Los Altos Measure A project costs were estimated at over $85 million by the city architect Andersen Brulee during the March 2015 planning for the bond measure. The 55,000 square foot community center building alone would have hard costs of about $25M and hard & soft costs totaling over ~$30-35 million. Without parking.
Is the Measure A Project $65, $85 or $165 million dollars?
The bond will raise around $65 million. [The city will kick in about $20M from reserves.] Over the 30 year time line to pay it off, the NO on Measure A supporters quote the City staff as estimating the cumulative taxes raised for Measure A (not discounted by time value of money) will total $165 million. Los Altos property owners will make $100 million in interest payments and repay the $65M principal. This does not surprise Lalahpolitico, as it will not surprise anyone who understands how their mortgage or credit cards work. I don’t think $165M was the right number for the No on A folks to wring their hands about and to propagate. It sows confusion. The uninformed voter will wonder, “Are all these factions talking about the same bond measure?”
Use $20M in city reserves to benefit downtown owners parking shortage?
Lalahpolitico likes to think of the Measure A PROJECT as costing $85 million. That’s $65M from the bond plus ~$20 million that will come from City Reserves to pay for underground parking. That $20 million is of course just from prior years’ City property taxes. [Any fees for City services like for filing building plans have to be “at cost” by law, and therefore, there can be no services “profit” to accumulate in City Reserves.] Regarding using $20M in reserves to pay for underground parking and contingencies… there are two things to wring one’s hands about: 1) facing an unknown economic future, the RISK of having reduced City reserves to a much lower level, 2) subsidizing expanded parking convenient for downtown without getting the downtown property owners to chip in with a “downtown parking assessment area.”
