A rarity occurred at Tuesday’s Starkville Board of Aldermen meeting: All seven sitting aldermen unanimously approved a bond intent resolution.
The board started the clock on the $3 million-maximum financing package that will fund improvements to City Hall, which will become Starkville Police Department’s future home once officials and staff move to the new administrative home under construction at the end of Main Street.
Unless 1,500 registered voters protest the intent notice, Starkville can issue the bonds as soon as June 2.
Officials, however, are likely to move forward with the issuance next spring after they attempt to find grant funding to offset costs. The bond intent notice expires in two years.
“The board is putting good faith and effort in supporting our police department,” said Ward 1 Alderman Ben Carver before the vote.
Starkville will apply for grant funding to help alleviate costs, Mayor Parker Wiseman said.
He also encouraged aldermen to find money in the upcoming fiscal year budget to pay for design costs.
Since proceeds will not fill the city’s coffers until next year, it must pay for the plans out of pocket.
“I think it would be nice if we planned for a spring issuance … (and) to have this facility drawn and ready for bidding as soon as or even before we have proceeds,” Wiseman said. “We have an opportunity to make an application to the Heritage Grant Program with the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. I think this project is a strong candidate for this program.”
After walking away from negotiations with Cadence Bank for its Main Street property, aldermen shifted their attention toward improving City Hall for a continued police presence.
In March, aldermen showed interest in a plan that would renovate a majority of the building, provide additional structural improvements to its exterior and improve the parking lot adjacent to Washington Street.
An initial estimate brought the cost of those repairs to about $2.8 million.
The partial renovation, as presented in March, planned to renovate a majority of the building and provide about 17,800 square feet of renovated space for less than the $2.55 million price tag floated for Cadence’s property.
“I am supportive of the idea of this. I think it’s the right way to go, but it doesn’t bind us at this point to any financial decision,” said Ward 4 Alderman Jason Walker Tuesday “I look forward to having hard numbers (in terms of cost estimates for the renovation).”
Officials previously hoped to acquire the Cadence property for about $2.55 million, but a study showed the city would need to spend at least $800,000 to prepare it for police usage.
The city planned to buy the building by offloading City Hall and surplus lagoon space north of Starkville.
Those revenues would have been used with $1.3 million in certificates of participation (COPs) left over from the prior administration’s City Hall renovation project.
The COPs from the previous building project are expired, board attorney Chris Latimer said, and aldermen went with a GO issuance in hopes of finding a better interest rate and avoiding a complicated process in which the city would sell the space and lease it back from a public-private partnership.
Carl Smith covers Starkville and Oktibbeha County for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter @StarkDispatch
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