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FAYETTEVILLE-- The City Council is set to approve a $240,000 contract next week for demolishing the Walton Arts Center administrative offices and excavating the south end of the property where a 245-space municipal parking deck is planned.
At A Glance
Council Meeting
Fayetteville’s City Council will meet at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday in Room 219 of the City Administration Building, 113 W. Mountain St. Also on the agenda is:
• Rezone 253 acres off of Cato Springs Road where the former SouthPass development was planned.
• Creating a civil rights administrator position for the city.
• Spending $807,000 for a new fire truck.
• Rezoning land north of Wedington Drive and east of Rupple Road where a strip mall and storage facility are located.
Source: Staff Report
Jeremy Pate, city Development Services director, said Tuesday workers with Co-Bar Contracting of North Little Rock will likely begin tearing down the offices in August. Excavation would begin a week or two later.
The work will be the first sign of a construction project talked about for years.
"People have been patient and waited," Mayor Lioneld Jordan said Tuesday. "And now it's time to break ground and get started."
Demolition and excavation is the first phase of the project.
Pate said city officials anticipate awarding a construction contract Aug. 19 or Sept. 2. There's no way of telling exactly how much the project will cost until the contract is approved.
In May, representatives with Baldwin & Shell, the construction manager for the parking deck, estimated overall cost about $8.8 million -- nearly $2 million over the $6.8 million city officials predicted in late 2012.
Pate told council members Tuesday the deck's design team has been able to trim about $800,000 from that estimate by redesigning underground piping, removing bank shoring and underpinning from the grading plan, reducing the size of a rainwater harvesting tank and re-configuring the deck's electrical system.
The demolition and excavation bid the city received Tuesday was $180,000 less than the $420,000 Baldwin & Shell estimated.
Still, a $6.2 million bond issue City Council members approved in November 2011 won't be enough to pay for the project.
The city will likely have to use all -- or some -- of the $1.5 million Walton Arts Center officials agreed to return to Fayetteville when they signed off on changes to the center's governance structure in May.
The bonds are scheduled be paid over 25 years using fees and fines associated with the city's paid parking program.
Pate said he expects construction to take 10 to 12 months, making the parking deck available for use in late 2015.
Center staff have moved to a temporary space in the basement of the Metro District Building, 509 W. Spring St. New offices will be built on the north side of the parking deck.
According to the center's latest timeline, construction on a new lobby will begin sometime next month. The lobby is the first phase of a $23 million expansion and renovation expected to last through mid- to late 2016.
Pate said structurally unsound trusses above Baum Walker Hall, which prompted center officials to close the performance venue June 23, will be stabilized before parking deck excavation and demolition begins.
NW News on 07/09/2014