By Peggy Schlichter

This was a lengthy discussion with very few details discussed.  Dan Sloan from Baldwin White in Des Moines presented a couple of options for the reutilization of the Masonic Temple for the City Hall, Library and Police Station.  All options basically used the first two floors only.

His study was based on square footage as detailed in the previous set of plans the city had drawn up several years ago.  Based on that footage he tried to see if he could make it fit with the space available in the Masonic Temple.  The study was not based on whether the footage was right or wrong.

Almost imediately Mr. Askren started questioning items of expense.  He pointed out that this would just be a temporary location and the dollars were way to high.

Mr. Sloan went on to outline all the code areas that needed to be upgraded or incorporated into the building.  The testing of the load bearing capabilities of the floors, the fire barriers between floors, exterior fire egress, ADA changes, all the way to handles and fixtures.

This option had a price tag of 1.3 million plus the price of the building.  The details of this pricing were not discussed in detail other than the council pointed out their objections to some of the items.  Mr. Sloan pointed out that the pricing did not include furniture and fixtures either.  

It was further pointed out by Mr. Sloan that none of the existing systems like electric, heating/air conditioning were evaluated under the study.  The pricing included replacing to code.     

Under the new construction plan Mr. Sloan used the plans from years ago to put it together into a single facility.  This came out to right around 10,000 square feet at a cost of between $200 to $230 per foot bringing the building total to $2. to $2.3 million.  Again only size was considered based on the old plans. 

The discussion then turned to the fact that we could not get a block bath house built for less than $280 per square foot calling into question the price of a new building.

A consensus was not reached on which direction to go on the project without the answers the council was looking for on the Masonic Temple building. 

The council found out that the code for the police station requires that it survive any disaster because it is a emergency service that must be able to operate continuously. 

Mr. Sloan then asked if there is a dollar amount threshhold the council was looking at on the Masonic Temple turnkey.  He was told $1 million.  He also wanted them to decide what they really want.  He pointed out that at some point the council was going to have to go to each activity to see what they really need for their operations to function properly.

He pointed out again that the mechanical, electrical and structural parts of the building were not evaluated under his study.  

Mr Waddell brought up a good point of before they dicide how much money they needed to spend on the project they needed to determine how much money they had to spend first.

The mayor then brought up the bonding capacity available and the question of whether or not to use annual appropriation bonds.  She asked do they want to put the Community Cultural Center and the Aquatic Center on the ballot with everything else as one.  Mr. Waddell pointed out that one project should not have to pass to save another or vice versa.  He thought that putting them all into the budget to see if they had enough money for all of them was a good idea but each project should be listed seperately on the ballot.

At this point the Ruan Securities repersentative pointed out that after the bath house and N. Divinsion Street projects the city had about $2. million of bonding capacity left.

The council then asked Mr. Sloan how fast he could get the information on just exactly how much it would cost to get the building to meet code requirements.  His reply was that he would have to get structural, mechanical and electrical engineers to come and evaluate the building.  He then pointed out again that the council needed to figure out how much money they had to spend before going any further.  Then they could sit down and talk because all they are doing now is spinning their wheels.

The Community Cultural Center was then brought up because the purchase/lease back agreement must be done and the $1 million bond needs to be written for the ballot if the Center is to have any chance of getting the CAT Grant his year.  Particularly since the structure cannot survive another winter without a roof. 

The whole issue now became what do we put on the ballot, what money do we have available and can we get everything done before the September 20th cut off date for inclusion on the ballot.

There was talk about another meeting on September 12th to continue these discussions.  The meeting then adjourned.