BACKGROUND:
On December 8, 2021, California State Parks awarded Cathedral City $8,498,000 of Statewide Park Program (SPP) Round 4 grant funds for the Dream Homes Park. MVR Consulting provided grant services, coordination, community outreach, and conceptual planning for the grant application. The SPP grant funds require that the Dream Homes Park Project (Project) be completed and open to the public by June 30, 2025.
The Project site is located on approximately eight acres owned Cathedral City in the Dream Homes neighborhood that had been designated for the Dream Homes Park Project. More specifically, the Project site is located adjacent the Whitewater River Channel sandwiched between the back of homes fronting San Diego Drive between Chia Place to the south and Mia Place to the north and CV Link. The land for the Project was purchased as part of a long-term plan for the City to provide a neighborhood park for the Dream Homes Community once the Palm Springs Unified School District (PSUSD) closed the former Agua Caliente Park on PSUSD property at the Agua Caliente Elementary School in 2014.
The award of the grant for the Project has been the result of long and hard work by community families, members and partners since 2014 with the coordination under the guidance of MVR Consulting (MVR). Residents of the Dream Homes Community participated in many community-based planning/workshop meetings starting from a blank slate. The community-based planning meetings were also attended by key community partners including, and not limited to, Desert Healthcare, District, Loma Linda University Health, El Sol Neighborhood Educational Center, PSUSD and the Agua Caliente Elementary School students, parents, administrative staff and teachers.
Strong support was also received from local government agencies and Assemblyperson Eduardo Garcia.
From the above cited meetings, the amenities proposed for the new park that are committed to within the approved Grant include, and are not limited to: shaded playgrounds, shaded fitness area, large and small dog park, CV Link connections, perimeter fencing/walls, parking lots, open play soccer fields of various sizes, a central plaza, picnic tables and shelters, walking paths, basketball courts and futsal field. The Project placement adjacent the CV Link provides additional active transportation (walking and bicycling) opportunities for the Project. The product of all this work is the State Parks accepted Dream Homes Concept Design included in this Staff Report which was compiled and submitted by MVR.
DISCUSSION:
Grant and Project support services are needed for this project. The Project will need to be completed on an accelerated schedule so that it is designed and constructed by March 31, 2025, meets all of the SPP grant requirements and is open to the public by the end of June 2025.
It is anticipated that the grant and project support work will take approximately one year to move the Dream Homes Park to the construction phase, with the remaining grant period utilized for the actual construction and finalizing the Dream Homes Park in accordance with the SPP Grant award requirements.
In addition, the SPP Grant requires Cathedral City continue to have meaningful, long- term partnerships for the Project. It will be important to continue coordination with these partnerships, which include the Desert Healthcare District as it provided the initial Community Needs Assessment program in conjunction with Loma Linda University Health and El Sol Neighborhood Education Center, that identified the importance of the Project for the community’s health. Additionally coordination with the Desert Water Agency (DWA), which encourages native planting and water reduction strategies, CVAG, which promotes multi-modal transportation with the adjacent CV-Link connecting to the Project and the Agua Caliente Elementary School, which helped with community outreach and being the venue for neighborhood park meetings, especially answering the call for the SPP Grant outreach needed during the COVID-19 pandemic by holding a virtual eight-day outreach with the school’s students and their parents so they could provide ideas and input for the park.
Engineering Staff is proposing to work with MVR Consulting (MVR), which provides On Call Grant Evaluation and Coordination Services for the City, to provide consistent lead support for the Project to ensure that the SPP Grant requirements are met as the Project is designed and readied for construction. MVR Consulting will provide this lead assistance in continued coordination of the partnerships for the Project.
The SPP Grant award also requires the involvement the Urban Conservation Corps of the Inland Empire (UCCIE), which is a member of the California Association of Local Conservation Corps (CALCC). MVR will take the lead role in coordinating with UCCIE to ensure that this requirement is met.
The final Project concept and site layout plan was part of the City’s SPP Grant award and was done with significant community input over several years, as well as, consideration of landscape architecture, engineering requirements, grant-required sustainability techniques, partnership ideas, and design opportunities and constraints, as well as integration with CV-Link. MVR will work with the Engineering Staff to ensure that the Dream Homes Park concept and layout plan, as well as the SPP Grant requirements for the park are accounted for as the Project moves to the construction phase.
Lastly, to meet the accelerated schedule set by the State in requiring the Project being completed by March 31, 2025, Staff will be evaluating the pros and cons of utilizing a conventional design to construction bidding process vs. a design build process. MVR will provide the research and findings in order for Staff to consider the opportunities and costs related to streamlining the overall construction schedule of the Project.
MVR has a long history and proven record of providing support for capital improvement projects, managing budgets and schedules so that design and construction time frames, and State Parks grant milestones and deadlines are met. MVR Consulting wrote Cathedral City’s successful Land Water and Conservation Fund (LWCF) Grant for the multi award-winning Cathedral City Community Amphitheater and provided grant and project support for the multi award winning $5 million SPP Program (Round 1) Cathedral City Ocotillo Park Grant. MVR Consulting has also worked with Cathedral City on other projects including the $64 million Cathedral City Cove neighborhood sewer, street, water, and storm drain project which was awarded the 2007 League of California Cities Helen Putnam Public Works Project Grand Prize.
MVR also wrote a successful State Water Resources Control Board Grant for the Dream Homes Community Water, Sewer and Street Assessment District Project thus offsetting some of the sewer construction costs, provided City support services on the Assessment District formation which required providing community outreach, project support and grant services during the design and construction phase of the project.
Overall, MVR has the experience to provide these types of services to assist the City’s Engineering Staff to get the Project to the construction bid evaluation stage.
Staff is requesting that the City Council approve a Task Order with MVR in the not to exceed amount of $93,900 to provide the Dream Homes Park Grant and Support Services needed to assist the City to bring the Project to the construction bid evaluation phase in accordance with the SPP Grant requirements awarded for the Project. It is anticipated that it will take approximately one year to get to the construction bid evaluation phase of the Project.
FISCAL IMPACT:
California State Parks awarded Cathedral City $8,498,000 of Statewide Park Program (SPP) Round 4 grant funds for the Dream Homes Park. These 100% Grant funds have been approved and are authorized for reimbursement.
The Grant and Project Support Services to bring the Project to the construction bid evaluation phase to be provided by MVR are eligible for full reimbursement through the Dream Homes Park SPP Grant.