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7.C. - Page 2 of 178 and serves as a "second home" for many of our honored senior citizens in Redwood City, including our veterans. The circa -1956 VMB/SC building is deteriorating; the campus encompasses four buildings which separate program participants and social interaction opportunities; the adjacent Herkner Pool is outdated and deteriorating; and the facility allows little flexibility due to its design. There are numerous problems with the existing complex, including: buildings are costly to maintain and are not energy efficient; staffing inefficiencies due to the number of separated facilities; buildings show excessive wear -and -tear and are at their electrical capacity; there is no main welcoming center; there is no physical access from the Center to the Herkner pool and the Senior Center Annex; and the design and other limitations of the facilities hinder maintaining current and attracting new users. Concurrently, the YMCA of Silicon Valley was engaged in a similar scoping process and possible expansion of its operations in Redwood City with a new, larger facility. The City and YMCA staff believed there was an opportunity to explore a joint development project, and on December 12, 2011, City Council approved a partnership agreement to consider a visioning process of building a joint -use intergenerational health, wellness and recreational facility at Red Morton Park. Numerous Partnership Task Force meetings, stakeholder engagement meetings, staff retreats, and community and member surveys were held between 2011 and 2014. On December 8, 2014, the City Council approved a Letter of Intent (LOI) with the YMCA of Silicon Valley. In the first half of 2015, the City and the YMCA developed a Request for Qualifications/Proposal for Phase 1 of the architectural services which included a full site analysis, building massing, constraints analysis and the development of a Project Description. ELS Architecture and Urban Design was awarded a contract by the City Council and YMCA Board and went on to hold a series of community workshops in the latter half of 2015 to discuss concerns and further explore a project description. On June 27, 2016, the City Council approved an Exclusive Negotiating Agreement (ENA) between the City and the YMCA of Silicon Valley. The ENA allows the City and the YMCA of Silicon Valley to exclusively negotiate the details of the Project. Throughout 2017 and 2018, the City initiated a master planning effort, which included a series of community workshops and meetings focusing on design, traffic calming measures, future facility needs and various other issues. This process has resulted in the proposed synergistic facilities for intergenerational health, wellness and recreation at Red Morton Park. At full buildout, the project would include the VMSC and the Sequoia YMCA building, totaling 80,000 square feet. The environmental review for this Project began in August 2016, when the first notice of EIR preparation was sent to property owners and residents within one-quarter mile of the project site, with a scoping session held on December 6, 2016 with the Planning Commission. Due to changes in the Project description, a revised notice of preparation for the EIR was sent to property owners and residents in August, 2018. In June 2019 a Draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) was released for a 45 -day public comment period, with a Planning Commission hearing held on July 2, 2019 and comments received from the public and other agencies. The Final EIR, which includes responses to comments, was made available on October 11, 2019 for a 10 -day public comment period. The recommendations for CEQA certification encompasses the entirety of the Project, with both the Veterans Memorial Building/Senior Center and the Sequoia YMCA building. While the Final EIR analyzes the entire Project at buildout, the Project will be entitled and constructed in two phases, with the City as the applicant for the first phase (and thus initiating the Project and CEQA Page 2 of 17 City of Redwood City 1017 Middlefield Road, Redwood City, CA. 94063 Tel: 650-780-7000 www.redwoodcity.org 425