Advertisement
City seeks $1.4M for parks, redevelopment
by Rick DeClue · News · May 27, 2016


At its May 16 meeting, the West Branch City Council completed plans for borrowing to pursue various projects in the next year.


Resolutions were approved unanimously for $400,000 to cover acquisition and other costs for the redevelopment of the Croell Redi-Mix site downtown, plus $500,000 for 2016-2017 work in the city’s capital improvements plan.

Combined with an additional $500,000 for park improvements, the city plans to issue a total of $1.4 million in bonds.

The Croell site portion will be in the form of taxable bonds because economic redevelopment activities do not qualify for tax-free treatment. The CIP and park portions of the bond will be non-taxable.

City Administrator Matt Muckler said the Croell-related funds will be used for the purchase of the 12-acre Rummells Farms property in the city’s industrial park, a portion of which will be used to exchange for the Croell site. In addition, funds will pay for transaction costs and additional site development work that may be needed to prepare the Croell site for sale to investors or builders. There was no detail on the possible additional costs.

After the meeting, Muckler said the city tries to limit its bonding to once per year.

“We don’t want to have to come back and incur the costs for a second bond transaction,” he said.

Planned CIP projects for the year include:

• N. First Street improvements between Green Street and Maple Street

• Second Street improvements between Main Street and Green Street

• South Maple Street improvements between Second and Fourth Streets

Work on Second Street between Green Street and College Street will be pushed back a year until the College Street bridge replacement is complete. Work on Beranek Street leading to the park has also been pushed to next year.

A review of these and future priorities for city CIP projects is scheduled for the council’s June 6 meeting. In addition, they will consider updating the city engineer’s cost estimates in the plan, since the estimates being used are two years old.

Park funding will be used for design and engineering costs for the proposed park in Perderson Valley, as well as improvements at Lions Field and Wapsi Creek Park.

Lions projects in the next year include the construction of bathroom facilities and a handicapped- accessible ramp from Pederson Street to the playing field.

Wapsi Creek plans include parking on the south end of the park, walking paths and installation of playground equipment. Work at the north end of Wapsi Creek will also wait until completion of the College Street bridge replacement.

Planned work at Beranek includes entrance and parking lot improvements, with a possible replacement of the concrete pad under the picnic shelter.

“With this year’s bond funding,” Muckler said, “the city continues to stay above its target minimum available bonding capacity of 20 percent.”