If PPEL vote fails, GCSD ‘piecemeal’ effort likely to update athletic complex
The Glenwood Athletic Complex originally opened in the late 1940s. Even with some additions and improvements, the football field, bleachers and field house appear much the same way they did 50 years ago.
With or without voter approval April 4 on a $6 million Physical Plant and Equipment (PPEL) levy to pay for an overhaul of the complex, the Glenwood Community School District still faces the prospect of having to repair and update the aging facility along Sivers Road.
They just may have to do it over decades, instead of the proposed 18 month construction timeline outlined by HSR Associates, Inc., the district’s architects who designed the proposed athletic complex.
The Glenwood Board of Education has indicated they will not pursue the PPEL a second time if voters reject it April 4. A vote that fails to receive 50 percent of voter approval will mean the district would be forced to turn to its Secure an Advanced Vision for Education (SAVE) dollars it receives through a one-cent sales tax levy fund to pay for the athletic complex improvements. The SAVE fund was used to secure a $3.8 bond for construction of the auxiliary gym at the high school and continues to be used to reduce that existing bond debt as well as technology and building improvements in the district.
The district’s athletic complex has long been rumored to be past due for an overhaul similarly undertaken by districts in Treynor, Harlan, Council Bluffs Lewis Central and Plattsmouth, Neb. in recent years. More than two years ago a committee was formed at the behest of the district to study the facility and come up with a replacement plan. The Youth for Action Committee (YAC), a group of district residents that aided in the design of a new facility, presented the board with the idea of using PPEL funds after first unsuccessfully pursing private funding.
If the district does fund the complex overhaul out of its SAVE fund, the extensive renovations would likely take more than a decade and perhaps as many as 20 years to complete, according to Glenwood Superintendent Devin Embray.
“We budget those (SAVE dollars) very purposefully around the district for different functions,” Embray said. “We support education funds with our SAVE funds as well as buildings maintenance and upkeep. It may take many years to get the complex done.”
Using SAVE funds would also mean each improvement project would get done one at a time, as funds came available.
“We would piecemeal things to accomplish the things we needed as best can,” Embray said, adding the running track and improving Americans with Disability Act compliance would be the district’s first priorities.
The Glenwood complex itself has hosted Ram football since at least the late 1950s. The field house building opened in 1961. Additions to that building were added to the south in 1973 and another addition in 1996.
The field house, which houses the concession stand, a locker room and coaches offices, routinely floods during heavy rains from the nearby Sivers Road drainage ditch. The age of the buildings also continues to be a factor in maintenance and repairs. The outdated field house and restrooms are currently serviceable but in compliance with Americans with Disability Act standards only because of a port-a-potty which serves as the facility’s lone handicapped restroom.
The complex’s visiting bleachers also need to be repaired and expanded to better accommodate visiting fans and the press box is one of the smallest in the Hawkeye 10 Conference.
Glenwood’s current athletic track is also past due for replacement. Installed in 1999, with a life expectancy of 15 to 18 years, the track was on schedule to be replaced over the next few years at an estimated cost of $250,000.
“It might take two years to have enough money to do it,” Embray said of the $250,000 track replacement. “Every project down there (at the athletic complex) is probably a half a million to a million to actually re-do and bring them up to current standards. As we go, we’d have to save money along the way to do these projects.”
The facility currently meets ADA compliance for a building of its age, but once a potential remodel began that resulted in a certain percentage of remodel, the building would have to be brought up to the current code.
“That’s something we’d have to be very careful about,” Embray said. “Because we don’t have the funds to get up to the current (ADA) code if we start tearing into too many things.”
“I think it’s going to be an extreme challenge to do everything we need to do,” Embray went on. “And then you’re hoping everything else that happens in the district goes as planned so that you don’t have to pull dollars away (from the athletic complex) to do that. If this doesn’t pass and we have to totally use the money out of our SAVE funds to renovate and re-do, if something goes out as we move through, this project could take more than 15 years. If something comes up, it could take longer.”
And cost more?
“It will cost more,” Embray said, adding that a phased, multi-year project would cost as much as $2 to $4 million more depending on the amount of years, according to Embray.
“Doing the project the way it’s been designed and laid out, is probably the most efficient way to make it happen,” Embray said. “You have all the contractors you need there at the time the project is being done versus doing part of a project and everybody comes back to part of a project and then everybody comes back to do another part of a project. You’re constantly starting over all the time.”
Kurt Wilwerding, a member of the Youth for Action Committee, echoes Embray’s sentiments on the PPEL. When he and several other community members were asked to form the committee to assess the athletic complex, the future of the site was first and foremost in their minds.
“We weren’t looking at what our needs were now,” Wilwerding said. “We were looking at 10, 15, 20 years down the road. With that in mind, the obstacle we had with the ‘piecemeal’ approach was that it was more expensive because of inflation and the fact is some of these things are large capital campaigns, the school may never have the funds to do some of them. The bottom line is some of these things just might not ever happen (without the PPEL).”
Wilwerding said support at the first forum March 8 at the Glenwood Senior Center was better than he expected. A lot of good questions were asked and some concerns raised. Some felt the project was “too nice,” he said. But the design HSR came up with and the committee endorsed is one that looks to the future well beyond the district’s current use.
“We’re planning to build something that’s still going to be nice 15 or 20 years down the road.,” Wilwerding said. “You have to build something solid. We don’t want a half-crocked project that’s falling apart in 10 years. It’s a nice project and going to be a nice facility if it passes. If today was the only need, we could get away with doing things one project at a time. But that’s not going to cut it in five years, 10 years. That’s why we brought this project forward.”
The Youth Action Committee will hold a tour of the athletic complex followed by a public forum on March 30 at the field house. A second tour will follow the public forum. The first tour begins at 6 p.m.