25 - GRAND THEATER UPDATE - Laserfiche WebLink

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Item No. 25 memorandum TO: City Council John Godwin, City Manager FROM: Shawn Napier, P.E., Director of Engineering, Planning & Development SUBJECT: GRAND THEATER UPDATE DATE: November 24, 2014 BACKGROUND: The Grand Theater has been discussed at several City Council meetings over the past years. A basic timeline starts when the City acquired the Grand Theater on May 26, 2009. The property taxes had been delinquent from 1995 through 2000 in the amount of $65,058.32. The City obtained the Theater in order to apply for an EPA Brownfield grant. The City applied for and received a Brownfield Grant from the EPA in the amount of $200,000 that required a $40,000 match from the City for a total of $240,000. Terracon ($59,075) was selected to prepare the environmental cleanup plans. In August 2011 a contract was awarded to 911 Restoration ($71,777) to begin the first phase of the Grand Theater cleanup. The roof over the entry way collapsed on November 21, 2011. A contract was awarded to NCM Demolition ($47,539.65) in June 2012 to begin the second phase of the Grand Theater cleanup. A contract with Denney Architects ($18,500) was approved in January 2013. The contract was for the design of the fagade, front entry, firewall and roof of the Grand Theater. The City received an $85,000 check from the roof collapse lawsuit in April 2013. At the August 13, 2012 meeting, council gave direction with moving forward on the idea of replacing the roof and roof shell structure over the existing entrance lobby area (approximately 18 -feet x 70 -feet) and rebuilding the fagade in conjunction with the Leadership in Lamar County Class Project. In October 2013 a contract was awarded to Bobby Smallwood Construction ($152,154) to repair the roof and renovate the fagade. The City has sent a request to the Leadership Lamar County class for money that the class raised to renovate the fagade and sign. STATUS OF ISSUE: Portions of the Grand Theater still need to be cleaned from the environmental hazards. The estimate to finish the remaining cleanup is $200,000. We were recently turned down for an additional grant. Long -term, our plan has been to complete the remediation before moving forward with a long -term management lease to a local non - profit group, which would finish out the interior and operate the facility. Because this process is taking so long, an option to be considered might be offering the facility for sale to such a local group,