Two City Commission Meetings Tonight (6/11) : A special meeting and a work session on the budget

The special meeting is first, starting at 6 p.m., in the Commission Chambers and immediately following will be the 2nd work session on the coming year's budget.  There is a lot of back-up information related to the budget work session - some 150 pages - and it will focus on five of the city's infrastructure funds: water, local sewer, regional sewer, refuse and stormwater.

The subject of the special meeting is an execution of a 15 year lease from the city to the CRA for it to create and use the building and land as an arts and cultural center.  According to the program, the city cannot receive the grant, but the CRA can in order to accomplish the anticipated improvements.  The grant would be for $150,000 from the state program and requires a $300,000 match in the form of financial assistance ($37,500) and the rest from in-kind contributions.  So, that would bring the total project to around $450,000.

These schematic aerial views show the general concept of the project.  The area where the existing shuffleboard courts would be made into exhibit and market space for art and cultural-related activities and displays.

This comes as a bit of a leap from previous discussions which included keeping all or some of the shuffleboard courts intact.  The same issues related to security of the property, especially with the addition of artist work need to be addressed.  But, on the positive side, it does blend in well with the artists loft project that is a literally a stone's throw from this project and it keeps the property in the general public realm so that opportunities for a new city hall or some sort of coordination with an eventual transit train station in the area can still be made..

I plan to attend the meeting on the shuffleboard court building and will attempt to video most of it.

Just got back from the meeting.  The Commission approved the lease for 10 years, not the 15 included in the back-up material.  It also specifically did not decide on what to do with the shuffleboard courts since those are outside improvements and what is contemplated by the grant relates to the interior space.  Below is one rendering of the interior space that was presented at the meeting: