It’s possible that not even Gordon Ramsay could have saved the Grant Park kitchen project from going up in smoke at last week’s Los Altos City Council meeting.
The council voted 4-1, with Councilwoman Lynette Lee Eng dissenting, to abandon the renovation project after costs skyrocketed.
At the council’s Nov. 14 meeting, city staff presented two options to remodel the Grant Park Community Center’s kitchen after the county health department declared that it was not up to code for preparing food. The council selected the second option – which would upgrade and increase the size of the kitchen – and allocated $521,400 for the project.
However, after receiving no proposals after twice posting requests for them on the city’s website, Special Projects Manager Dave Brees said he had to cold-call firms to solicit designs for the kitchen. His efforts resulted in one proposal, courtesy of LCA Architects, for $124,500 – well over the $85,000 allotted for the design budget. An LCA quote for the entire project totaled $700,000.
LCA’s proposal didn’t sit well with the council. Mayor Jean Mordo questioned why the firm’s quote included billing the city for 822 man-hours of work, with many of the hours billed at different rates.
“We have to remember that it is a 60-plus-year-old elementary school kitchen that we are looking to convert into a 2018, 2019 modern-day commercial kitchen,” Brees said in response to the council’s concerns about the cost.
Councilwoman Mary Prochnow pointed out that the reason the city was told not to remodel Hillview Community Center and instead start from scratch was the exact problem the council faces with the Grant Park kitchen overhaul.
“For about $17 a person, you can get a boxed lunch,” Prochnow said about opting for catering instead of upgrading the kitchen. “You can spend $4,000 a month, (which is) $48,000 a year for 15 years (to equal the estimated cost of the upgrade). You wouldn’t have to clean up, you wouldn’t have to build … and people would have a decent lunch and you would support the businesses of Los Altos.”
Prochnow added that it was “absurd” to allocate that amount of money for a kitchen that serves “184 people for four Wednesdays,” a reference to weekly senior programming at the site.
Eng objected to Prochnow’s assertion, noting that the remodel would not only serve the senior program, but also groups that rent the space for weekend and evening events.
Councilwoman Jeannie Bruins made a motion to eliminate the project from the council’s agenda, but after the vote, debate continued when Mordo asked city staff to review the possibility of upgrading some of the kitchen equipment for non-city use for under $100,000.
But Councilwoman Jan Pepper asked Recreation and Community Services Director Manny Hernandez if the city could make its money back from private groups by investing in new equip- ment.
“At this point, I could not anticipate the usage would go up or down with any kind of changes to it,” Hernandez said. “I would anticipate that it would probably be about the same as right now.”
With Hernandez’s answer, Mordo withdrew his request.
