The long-awaited new Community Center was the site of a groundbreaking this past Monday with officials putting shovels into the ground shortly before the Town of Pendleton’s business action meeting.
Supervisor Joel Maerten said that the day had been coming for years and he was excited to see it come to fruition.
“It was good,” he said. “I saw Carol Moeller from the historic society. She’s been fighting for this for a decade. I saw her and told her I’d signed the notice to proceed and she was happy. It’s been seven years for me now but for some it’s been much longer.”
Maerten also noted that plans had changed for the building and its components in the Town Park Improvement Project, the others being a splash pad and ADA-compliant restrooms.
Last year, Maerten signed a master contract with the state for $500,000 in a matching grant. From the town’s side, funds of more than $760,000 were to be committed to the project as well.
In one year, the price of completing the project has more than doubled, from an August 2022 projection of $1.26 million, including grants, taking care of the entire cost.
According to documents secured by the Lockport Union-Sun & Journal via the Freedom of Information Act, construction of the community center is now slated to cost $2.54 million.
Maerten explained after the groundbreaking that the increase was due to sewer, water, electric and gas components being added to the plans. He said it made no sense to pave a parking lot one year and the next tear it apart to add a sewer line.
“It was worth it to do it right,” he said, also noting that inflation in the construction industry had raised everyone’s construction costs.
Four companies were awarded parts of the job. Sicoli Construction Services won the general construction contract with a low bid of $1.749 million; CIR Electrical Construction Corp. is doing the electrical work for $398,000; Parise Mechanical Inc. is handling heating and ventilation for $149,000; and Camtech Plumbing and Mechanical will do the plumbing work for $250,000.
The splash pad will not be open until next spring, according to the town’s website, but the winning bid to construct it and the ADA bathrooms came to $87,000 by NFP and Sons, Inc. which was announced in the Nov. 14 minutes of the Town of Pendleton Town Board meeting.
To cover the town’s total share of expenses, the town board on May 22 voted to give Maerten the power to bond out $1.7 million. The bond counsel for the move is Hodgson Russ LLP, a law firm in Buffalo and Maerten said that the town would be working with its bank for a “less expensive,” and “simpler” plan of how that bond would be paid back.
In addition to the $500,000 matching grant from the state, the town also secured a $200,000 Niagara River Greenway grant, in August of 2020.
At the business action meeting held directly after the groundbreaking, the town board also resolved to accept a quote from Woodsmith Fence Corp. to install fencing to “protect the newly constructed splash pad” for the price of $20,620. They also resolved to pave a concrete path in the town park for $3,995 from Czerwinski Concrete.
Completion of the community center is slated to be complete in July.
For interested parties, the Town of Pendleton’s plans for its Community Center are up on its website and show what residents and visitors can expect when it is fully constructed.