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City staff seeks council direction to fund remodel of 312 Thompson Street for parks storage
Summary
Parks staff told the Lebanon City Council that demolition of a derelict building at 312 Thompson Street will begin the day after the meeting and asked the council for direction on funding about $380,000 to retrofit the structure as a parks storage building, with a possible reallocation of $385,000 from a Grant Street Phase 2 contingency.
Derek, a parks department staff member, told the Lebanon City Council on July 14 that demolition at 312 Thompson Street will begin the next day and that staff now seeks direction on funding repairs to convert the building into a storage facility for the parks department. "When we took ownership of this building, it became perfect. So fixing up the building is the next conversation," Derek said.
Derek said eliminating a fence from the design could save about $60,000 to $70,000 and reduce the estimated project cost to roughly $380,000 after demolition. He also said food-and-beverage funds and underspent amounts from the Grant Street Phase 2 project were possible sources of financing. "The Grant Street phase 2 project came in $800,000 under budget," he said, adding that reappropriating part of those savings could make sense.
Kevin, a public-works staff member, told the council that bids for Grant Street Phase 2 came in well under the engineers' estimate and that the city currently shows a remaining balance of roughly $916,000 on that project after accounting for contingencies and partner funding. Kevin presented one option to reallocate $385,000 from the city’s CCD line to a new CCD line for Thompson Street repairs and said that doing so would not increase the city's net appropriations. "One way we could do this without any net increase in additional appropriations would be to reappropriate $385,000 from this CCD line to a new CCD line set up for the improvements of the Thompson Street garage," Kevin said.
Council members asked whether park impact fees could be used; staff said park impact fees generally fund net-new park facilities rather than maintenance and that the legal and technical details would need confirmation. Derek noted the building is about 9,000 square feet and that recreating a building of that size from new would likely cost more than $1 million, making rehabilitation at the estimated $3.85-ish (hundreds of thousands) a strong value.
There was no formal vote on the financing option. Council feedback at the meeting was supportive of staff exploring the reappropriation and preparing the additional appropriation paperwork with required notice for the next meeting cycle. Kevin said the earliest an additional appropriation could return to council would likely be the first meeting in August given the required notice periods.
The council did not direct immediate spending; instead it gave staff direction to prepare an appropriation ordinance or resolution and the required notices and to research whether park impact fees or other bond/balance sources might be eligible.
