Considering it hasn't gone to vote to even approve the location suggested I'd vet that this is a preliminary drawing of a suggested
build for the city. It can't before than just in verbal and writing goals since the funding must be approved by the people here.
That could be, but the issue is basically a matter of what is being funded and approved at this
point. The reason I brought this up is that on publicly funded projects I typically have an approved Program and concept before any cost estimates are offered.
It seems simple but is often overlooked that before you can approve funding for a construction project you have to know how much funding is required. To do that takes knowing what you are building, which in turn often requires some
level of design effort in order to define the facility. That design effort must have some basis, which is where the Program or Needs Analysis factors in. This is often the 'which came first' aspect of publicly funded projects where the funding has to be approved before anything can happen but there has to be something upon which to
base the funding. Thus it is fairly common to break a project into multiple phases, with a separate
phase (or two) for Programming and design followed by a construction
phase with each
phase having separate funding. In many cases Programming and Schematic/Conceptual design are performed as a separate
phase of the project in order to determine what is wanted and to develop a sufficiently detailed concept, and related pricing, in order to then pursue funding of an appropriate amount for the complete design and construction of the facility. In those situations, any requirements
identified after a Program and concept have been accepted or approved are often considered changes. Some changes may be easy to accommodate, others may entail additional time and/or fees from the designers and may also affect the construction budget.
There are situations where other approaches may be used, for example the funding may be based on generic 'per square
foot' construction costs or the costs of some similar buildings. And there are some situations where a design team may invest a significant amount of conceptual design effort into a project 'at risk' in order to get the work. On the other
hand, it is increasingly common for publicly funded projects to employ approaches such as Construction Manager at Risk or General Contractor at Risk in which case the design effort and documents are typically somewhere around 60% complete before a construction budget is defined and that number approved. And if it is a design-bid-build approach that some public entities employ then any approval of a construction cost could mean that the design documents are already 100% complete and bid with what is being approved being the actual construction bid based on those documents.
In this case, it may be that what is being approved is the funding to start the design process. However, the fact that there apparently is a consultant involved and that there are drawings with some
level of detail at least suggests that there may already be some form of Program and concept defined. If so then that means that the type of information you're gathering now while very important should have been defined earlier in the process. That's why I'm suggesting verifying where the project is in the process so that you can both have an idea of what information may already exist and perhaps
gain some insights into how to best present any additional information.
Not specific to this situation, but this is where many projects encounter problems when there are technical people involved as while they may have a great understanding of the technical systems, they often do not have a good understanding of or experience with the processes and procedures involved in a construction project, or at least one having to go through the public bid process.
