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Council approves interior conversion of Garage 9 into city office space for housing division
Summary
The Fresno City Council approved a project to convert much of Garage 9’s interior into offices for the Housing and Homeless Division; council members were told the work makes minimal changes to the parking structure itself and includes limited ADA path-of-travel improvements.
The Fresno City Council on a 5-0 vote approved a project to convert large portions of Garage 9 into office space that will house the city’s Housing and Homeless Division.
City staff and project representatives told the council the work is primarily an interior remodel to create offices, conference rooms and management space, and includes asbestos remediation, new mechanical systems, new finishes and some ADA path-of-travel adjustments outside the first-floor doors. “Virtually nothing… 99% of what is occurring is happening interior, inside the walls for the purposes of establishing the office space,” one staff member said during the discussion.
Council members raised concerns that the agenda caption “garage renovation” could be misleading because the project does not substantially rehabilitate the public parking structure. A council member asked what would happen if a later structural study found problems that required the garage to close after the city had spent money on interior work. Staff said the project includes striping and short exterior ADA improvements required by the change of use but does not fund major structural rehabilitation.
Staff said the city has an earlier Walter P. Moore study of parking assets and that, based on that and more recent reviews, Garage 9 is in relatively good condition compared with other garages. Director Clark said there are “medium and low priority” projects in various garages and that larger structural modernization is being addressed separately through an automation project for which funds were appropriated at a prior meeting.
A council member noted the project was advanced at the council’s request to reutilize a city-owned, underused asset rather than continue leasing space for departments. Staff confirmed the interior conversion has been discussed with council repeatedly over the last two years and is intended to consolidate city department functions into this building.
The council voted to approve the project when a motion and second were put before the body; the clerk recorded the motion as passing 5 to 0.
Council members did not identify a dedicated funding source in the discussion for any future, unforeseen major structural repairs to the garage if they were discovered after interior conversion; staff said such needs would be handled through existing budget processes and prioritized against other parking asset needs.
