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Redevelopment hears brief community center project update
In one of its shortest meetings ever, the Greencastle Redevelopment Commission heard even a more brief update on the planned Community Center/YMCA project.
Selection of a construction management firm has been the most recent hold-up.
“Hopefully we can have a contract here shortly, the attorneys have been working on a contract,” Mayor Bill Dory said while noting that the Fundraising Committee of the Community Center project is poised to make a presentation to the Putnam County Community Foundation Board.
The attorneys haven’t been the problem, City Attorney Laurie Hardwick told Redevelopment Commission members at the less than 10-minute meeting. HIPPA regulations have been more of a hang-up, she said.
The Redevelopment Commission -- with members Erika Gilmore, Drew Brattain and Gwen Morris present for the September session at City Hall -- also approved a claim relative to the Community Center project, endorsing a $39,000 expenditure with Bona Vita Architecture, the architects on the project.
At a May meeting reintroducing the project to the community, architect Tom Salzer of Bona Vita Architecture suggested the project could take “15 months from design to construction ... once it gets to that point.” He added, however, that construction alone could take 12-18 months.
At the most recent City Council meeting, Mayor Dory was again asked by Councilman Jacob Widner to clarify the status of the project. He noted that the city had hoped to have the construction manager hired by Sept. 1 but that didn’t pan out with continuing negotiations.
“Engineering and design work continues to move forward,” he said, adding that “we are the farthest along anybody has been in 30 years.”
The site has been purchased, he reiterated, along with architectural services secured for designing the building.
“I’d like to have it move along faster, too,” the mayor added. “It is a priority of this administration.”
Councilman Adam Cohen noted that at its current juncture, the project is “not really up to the Council anymore” but to the Redevelopment Commission.
“And at this point,” Cohen added, “we’re too far along to go back.”
“Oh, we’re not going back,” Mayor Dory was quick to stress in response.
The city, YMCA and Putnam County Hospital are all involved in the approximately 60,000-square-foot project. The city will own the facility and lease spaces to the Wabash Valley YMCA and the hospital.
The city has already acquired the site from the Ballard Family, 72.3 acres in all, east of the Walmart Superstore on the south side of State Road 240.
At a May 2019 meeting, construction costs were estimated at $8 million to $10 million, but that was for a 51,000-square-foot building. And since then there has been a significant increase in the cost of building materials.
The Greencastle Redevelopment Commission will fund construction of the facility, using tax-increment financing funds set aside for several years as well as a possible bond issue.
In other business at the Redevelopment Commission meeting, Mayor Dory reported receiving the preliminary design for the new Columbia Street parking lot proposed for the northeast corner of Columbia and Indiana streets on property acquired from Perry Wainman in 2018. It was Wainman who purchased the site in 2013, tearing down a dilapidated two-story eyesore of a home a block north of the courthouse square.
As designed, the parking lot has 24 spaces, Dory said.
“Unfortunately,” the mayor added, “our forefathers didn’t design street blocks for contemporary vehicles.”
After Wainman’s acquisition of the site, the property has routinely been used by contractors working within the downtown, including those involved in the Stellar Grant work and the more recent sidewalk improvement project.
Redevelopment Commission members Gary Lemon and Lottie Barcus were absent.
The next meeting of the Greencastle Redevelopment Commission is set for 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 27 at City Hall.