City Parks and Recreation staff told the Parks and Recreation Board that the Price Road Exploration Center has received approval to move into contract and that City Council approved a supplemental appropriation to address a funding gap for the project.

“This is a long time coming. We are ecstatic. We are going to start to see some earth moving in September,” said Stephanie, Parks and Recreation staff, who delivered the department’s director report to the board. Stephanie said the project received state capital funding and that the city requested and was granted a funding extension for the grant due to project delays.

On cost, a staff presentation to the board included a slide noting the project total with contingencies and allowances is “1.8.” Later in the discussion staff said the bid came in under the engineer’s estimate and, with contingencies and allowances, “1.8 is where we’re at.” The transcript does not specify the unit; staff and board discussed the figure in the context of the project total.

Stephanie told the board construction is expected to begin in September with staff hopeful the project will progress through 2026. On parking, Stephanie said the design includes two parking locations to the east and west of the facility, and that the plan “calls for 12 spaces and, if I recall, there’s 34 spaces,” adding the final design provides more than the required minimum for the site. For overflow events — the board discussed using the site for weddings and other programming — staff said there is a privately owned church lot adjacent to the property that could be considered for a partnership agreement to provide overflow parking.

Board members asked about programming space and floodplain constraints. “There’s the lower portion [that] is in a floodplain. So there are requirements that we cannot have any type of program space in that lower level,” Stephanie said. Staff said the lower level will house mechanicals and storage while the upper level will contain three separated program rooms and an enclosed sunroom-like porch that will be used as program space.

The board discussed the timeline and staff repeated that the city received a grant-extension and supplemental appropriations at City Council to close a funding gap; staff did not provide a single aggregated project-dollar figure during the meeting beyond the slide note referenced above.

There was no vote by the Parks and Recreation Board to authorize the contract; staff reported Council action and described next steps and construction timing.