program. It might be that a one-or two-year contract with a program management firm to begin the work would be in order, with no guarantees the firm will continue in that role through the project. Contracts with project construction managers for the individual projects should wait until the internal teams are on-board and the projects are more fully scoped.

Throughout the community’s conversation about the development of new and enhanced capital facilities for libraries, there has been almost uniform consensus within the community and among members of the Library Board that the facilities to be built under the Libraries for All plan should be both highly functional and beautiful. The first steps toward meeting these twin objectives involve the selection of outstanding design teams. The Facilities Committee has recommended design team selection should occur through a competitive process that will be far-reaching, public, and very visible, and that will result in the selection of a design team, not a design. This section summarizes a selection process for design teams, both for the Central Library and for early branch projects.

The first projects that will require design support include five new buildings and one renovation. The five new buildings are Central, High Point, Ballard, Beacon Hill, and Henry. The first renovation is at West Seattle, and involves an internal addition.

Requests for Qualifications for design teams for the early facilities should be published no later than February, 1999. By that time the Board will have made the first hiring decisions for an internal management team, and also will have made decisions about whether the Library will employ a GC/CM model for delivering the project.

There follows a description of a process for both the Central Library and for early neighborhood branches.

The design team for the Central Library will be procured through a two-step process: 1) Issue a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) advertised nationally, and use the resulting Statements of Qualifications to short-list about five firms. 2) Select from among the short-listed firms based on more detailed proposals, interviews, and site visits to their home offices.

Both the initial narrowing to a short list and the choice of a single design team would be done by action of the Library Board, upon a recommendation from an advisory selection panel. The advisory panel should be about eight or ten people, composed something as follows: eminent architect(s) who have no vested interest in the project (though they might have an interest in one or more of the branch projects), representative(s) of the Design Commission, representative(s) from community-wide civic groups, representative(s) of the Library Foundation, the City Librarian, a representative of AFSCME Local 2083, and a representative of the Mayor, a representative of the City Council, and representatives of the downtown neighborhood. The selection process would be staffed by the internal project management team, and would be assisted by legal counsel - probably both someone from the City attorney’s office and outside legal counsel as well.

Statements of Qualifications would be judged relative to criteria of experience and performance, including the following types of criteria: Experience in buildings of this type, size, and budget; demonstration of design excellence in past projects; experience working with community processes, local governments, permitting processes, and design review; public works experience; and a history of client satisfaction as demonstrated by personal references from at least three recent clients and a history of cost control and of little or no litigation on these types of projects. In addition, we would want to know who specifically from the firm will be assigned to this project, and will want to evaluate the experience and performance of those particular people. Finally, if the Board chooses a "General Contractor/Construction Manager" (GC/CM) model for project delivery, the design firms should be judged also on their experience with that model and their willingness to work with such a model again.

Those firms chosen for the "short list" would be asked to present proposals that would allow the advisory selection panel and the Board to understand more fully the way the various firms would approach this particular project. While we would not solicit formal designs in this process, we would want to know more about the firm’s design philosophy and would want to know their preliminary ideas about how best to meet the Library’s program needs on the selected site.

As part of this stage of the process, we would expect public interviews by the Library Board, with the assistance of the selection panel, and we would provide a forum to ask questions of and provide feedback on the approaches proposed by the various firms.

Essentially, the selection of a design team from among the pre-qualified candidate firms will be largely a matter of "chemistry." The Board and the community will need a clear sense of how it will feel to work with this firm: how the team will communicate their ideas, and how they will respond to concerns; how they will listen to feedback, and generally how their approach will best capture the community’s aspirations for a functional and beautiful downtown library.

The first projects requiring new construction among the neighborhood branches are Beacon Hill, Ballard, High Point, and North Capitol Hill (the Henry.) All of these require additional site selection work. Having a design team on board for each of the facilities will aid in the site selection process, and it is the Committee’s intent that the Board select design teams for the branches before the final site selection occurs.

An additional complicating factor for the implementation of the early branch projects is that in Ballard and on North Capitol Hill the Library has been in discussion with Neighborhood Planning committees who may advocate that the library be part of another mixed use development. In those cases, if both the neighborhood and the Board decide it is in the neighborhood’s interest and the Library’s to co-locate with other uses, then the Library may need space programming and some professional expertise to assist in negotiations over space, but not a full design team as would be required for a new stand-alone building.

Assuming site selection decisions are made (including whether the site might include co-location with other uses), the process for design team selection for neighborhood branch projects might be very similar to the process outlined above for the Central Library. In general, the process would include the two steps of pre-qualification and selection based on a more detailed proposal, though as with the Central Library there would not be an expectation of firms providing formal designs.

The Request for Qualifications would be issued nationally, with an invitation to firms to send statements of qualifications and letters of interest for one or more of these fist four branches. Each neighborhood would then have an advisory selection panel who would be composed of both design professionals and community representatives, representative(s) of the Library Board, the City Librarian, representatives of the Mayor, and City Council, and others. The panel would recommend a short-list to the Board for their own neighborhood facility. The neighborhood panel would then also advise the Board regarding the selection of a team from the short-listed firms, after a public forum wherein the neighborhood has the opportunity to meet and question the pre-qualified firms.

Washington State law allows basically three different ways to organize design and construction teams in the delivery of a Public Works project. The traditional method, Design - Bid - Build, involves a linear process in which the design team is selected, performs its work resulting in a complete design and in construction documents, which are then the basis for issuing a request for bids. Construction teams compete through a bid process, and the lowest responsive bid wins the construction contract and builds the building. In recent years State law has allowed two alternatives to this process. One is a Design/Build process, in which a single team, with both design and construction expertise, forms to design and build the project. The second alternative, labeled the General Contractor/Construction Manager (GC/CM) method, involves the selection of an independent design team, with selection of a construction team soon thereafter, before schematic design is completed. The construction team then assists the design team in efforts such as cost estimating, constructability review, and value engineering.

The processes prescribed by State law for each of these alternative project delivery mechanisms are summarized in a matrix following this page. In addition, the advantages and disadvantages of the alternative processes are described in a second matrix immediately thereafter. [web version: see Project Delivery Mechanisms and Pros and Cons of Alternative Procurement Processes]

For the Central Library, the Library Board’s Facilities Committee is recommending the use of a GC/CM model for project delivery. The choice of a GC/CM model requires public notification and an opportunity for public review and comment, after which a final determination to use this procedure may be made only by the City Council. The Council’s determination is appealable to superior court within 30 days, provided that notice of such appeal is made to the Council within seven days of the determination.

A draft resolution to begin this process is included on the following page.[web version: see Draft Resolution, City Council]

For neighborhood branch libraries, the current working assumption is that the traditional design-bid-build procedures will be used.

When the Library Board adopted the Libraries for All Plan, it was unequivocal in its commitment to ongoing public participation, well beyond the vote on Proposition 1. The Plan says it clearly:

Libraries are the most democratic of all institutions helping citizens engage in self-governance. Thus, it is important to take all necessary steps to put in place continuous, ongoing mechanisms for public input.

The Library will involve neighborhoods in remaining siting, design, and planning issues for the new and improved libraries recommended in this capital plan. Additionally, staff and Board members intend to meet with groups on all library issues of interest to the community. These might include capital plan implementation, technology improvements, collection enhancements, hours, and other service considerations. This could happen through neighborhood Friends of the Library groups, school groups, neighborhood planning, or randomly selected focus groups. However it happens, the Seattle Public Library is committed to working closely from now into the future with the people of Seattle to ensure quality library services.

This commitment extends to neighborhood and community participation in design team selection, site decisions, the actual design of facilities, construction updates and cost reporting, mitigating the impacts of construction, and other issues critical to the neighborhood. The Library will work closely with existing neighborhood groups, including neighborhood planning, and with other groups representative of community interests.

In addition, the Library will establish a Citizen Implementation Review Panel by March 13, 1999, to act as an additional sounding board for community opinion during the implementation of the program. A copy of the Board’s resolution committing to the establishment of this Panel is included in the following pages.

See "Libraries for All" Review of Financial Analysis and Table of Capital Improvements .