BUCKHANNON – The Stockert Youth and Community Center board of directors on Monday viewed four building design options for the new multi-purpose auditorium/gymnasium building.
City Engineer Jay Hollen presented the board with four design choices for the new building during the Monday, Jan. 11 SYCC board meeting. Hollen also gave updated costs for each option, factoring in updated building costs.
“I took the information from last year – that was the last really detailed discussion that I was involved in for the options on the buildings – and the catalog we use is called RSMeans construction and annually they publish what’s called a historical cost increase data sheet,” Hollen said. “We’re just a little bit early for this year’s data sheet; it’s not published yet, but I did a 10-year average and the average cost of building increases was 2.69 percent for the year 2021.”
Hollen said he applied that 2.69 percent increase to last year’s building costs.
“The option A concept was the shell-only metal building with no floors, no amenities, no restrooms, no offices, 140 feet by 82 and some site work, we’re looking at $670,000,” Hollen said. “Option B is a metal building that includes everything in option A, but does include the synthetic gym floor, the interior doors, frames, restrooms, two basketball hoop and rim assemblies, some bleachers and some miscellaneous sporting activity equipment, and we’re looking at $986,000.”
Option C was submitted for the AML grant and would be the same as building B, except it would include glass windows around the entire perimeter and would cost $1,057,000.
“Building option D was the brick-and-mortar building in the classic style that everybody has seen presented on Bryson’s (city architect Bryson VanNostrand) proposal,” Hollen said. “It would be located at the front of East Main Street rather than just above Friendly Way. We’re looking at $2.4 million for that, and I believe that’s a very low estimate. Bryson would be the one to update that price, but you’re looking anywhere between $2.4, I believe and $2.8 million for the brick-and-mortar.”
He said there have been eight layouts discussed for the new building.
“The ones we really want to pay attention to are options three, four, five and seven. If the metal or the brick building were placed on Main Street, you could see how much green space you can keep down in the bottom where the existing playground equipment is, if you’re wanting to hold on to playground and the basketball equipment. Then, options seven and eight are going to give you the most real estate, but it could come with a cost increase that’s going to have to be absorbed somehow,” Hollen said.
Mayor Robbie Skinner said he didn’t think option A accomplished what the board set out to accomplish.
“I saw the numbers, prior to this meeting that Jay has put together and I found them to be quite sobering. This is just my opinion and if you disagree that, that’s fine, but I think it’s a huge disservice to the community to take option one or two – a metal building with essentially no bells and whistles, not even a gym floor or restrooms – I don’t believe that that’s what we set out to do,” Skinner said. “We set out to provide a facility that was going to be really useful to the community and be something that we can all use.”
