by Dennis Dalman
editor@thenewsleaders.com
Three Sartell City Council members expressed pleasure that bids for a Sartell Community Center came in under budget, so much so that some amenities were able to be added.
The council approved the bid and authorized a bond sale to cover the total costs for the center, which will be close to $11 million. The vote was 3-1, with Amy Braig-Lindstrom voting no. Council member David Peterson, who has expressed his opposition many times to the community center location, was not present at the meeting.
“I couldn’t be more thrilled,” said Mayor Sarah Jane Nicoll of the community center project, its design and its under-budget outcome. “I feel like I have to wait to leave to do my happy dance.”
Nicoll said she had long felt Strack/Mack/Mathiasen are a “dream team” for a community center and added she is also happy about how they designed it for expansion in the future.
Even though she voted against the bids resolution, Braig-Lindstrom thanked the designers and acknowledged the center will be a beautiful building and an exciting addition to the city. However, Braig-Lindstrom, like fellow council member Peterson, has long disagreed with the center’s locale on the south edge of Sartell and its lack of any kind of library.
“As an elected official voted in to be a representative of the community, tonight I’ll have to vote against the proposal to feel as though I’m being a true representative of the people who choose to speak to me,” Braig-Lindstrom said just before the vote was called.
Murray Mack, architect for the community-center project, presented a virtual reality of how the center will look, based on artist’s sketches of the interior and exterior views. The video showed all of the center’s features: its three gyms, a second-floor walking track around all three gyms, locker rooms, showers, concessions area, a kids’ play area, a senior center, two community-purpose rooms, a resource center, a social/rest area on the second floor, views of the lake and plaza, and the potential for year-round use, such as a skating pond and the walking/skiing trails.
Bob Strack of Strack Construction then outlined for the council the bid process. He noted there were 93 bids submitted for the project, which is considered a considerable amount, especially for a busy construction season.
“We are very happy with the results,” he said.
The construction portion of the project came in about $110,000 below the projected budget, and that happy fact made possible the council’s approval of the following alternates, as recommended by Strack: Operable wall partitions between the two multi-purpose public rooms; acoustical decking to absorb sounds in the gyms, the kids’ zone and the two main corridors; wainscoting to protect the walls along the corridors; upgrades on materials in the electrical system; and upgrades to PVC coatings on the ductwork.
The project as it is now will cost just about $10,946,000.
The council authorized one portion of the bid to be rebid because there was only one bid submitted, which was over the budget. That bid was for steel studs and dry walls.
Construction could start as early as Aug. 1, and the footings should be in by early October. Depending on the weather and some other factors, the community center could be completed by July 1, 2017.
It will be built on the shore of Lake Francis in south Sartell, east of Pinecone Road.
Murray Mack is the lead architect for the Sartell community-center project.
