City Awards Aquatic Center Bid
The Glenwood City Council moved one step closer to building an outdoor aquatic center during a special meeting Monday night at City Hall.
The council formally awarded the project to Eriksen Construction of Blair, Neb., contingent on the city receiving at least $500,000 in grants and private donations from outside sources. The proposed facility, expected to open around July 1, 2016, would carry an estimated price tag of $5.1 million, but would not include a Lazy River, a feature council members have determined to be cost prohibitive.
Eriksen’s base bid for the project is $4.35 million. The $800,000 in additional costs would cover engineering, bond issuance and utility relocation fees.
The future of the aquatic center is apparently now in the hands of the Charles E. Lakin Foundation, which was earlier given naming rights on the project after awarding a $450,000 grant to the Lazy River portion of the project. With the Lazy River no longer in the plans, city council members are hopeful the Lakin Foundation will allow the $450,000 to be put toward the general construction costs of the aquatic center. The city will be making a formal request to both the Lakin Foundation and Iowa West Foundation, which awarded $50,000 for the Lazy River, to allow their donations to be used for aquatic center construction costs. Private donors who committed $56,000 to the Lazy River are receiving similar requests.
“We’re asking for those grants (and donations) to be shifted from the Lazy River to the pool,” city administrator Brian Kissel said.
Kissel said he is also hopeful Vision Iowa will award a Community Attractions and Tourism (CAT) grant to the project in the coming weeks.
In addition to grants and donations, nearly $3.5 million of the aquatic center funding would come from the issuance of bonds that would be paid off over 20 years with Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) revenue, $605,000 already set aside for the project and a yet-to-be determined amount of LOST cash reserves.
Susanne Gerlach, a senior managing consultant for Public Financial Management, Inc., of Des Moines, has determined the city will have around $1.7 million in LOST cash reserves at the conclusion of the 2014-15 fiscal year on June 30.
Deducting the $605,000 set aside for the project, would leave a LOST reserve balance of $1.1 million, Gerlach projects. Up to $300,000 of the $1.1 million would likely then be used to cover a projected funding shortfall for the project.
City officials have indicated a desire to keep a LOST reserve balance of at least $800,000 for future improvement and repair needs at both the aquatic center and the Mills County YMCA building. As a means of reducing the shortfall of funds for aquatic center construction, the city is considering a list of possible “deducts” from the project plans, ranging from the elimination of stainless steel lockers, competitive swimming accessories, exterior canopies and shade shelters, to having an asphalt roof instead of steel roof and making the parking lot a gravel surface instead of concrete.
The aquatic center is being built adjacent to a new auxiliary gymnasium at Glenwood Community High School and school district officials have been asked to offer their input on possible deducts.
Glenwood Community Schools superintendent Devin Embray, director of operations Dave Greenwood and school board member Dave Blum, who works in the construction industry, met with city leaders Thursday to discuss the aquatic center and possible “deducts.”
“We felt pretty good about the meeting,” Embray said. “We didn’t really care for the gravel parking lot, so if there was any way they could make that not be a deduct, that would be in our favor. It’s the one thing we really felt strongly about, because it’s asphalt/concrete everywhere all the way around.”
Possible changes to the exterior look of the bathhouse building aren’t a major concern to the district, Embray said, because the proposed color scheme would still compliment the exterior of the school and gymnasium, but the district would prefer to see a standing seam metal roof on the bathhouse instead of asphalt shingles.
Kissel said the meeting was productive, noting it was beneficial to have Blum take part in the discussion.
“It was nice to have Dave Blum there, because he kind of gave some opinions about some things,” Kissel said. “’If you guys throw this out, you need to pay attention to this because you’re going to get maybe a product that you’re not going to want.’ He provided some good information.”
No formal decision on the deducts has been made, but during a Budget and Finance discussion prior to Monday’s special meeting, council members reached consensus on about $212,000 in cost reductions, while allowing the concrete parking lot, steel roof and competitive swimming items to remain as part of the project.
A decision on the deducts could come as earlier as Tuesday night when the council meets for its regular meeting. City officials are hopeful they’ll learn by Tuesday if the Lakin and Iowa West Foundations are agreeable to having their grant dollars used for pool construction.