Center updates get OK of panel

SPRINGDALE — Young players can now be cool without the cold and hot without the heat at the city’s new Recreation Center. The Springdale City Council working as a committee of a whole approved spending $900,320 for a new heating and and air conditioning equipment for the center. The full council will vote on the measure Nov. 26.

The council members also forwarded for the full council approval $367,266 for roof improvements needed for the climate system and $12,802 for equipment to clean the new turf the city installed for the center’s soccer fields.

Chosen through state purchasing contracts, Multi-Craft Contractors of Springdale will install 12 25ton air conditioning units.

The climate control system at the 120,000-squarefoot recreation center has not worked efficiently since the city bought the building for $4.1 million in December. Officials knew its condition and that replacement would be expensive.

“We’ve got $8 million invested in the recreation center, including the purchase price, in a facility that’s worth $20 (million) to $25 million,” Mayor Doug Sprouse said. “I don’t know how long it will take us to make all the renovations we want to make. We can’t do it all at once. But it was still a good purchase for the city.”

The city will make use of $300,000 from the Community Development Block Grant program through the federal department of Housing and Urban Development, explained Wyman Morgan, the city’s director of finance and administration. The recreation center improvements are eligible for the grant program because the recreation center is a public building, he said.

The council decided in May to use the grant money to update the recreation center’s bathrooms to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. But the timeline for that construction didn’t fit the city’s need