CLIFTY — After sitting vacant and unfinished atop a hill since the start of 2011, the long-awaited fire station and community center is nearing completion.
The goal is for the center to be open in time for the volunteer Fire Department’s annual fundraiser on Oct. 22.
“It’s going to be wonderful,” said Jerry Robertson, a member of the Clifty Volunteer Fire Department Board.
The 8, 400-square-footstructure has been beset by claims of construction defects and a drawn-out process over how to pay to fix them. Construction on the center began more than two years ago, said Jeremy Miller, president of the Fire Department board.
It stopped in January 2011 after the board pointed out problems with the work. The board refused to sign off on a Certificate of Substantial Completion and included a final list of items to fix.
“It’s just been a trying experience,” Miller said.
But a settlement with the project’s former general contractor’s surety bond company two months ago triggered a construction restart, Miller said.
That includes redoing the center’s floor, fixing its kitchen’s ventilation system, repouring concrete sloped too steeply for handicapped parking and fixing a porch sloped toward the building instead of away, he said.
Robertson operates ThreeR Farm in Clifty with his wife and son. The community spent 13 years raising $115,000 that paid for more than a third of the project’s construction cost.
“It’s looking better,” Robertson said. “We’ve got control of the building now.”
On Monday, Miller stood in the middle of the planned community room and pointed out significant cracks in the concrete floor.
“As soon as it was poured, we started getting complaints about the floor,” he said. “You could see the cracks. We weren’t very happy with the work we’d seen.”
The floor, which will be tiled, and ventilation are the only major tasks remaining, he said.
It will be the site of the weekly Clifty Monday Night Jam, which features old-time music, cards and dominoes.
The event started “many years ago,” said Clifford Miller of Clifty, who has been participating in the jam since it started.
The Monday night gatherings are currently held in a nearby 1940s school house that’s in disrepair.
Miller, no relation to Jeremy Miller, said the folks who participate in the jam are “just tickled pink,” that the center is finally going to open.
“We’re just really glad that it is, you bet that we are,” he said. “We don’t have a lot of room where we’re holding it. We’re going to enjoy the new building.”
The center will also host baby showers, family reunions and the like, said Jeremy Miller, a lifelong resident and owner of the Clifty General Store down the hill.
“This will be nice for the community,” he said. “We’re excited.”
The school building also holds one of the Fire Department’s four trucks.
The fire station, which is the western end of the building, will replace the Fire Department’s 21-yearold station that sits about 25 feet away from the newbuilding.
The final cost of the building is expected to be about $392,000, Miller said. That includes a $56,500 settlementwith Granite Re, the Oklahoma City-based surety bonding company for contractor Joe Kunkel.
The fire board released Kunkel from the project in 2011. Kunkel’s business, Patriot Builders Inc. of Bentonville, has had its business license revoked, according to the Arkansas Secretary of State. Kunkel did not return a message seeking comment.
In addition to the money residents raised and donated, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development gave the Clifty Volunteer Fire Department a $145,000 loan and $50,000 grant in July 2009. The state also awarded $30,000 for the project.
Construction on the center started in August 2010. The architect, Don Spann, resigned from the job in March 2011.
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Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 09/04/2012