4.0. SR 04-03-2000 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

CIP - Community Facility April 3, 2000 Page 3 of 5 with the school on a joint project" and "why the school would want to be with the city on a joint project." From the school point of view it appears to be beneficial for possible state grants, the EDA being the financing agency, a different and larger site (no temporary relocation needed), and school uses for the larger meeting room space. On the other hand, there didn't seem to be any strong compelling reason for why the city wanted to partner with the school district other than providing good customer service to our citizens for having multiple services and functions at one location. Another topic that Gary and I visited about dealt with the uses of the large meeting room space. In this regard, the space being used simply for banquets versus having space being used for presentations or plays, and needing special sound systems and storage space, led us to some uncertainty as to what is truly desired as a large meeting room area. Some of the additional use can really add to the cost of the facility. Getting some help in identifying and thinking through what we really want for the large meeting room space may be appropriate. In the discussion with Gary about the size and location of a shared facility, we talked about the long range plans for public facilities at the City Hall complex. While this City Hall site has always been envisioned to be our home forever, there has never been any detailed planning completed to identify what size and type of facilities would go into each available building site. After discussing our general situation in Elk River, it became clear that our needs may be able to be met with a facility of 10,000 square feet with a catering kitchen that could be expanded to a full kitchen. This size facility could accommodate a 300+ person event (assuming that the people would be sitting either at longer "row" tables or large circular tables that seat 12-14 people). Gary indicated that this type of facility could be completed for about $100/square foot (plus FF&E), and doing the math, this puts us in the $1 million range for the building and makes me comfortable in continuing the discussion on the facility that can be accomplished without a bond referendum. Of course, if you start adding uses and expenses for such things as presentations and plays, then you start compromising the conference or wedding facility and make it much more expensive and more difficult to finance. The balance between what we need and can afford must be carefully maintained in order to get anything accomplished without a bond referendum. (On 2/14, Daryl Thompson indicated that he would check on some building cost figures, but I don't know what he found out.) At this point I don't know if we can eliminate the possibility of a joint or shared school/city facility, but I am certainly leaning toward the city addressing its large meeting room space/multi-purpose space need in conjunction with a City Hall