Jamestown City Council members meet for work session (June 5, 2023)
Costs for the new Central Garage project on Washington Street are currently at $3.9 million.
City Council Public Works Chair Randy Daversa provided that cost update to council at its work session Monday night. He stated at the meeting the project was over budget given that the $2.8 million in funds from a bond had been expended.
Jamestown Mayor Eddie Sundquist said while he didn’t have the exact budget numbers for the Central Garage project, the project itself wasn’t over budget yet, “We knew the costs were going to be high, but they were not going to be as high as the creation of a completely new maintenance building that was upwards, I think, of just under $10 million. So, we’re still looking at a very low amount of funding for this building. We’ve only spent about $3 million, or a little over $3 million, so we just need to get the additional funding to finish it up. The majority of the building is actually completed now. We’re just in the final finishing portions of it.”
Sundquist said what remains to be funded will be bonded for and the city still has $1 million state Financial Restructuring Board (FRB) funds coming in toward the project.
According to a Smart City Capital Investment Program bond presentation by former Mayor Sam Teresi in September 2019, the estimated total cost at that time for a new Central Garage on Crescent Street was $6.9 million. The Teresi Administration estimated that the project would have been paid for using $5.9 million from the Smart Cities bond and $1 million from the State FRB.
Sundquist said the 2019 Smart Cities bond has been closed out, “And so, the project itself was, unfortunately, a 2019 project. With COVID, it stalled for quite a period of time and then we went a different direction. And so, we’ve closed out that bond and we’ve sent that money back and paid it off. So, we just re-bond for it, which is absolutely fine.”
Council member Marie Carrubba commented at Monday’s work session that American Rescue Plan funds should have been used toward this and other capital projects versus going out for new bonds.
Sundquist said that the remaining $1.7 million in APRA funds could be put toward the project or any other projects, but it’s up to Council if they want to go that direction.
Daversa added that former DPW Director Jeff Lehman is still working as the project engineer for the Central Garage project and he will be coming to the City Council June 12 work session to go over further budget details.
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