City outlines $28.9 million City Hall and justice center plan; foundation term sheet would cover $500,000 a year

Jason Dodson, a project advisor with law firm Russell and Andrus, presented updated schematics and a proposed financing plan for a combined City Hall and justice center, saying the total project budget is about $28.9 million and that the city currently has about $12.425 million secured.

Dodson said the secured funds include roughly $7.675 million from state and federal sources, court fee commitments totaling $3.25 million from the court system, and small amounts already spent from the general fund for design and abatement work. “Out of the $28,900,000, 12.4 of that has been either secured or awarded,” Dodson said.

The draft term sheet submitted to the Barberton Community Foundation would commit the foundation to $500,000 per year for 19 years (a $9.5 million present value under the term sheet). Dodson described the foundation’s payment as structured so the city could build a 19-year debt series that assumes the foundation payment in the debt service schedule: “Through our discussions with the foundation, 1 of the things that we've kind of run into is their current spending policy limits them to spending 10% of their corpus on any 1 grant. And so that's kind of pegged us at the $9,500,000…