The City of Ripon is looking at plans of a new corporate yard.

The Ripon City Council just hired Goodwin Consulting – cost is to not exceed $5,800 from the General Fund – to provide the financial service in updating AB1600 Corporate Yard fund and those AB1600 funds currently with negative balances.

AB1600 is otherwise known as development impact fees.

Back in October, LDA Partners & Architects was brought on to put together a design and costs for a new facility – the current corporate yard at 339 Doak Blvd., built in 1976, was deemed functionally obsolete. The architects noted that the current corporate yard doesn't allowed much room for the expanding staff or for further growth, and may not be worth putting money into the existing building.

The corporate yard currently has 28 full-time employees and six part timers. That's a far cry from 44 years ago when the facility opened with two bays, a small office, break room, and seven employees.

Ripon continues to move forward with LDA and its final design of the first phase of the corporate yard plans along with funding options.

The scope of the work from Goodwin Consulting -- in addition to evaluating the AB1600 funds currently with negative balances to confirm sufficient AB1600 fees are being collected -- includes an analysis to consider the actual development growth rates over the last several years as well as interest rates charged to these negative balances.