Council Revisits Old RAND Buildings

By Mark McGuigan

June 26 -- With the new RAND Corporation headquarters slowly going up, the City Council this week began revisiting the fate of one of the think tank’s half-century old buildings slated for demolition across the street from City Hall.

But a list of options for consolidating City Offices on the RAND property purchased by the City for $53 million raised more puzzling questions than it answered.

As a series of four options (see table below) were presented by Assistant Director of Planning and Community Development Andy Agle, a single “bedrock question” bubbled to the surface and remained sufficiently unanswered the entire evening -- why the change of plan?

“I know I asked this several times at the beginning of the process about the re-use of this building,” said Mayor Pro Tem Kevin McKeown, referring to the RAND Z-Building that now made a surprising appearance on the list of options.

“I believe I was told that our agreement with the RAND Corporation precluded that -- so what has changed there?” McKeown asked Assistant City Manager Gordon Anderson.

The old RAND buildings, which are due to be vacated early next year when RAND moves into its new headquarters on the adjoining lot, were scheduled for demolition.

“The only thing I think has changed is given RAND’s work on their new building, RAND does find itself looking at the possibility of additional-use space outside of their new building size,” replied Anderson.

“There may be an opportunity to work out some arrangement with RAND to lease some of the space from us,” he added.

But this answer didn’t satisfy Councilman Ken Genser, who revisited the issue later that night amidst talk of parking concerns, lease prices and soil contamination.

“I want to pursue the question that Mr. McKeown asked earlier. We were told very clearly when we were in negotiations for the RAND property -- in fact they even insisted -- that we not occupy that property,” said Genser with some consternation.

“We took some heat in the press and letters and things like that, and certainly, that informed our discussions on the Civic Center provisions for consolidating,” he continued.

“So now we’re hearing that we can use those buildings or that maybe RAND wants to (use it), I need to get more clarification to understand what other plans are about.”

Anderson listened patiently to Genser’s request for more information but refused to be drawn on the issue, instead affirming that Genser should indeed have that information.

Since the study session was designed to solicit input from council members, no decisions were made Tuesday. The discussions will continue through the summer.