City to pay subsidy to tourism authority to operate Civic Center

Published 9:32 pm Sunday, May 15, 2016

The new lease between the city and Washington Tourism Development Authority regarding the Washington Civic Center calls for the city to provide a $35,000 subsidy to the authority.

The one-year lease, approved by the City Council last week, also includes a 50/50 profit-sharing provision between the two entities, based on the change in net assets as reported in an independent auditor’s report. The new lease takes effect July 1. The authority will pay no rent, but will responsible for all management and operations of the facility. The city will pay its subsidy in 12 monthly payments of $2,916.67 due on the 10th of each month.

The authority may submit funding requests to address specific maintenance costs, with the city, recognizing budget restraints, making its best efforts to fund such requests. Under the new lease, the city is responsible for major structural maintenance of the Civic Center, including decks, floors, roofs and plumbing and electrical systems.

On or before Oct. 31 of each year, beginning in 2017, the change in the net position of the Civic Center, as reported in the auditor’s report, will be shared equally between the city and authority, whether a gain or loss. If a gain, the authority will remit payment to the city by Oct. 21, and if a loss, the city will remit to the authority by Oct. 31.

In other business, the council also awarded a $108,000 contract to install water and sewer lines to the Fairfield Inn site next to the city’s No. 2 fire station on West 15th Street.

The project is being funded by a North Carolina Rural Infrastructure grant and contributions from the developer and city.

On April 14, bids on the project were opened, but the low bidder withdrew his bid the next day, according to a memorandum from Frankie Buck, the city’s public-works director, to the mayor and council members. The project was re-advertised. The new bids were opened Tuesday, with AAHW Construction the low bidder among four bidders. The highest bid was $190,795, followed by lower bids of $157,325 and $143,965.

“Barring any unforeseen change orders, it should finish well under the budgeted amount,” reads the memorandum.

In August 2015, the city was notified it had been awarded a $100,000 grant to provide the publicly owned utilities to the 87-room hotel. The project developer, New Age Properties, is required by the grant conditions to contribute $101,400 toward the project, with the city providing $5,000, which the developer agrees to reimburse the city. The project’s budget is estimated at $206,400, according to a city document.

 

 

 

 

 

 

About Mike Voss

Mike Voss is the contributing editor at the Washington Daily News. He has a daughter and four grandchildren. Except for nearly six years he worked at the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., in the early to mid-1990s, he has been at the Daily News since April 1986.
Journalism awards:
• Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service, 1990.
• Society of Professional Journalists: Sigma Delta Chi Award, Bronze Medallion.
• Associated Press Managing Editors’ Public Service Award.
• Investigative Reporters & Editors’ Award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Public Service Award, 1989.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Investigative Reporting, 1990.
All those were for the articles he and Betty Gray wrote about the city’s contaminated water system in 1989-1990.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Investigative Reporting, 1991.
• North Carolina Press Association, Third Place, General News Reporting, 2005.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Lighter Columns, 2006.
Recently learned he will receive another award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Lighter Columns, 2010.
4. Lectured at or served on seminar panels at journalism schools at UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Maryland, Columbia University, Mary Washington University and Francis Marion University.

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