With a little luck, the new community center at Sim Scott Park could be open for business in early 2020.
Kevin Stafford, the city’s engineer, shared an artist rendering of the new building during Tuesday’s city council meeting. The new building will take the place of the two buildings on 20th Street North – the community center and senior citizen center – destroyed in the Feb. 23 tornado.
“I’m not going to bore you with a bunch of details about pre-engineered building, but I did want to let you know where we are,” Stafford said.
Stafford said the city will act as its own general contractor, which will allow the city to save on the project.
“Since it’s a pre-engineered building, we think breaking it down this way will expedite the process.”
Although the community center and senior citizen center will be located in the same building, Stafford said the total square footage will increase from 7,500 to 9,000 square feet.
The center will now face 20th Street. Previously, the two buildings faced southward toward the parking lot.
“The storm gave us the ability to extend the site and re-orient it to face the street, which just makes it look better,” Stafford said.
The bulk of the cost will be covered by insurance and funds from the federal and state emergency management agencies, the latter two combined to cover 87.5 percent of the costs not covered by insurance. Stafford has estimated the city’s out-of-pocket cost at $17,500 for the $900,000 project.
The Sim Scott project was not the only storm-related item on the agenda.
City Hazard Mitigation Manager Joe Dillon informed the council that the city has received preliminary approval for a MEMA grant to build 11 small storm shelters to be strategically located at the city’s fire stations, allowing Columbus Fire and Rescue personnel to stay near their stations during storm and allow them to move quickly in their aftermath.
“We’ve received approval for 11 of these shelters, which are built to hold 15 people (each),” Dillon said. “(MEMA) has budgeted the funds. Three of them would be at Fire Station 1 and two each of the other stations.
“The city’s cost would be $1,200 for each station, with MEMA covering the balance of the $4,800 stations,” he added. “If we did all 11, it would come to $13,200 for the city’s part.”
Dillon said the city has made no commitment of funds at this point.
“We’re going to the next step and at that point, I’ll come back to you and ask for the funds,” he said.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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