Manufactured panels untested against storm surge, council hears
The proposed two-story South Palm Beach Town Hall is about 11,000 square feet. A consultant told council members that making it smaller would require another design on a project the town has been studying for almost 10 years BELOW: A side view of the planned Town Hall. Renderings provided
By Jane Musgrave
When South Palm Beach Town Council members began imagining what a new Town Hall would look like, they agreed they wanted an eye-catching building constructed with energy-saving pre-fabricated panels.
After spending more than three years hashing out various details of the estimated $6.5 million project, they learned last month that their two goals were incompatible thanks, in part, to rising sea levels.
“It’s a beautiful building, but it doesn’t lend itself to typical SIPS construction,” architect Joe Barry told the council on Oct. 14, using the acronym for structural insulated panels.
Council members agreed with Barry’s assessment of the nearly 11,000-square-foot art-deco-style building that will feature large half-circle windows, curved corners and a flat roof.
“The building is absolutely gorgeous,” Vice Mayor Monte Berendes said.
They also agreed that neither money nor time would be saved by using the panels. They opted instead to use traditional reinforced masonry and poured concrete for the building that could be completed in early 2028.
That timeline could change if the council at its November meeting opts to send Barry and his team at the Fort Lauderdale-based CPZ Architects back to the drawing board to reduce the size of the building.
Echoing the sentiments of many town residents, Berendes again questioned whether the town really needs an 11,000-square-foot headquarters when its current building is just 7,000 square feet.
“It’s very large and I would like to look at the costs,” Berendes said. “From 7 to 11 is an awful lot. I see us in the 9 to 9½ range.”
Barry warned that shaving some 2,000 square feet off the building would require a “significant” redesign. Still, he agreed to calculate the costs of the additional work for the council’s consideration.
Already, his firm crunched the numbers to determine whether the SIPS construction was feasible and cost effective.
One of the problems with using the panels is that they haven’t been tested to determine how they hold up against storm surge from the nearby Atlantic Ocean, Barry said.
“There’s no way to know how these panels will perform in those conditions,” he said.
That would mean the panels could only be used on the second floor — and because of the large windows, their use on the second floor would be limited. The panels typically are used on buildings with conventional rectangular windows, he said.
Estimates his team made showed that the building would cost about $6.41 million if built out of mortar and poured concrete, about $70,000 less than if the panels were used. Any time saved by using the panels would be minimal at best, Barry said.
Rising sea levels also forced the council to reconfigure the office space in the building. To comply with FEMA regulations, the first floor of the building would have to be about 7 feet higher than the existing one, Barry said.
However, if no offices are located on the first floor, it could be just 4 feet higher than the current Town Hall. That would make it more accessible and slightly less expensive, he said.
The council agreed to move the office for the Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputies to the second floor with other town offices, meeting rooms and the council chambers. The first floor would be used for parking, storage, a small lobby and a cafe.
While hopeful that the building size and cost could be shrunk, Berendes said he can live with the building as currently designed. “If we can’t, I think we’re OK,” he said.
Earlier this year, the council shaved about $1 million off the project cost by eliminating a proposed third story that would have added about 1,700 square feet of space.
Town Manager Jamie Titcomb reminded the council that the building will be part of the town for decades. It’s important to build for the town’s future growth, he said.
“If we build it, we will fill it and use it,” he said.
South Palm Beach Town Hall timeline
1976: South Palm Beach’s current Town Hall is built as a public safety building. It contains 3,320 square feet.
1993: A 1,354-square-foot expansion is completed, allowing town offices and town meetings to be moved to the building from the fire station.
1996: A second, 2,016-square-foot expansion is finished, bringing the building to its current 6,690-square-foot size.
2016: The Town Council hires Alexis Knight Architects with a $50,000 contract to study the building and the town’s needs.
2017: Alexis Knight Architects proposes a $6 million plan to replace Town Hall with a five-story structure. The council unanimously rejects the plan as too extravagant and costly.
2018: North Palm Beach architect John Bellamy, hired to advise the town for $5,000, recommends ’adaptive reuse’ of the building. He said despite many of the building problems that were uncovered in the Alexis Knight report, the building can be upgraded and repaired.
2020: The council decides to focus on the Bellamy report, but the pandemic scuttles the town’s efforts.
2021: The council reconsiders whether to renovate or rebuild. In October, the council hires the Synalovski Romanik Saye architectural firm with a $63,000 contract to do a feasibility study.
2022: Synalovski Romanik Saye presents a $6.5 million design proposal. A few months later, Mayor Bonnie Fischer shows off an alternative construction material — SIPS, or structural insulated panels — that she saw during a trip to Georgia. Fischer said the SIPS construction method would cost only about $2 million — leading the town to change its focus to the new construction style.
Later in the year, the council launches another round of solicitations and selects yet another design firm, Slattery & Associates. But at its next meeting, the council tables consideration of the $15,000 contract so staff could do more research on the firm’s capacity to design a SIPS structure.
2023: The town puts out a new design bid for a SIPS building and only one company responds, leading the council in October to order two new requests for bids — one for designing and building the project and the other for hiring a representative to oversee the construction.
2024: The council signs a design contract with CPZ Architects of Fort Lauderdale for a SIPS structure, after four months of fruitless negotiations with Moonlight Architecture of Cincinnati, which was the council’s first choice. The town seeks a $4 million budget, which CPZ says will force the building’s size down from a proposed 10,000 square feet to about 7,000-7,500 square feet.
2025: CPZ Architects present options for a two- or three-story building, with a cost estimated in February at $6 million for the two-story structure and $7 million for the three-story one. The architects tell officials using SIPS construction will not produce substantial savings and hasn’t been tested in storm surge situations, leading to the council’s October decision to go with a two-story building using traditional construction methods.
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