Absolutely, sir. Alright. With it being 05:00, we'll call our meeting to order. We are at our, Dover City Council special meeting on Monday, April 28, two thousand twenty five, five PM. Our first agenda is to call the order, and second is roll call. Around the horn, please. Laura here. Steichen. May I ask? Olson here. Peyton, you take staff, or we good with that? We good with that? We're good. Alright. So with that, we do have our agenda before us, this evening. And as as a note, this is not a public hearing. It's just a matter of a work session. So, while public comment, may be appreciated,
we will make sure that we're efficient, in our process. So, with that, I will entertain a motion for number three to, approve our agenda, please. So moved. A motion by Nash. Second. And a second by Steichen. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. With that, it does bring us to number four, our work session. Peyton, you wanna start us off, please? Yeah. Thank you so much, mayor, members of the council here for our work session. We wanted to bring in our architectural firm as they've been working through some iterations of our community center project.
And what the purpose of today's meeting is as we start to hone in, wanna get a more clear picture of what they're working with. We know what we're bringing in from a revenue side on our local option sales tax. We may we weren't hiding anything. We said we realized it's probably gonna cost more than that. There's other mechanisms to potentially, make up that gap. But from their perspective, at some point, we have to start putting more pen to paper, giving them a little more direction, what the council's comfortable with. They're gonna provide us with different illustrations and iterations of what a layout could look
like and, for lack of a better term, showing us like an a la carte package. We'll say, you know, if we're gonna be adding this space, this amount of dollars and so forth, you're gonna show up on the screen here in just a moment, different layouts on the property itself. This is all gonna tie into us hiring a construction management team. Actually, next week, we're doing interviews for that and then bring it to the city council not long thereafter. But this all works in tandem for them to start having a better idea of
what we're looking at from a spatial needs perspective and from a budgetary perspective. It'll help guide their own visioning and how they can start laying this out for us to consider as we move along in this process. So with that said, I'm gonna turn the show over to, I guess, our architectural team. So if you would just yep. You can share your screen. Tony, you want me to say a couple things before we get started? So can hear you. I think you know everyone. Let me get you open Yeah. It's members of council and mayor. We're excited excited to be here today.
Am I am I on if I'm green, or am I on if I'm red? What's that? You're on. You're on. You're on. You don't touch any because it's not really amplifying it. No. It's not. Just wanna make sure. So, as as we've been digging into this a little bit more and have been talking about what the program might look like, As a design team, in order to really, start looking at how this thing sits on the site, we really need to know what it is that's in the program first and there's been between the meeting that we had, the public meeting that we had and the information that we gathered there and conversations that we've had with Peyton and his team and others,
in the community here, you know, we've we've heard a number of a number of desires for things that could be in this in this building and there's really kind of two divergent paths here. They're they're both related, but they're they're a little bit different. One of them is to have more of a meeting and event sort of space that would fulfill all the needs or at least be the sort of the stake in the ground to start fulfilling the needs for the community here. And in a lot of ways, it would be it would be a straight line replacement of the facility that was
torn down to make way for the fire station. So it's more of an event center approach. The other option would be to do something that is more of a, of a multipurpose center that could also be used for events, but it might have a little bit more of an active sort of a program, you know, short of calling it a gymnasium, more of a space that could serve multiple functions and not be just an event center space. And along with that, there might be the opportunity for things like a walking track, which we heard was a very strong desire by a number of people that were
at that meeting on here about a month and a half ago. So what we have here are two different options that Tony's going to go over. We'll just kind of talk through the line items that are included in each and then we have some layouts of what those two options might look like. And I think what we'd like to hopefully, today, what we'd like to take from this meeting is some good discussion about what your desire is as council members and as representatives of of the community here. And, and hopefully, that can help inform us as far as the direction that we should take on
the design. And you'll see both of these are relatively similar in terms of scope and number of square feet. So, you know, from a budget standpoint, they're going to be somewhat similar. But, but we have some things to show you with that too. So, Tony, go ahead. Perfect. Well, so as Brian mentioned, we'll just kinda go through here line by line and discuss, what we're looking at here. So our first space that we have up there is that pre function entry space. It's like that entry hall you walk into. It can kind of serve as that area where you're coming and going from the events. Just everybody can gather in that area.
We talked about having the opportunity to have, different vendors or or, you know, sign up kind of sign, sign up people. It's sharing that, that space if you have some kind of an event going on. So that's just kind of the, the main entry space there. We've we've downsized, from maybe a large meeting room to to a couple of small meeting rooms, for about 30 people. Again, that could be flexible. Maybe that has a wall in between that can open up and you can have a little larger space. But we do have two of those programmed and then one larger event space that would be potentially subdividable, for up to 400, occupants. So take a look at that,
all of our event space that are just under 10,000 square feet. Support spaces, we have toilets, storage room. We've heard a lot about storage. We need to dial in if that's enough storage or if we need to dial that back a little bit. But, certainly, some storage space to get started the conversation, custodial, receiving, mechanical carrying a heavier line item there. We'd like to keep as much indoors as we can versus on rooftops, but that's always an option to kind of flex up or down depending on the type of system, we end up selecting for the building. And then the commercial kitchen's another big one. I think you can see here actually at one point,
we we were playing around last meeting. We downsized that maybe to about a thousand square foot because we had maybe a full commercial kitchen as we would understand it and thinking that's probably a little bit larger than what the city of Dilworth would utilize based on previous, your previous event center. So all that added together, we, comes to about 12,000 square feet, almost 13,000. And then there's a a gross multiplier there for some circulate added circulation like a back corridor, perhaps, walls and, kinda dead space like that. So then your your total comes to about 15,000
square feet, just over that. So that's kind of the the the route we've been chasing up to this point. I think at the meeting with the city, the city staff, the question was brought up, well, what if that wasn't necessarily an event room? What if it was more of an activity space? Whether that's you know, right now, we're when we're putting in numbers, we're kinda holding it based on a single court size just to kinda give you an idea of what that would look like. You could fit us a court a basketball court in there, but it wouldn't have to be a basketball court, because we we talked to Can you just take one step down?
Oh, sure. Sorry. When you when you start talking about a court size, where what was that? Sorry. It's kinda behind those words there. So that's the optional track. So this would be the second the the second option. I just flipped over to the other. Thank you. Yeah. Sorry. It has a similar pre function space, maybe a couple smaller or medium sized meeting rooms. But then that activity space gets a little bit well, it's about the same size, 6,000 square feet. We're talking about a single court space. If you make it larger to include a track, whether that's an elevated track or a track on grade, you kind of the the space just has to grow to accommodate that.
So that's kinda what that, that one thirteen hundred square feet probably is on grade up to 3,000 because you're increasing the on grade plus you're adding square footage upstairs. So that's kind of a range right now. We're just holding 2,000 square feet in there for that. But that kinda gives you an idea. You know, we probably grew about 2,000 square feet from the the previous option. A lot of the similar support spaces there for a total that's just just shy of 18,000 square feet. So we've had a grown that footprint now to accommodate that track,
basically. And we've talked about, that activity space with the singular double court. I think some of the documents that we sent out, we showed what this looks like if you that was a double court size perhaps, or into the future, you could add do an addition to do the add that second court, but we can take a look at that in the next round here on the next, PDF. So any of these options are intended to be kind of the first the first phase of what could be a larger project. So they're all expandable. They're all able to be connected to future additional amenities or or
spaces that that you may not even have on the radar right now. It might you could connect to a daycare or you could connect to, to a a larger event space, athletic spaces, whatever. So, wellness center, community wellness center kind of a of a concept. Indoor playground is something that that we heard from a few people. So at at this point, because because we know that there's there is gonna be a budget at some point that that is going to to be a cap as to what the community is gonna be comfortable,
and you guys as as leaders of the community are gonna be comfortable, spending based on what the revenue will be from the from the, the sales tax and then what you'll you'll potentially have in other sources. This is probably, you know, the this option might be a stretch at 17,000 square feet, but we need to have some conversations about really the big picture idea of what makes the most sense for your community in terms of activity space that is a little bit more open ended as to its use versus an event center type space.
So I think that's that's really the first question that we have that that we'd love to hear some input from you on, before we jump into the plans because the plans are sort of to a certain extent, they're kind of agnostic of that. You know, the the plans, we've got some ideas about how you could arrange these spaces, but really, at the end of the day, the question of what's the right type of space for the city of Dilworth is the big question. So I don't know if if anybody has any strong feelings about that one way or another. If this is just a one for one replacement of of the space that you
lost, albeit more robust and bigger and better, pre function space and better entry and all those kinds of things, or is the desire here to have something that kinda goes beyond that and has a little bit broader, maybe appeal or broader, use throughout the community? Counsel? Yeah. Yeah. That's where we move next is how do we see this space. Right? Activity or meeting. Or combination or both or multipurpose, you know, is maybe a a good way to put it. I don't think people are looking for a basketball court over an event space. I think they're looking for more,
from what I've heard, more of, like, a replacement of what we had. You know, it's like a space where people can meet and have larger events that's part of our community. Not that there isn't a desire for basketball courts, but I don't think that was what I was hearing. I don't know what you guys heard. I don't know. I heard a lot of different stuff. I think the walking track was like, they mentioned that was a big thing that people were looking for, like, just an indoor space where they could go in the winter and, like, walk around. I've heard that quite a bit, which I'd I mean,
I I think that's reasonable. I don't think that's gonna be I don't know. I mean, it's already kinda put it in there. I think that's a reasonable option as far as, like, a basketball court. I I agree with council member Nash. I don't think that's something I heard. I don't know what else if anybody heard anything different. So the walking track would essentially be if you could picture a track around the basketball court because that's kind of the Right. It's a really small walking track too. You know, usually, when you see an indoor walking track, it's usually around a minimum of two courts. Otherwise,
it's, you know and and then when you get to that size, it's probably a minimum of sixteen sixteen laps to the mile. What we're talking about here would probably be closer to 30 laps per mile. So, it's I mean you're turning constantly. It's it's not an ideal situation and and really from a from a, if you're looking for a space that's going to replace the events center, then one option would be to say we're going to lean into the event center for this for this iteration of the plan, but we're going to design it so that some wellness component can be added to
it in the future. And maybe we look at the circulation for the event option here in a way that eventually it could be extended and create a big walking track that that creates a loop somewhere, you know, and that comes back on itself or something. We're just we're not talking about a lot of square footage here. So unless we have a space that's a big enough space to put a walking track around, it's probably not realistic to think and you'll see that when we show you the plan here. You're it's probably not realistic to think we're gonna put a walking track around a
single court size space whether you put a basketball court in there or not. Now if people want to come inside that 6,000 square foot footprint and just walk around in that space they could certainly do that and and maybe it's maybe it's a combination of that space plus this hallway that we're talking about where you walk into that space and then down the hallway and back, and you sort of create a little kinda like they've done at the elementary school. Mhmm. You know, you you create a path in there that makes some logical sense. And eventually, when you expand that hallway and add wellness component or add whatever is the next
component of this thing, you extend that out and it becomes a longer track. And and that, you know, the the nice thing about having an elevated track that's around an activity space is you can use both at the same time. The hard thing about having a track that's on on the ground level and having space interior to that is you have a lot of conflicts with circulation when you do that. And so, you we don't usually see that, but we also don't see facilities like this where the use is gonna be predominantly, you know, the the activity center use during the week is gonna be predominantly in the evening. If it's used at all during the week,
it's gonna be a lot of weekends and evenings. Whereas, during the day you might have seniors that are coming over here and just walking a loop you know through that big space and making it available to them for that. So, I think you could maybe do both if we think about how you how you walk through the the space even though it's a little bit smaller building initially. I don't think anybody wants to be doing 30 flaps just to be in the same plan, but Yeah. People do mention they want a meeting place. Yeah. But that's probably the easy target, easy thing to focus on.
Yep. And they want to have something that's gonna that re replacing what they used to be familiar with using if it's but I agree that, it's probably very underutilized many times during the week or the year or the month. So tell me what what's the pre function entry? What's the So What happens When we say pre function, it's basically a lobby space. So when you have a large event space like this, you you guys aren't used to having that because your event center basically had a
door on it and you walked right into the venue. There really wasn't a gathering space before that, but a pre function space is just a fancy word for a hallway that or a or a lobby space that allows you to have a place to linger before you go outside. So you're in the event center, then to leave, you go into that lobby space, and that's what that's where you have access to bathrooms and the office might be there and some other things like that. And then you go out the door to go outside. So it's it's no different than, you know, if you're thinking about a church.
It's like an art x or a gathering space in the church or if you're thinking about a school. It's like, you know, on a smaller scale. This would be like a commons at the school where you've got the the space and then you have the space that sort of supports that out in front of it. So those are a lot of times called pre function spaces spaces because it gives you a place before people are going into the function that's happening in the event space. It's a place for them to gather and to put on their coat and, you know, take off their coat, use the restroom, that sort of thing. Or if they have some display cases, I suppose.
Yep. It'd be great place for that kind of stuff. While back too. So Yeah. Some of the artifacts that you have, like, out in your lobby out here, the pictures that you have, those that's that'd be a great place for that kind of stuff that that is, important to the community. Gotcha. I guess from my perspective, we've I've always talked about because there was some consternation about taking down the old community center. I mean, you can't really hide that. There was some issue. But, I've always stood and said, as long as we had a plan to replace our community center, I was good with taking it down. And so that is a priority, right,
is is recreating that that community center, that gathering space. But we did sell I mean, we sold a community rec center. That's what we told the people. I mean, that was kind of whether directly or indirectly, I mean, it was the community center first, the recreational components, as well as. So trying to figure out how we can maximize the best of both worlds is definitely going to be key. And how we build it to grow is going to be essential. When you start talking like 17,000
square foot, the first thing that comes to my mind is what's the cost per square foot? Because that will determine a lot, right? I mean, in terms of and and there's all kinds of of caveats to that as well. I mean, if we're talking about our community center, we're talking about bringing in, you know, the potential, whether it's, you mentioned, like, we talked about day care center, or we talked about, you know, whether it's a health care option or anything like that. We have to have a facility that is going to inspire commitment from outside of the city. And I think it's we have to be careful as as we venture down that
road. So as we as we look to build it, we can look to to build to expand. And and I don't know the answer to that question. Well, I think anything that we come up with here is going to be sort of a master plan approach where we're gonna we're gonna say this is the initial project, whatever we all agree on is the the right thing to do for that initial project, and then this is how you expand it. And that might be how you sell the the future, you know, wellness component or, you know, community wellness, however you want it, however you want to look at that,
the things that go beyond the event center. But maybe instead of calling it an event center, we call it a multipurpose event center or something like that. So that it so that people understand that we're not just booking parties, weddings in there, at wedding receptions. This is this is the intent here is that this thing is gonna be available for other uses too, which maybe changes the way we look at the finishes we put in there And in terms of durability and what sort of light fixtures we hang up in there so that if you decide to have a summer camp for kids in there and and host something like that,
and you wanna be able to play dodgeball or something in there or or have activities that are wet activities in there, craft activities or something like that. You can do that sort of thing and and create kind of a, you know, a summer activity program for kids in that space and have it be as, you know, a space that's appropriate for that in terms of finishes that's not gonna get destroyed by kids running around. So Peyton? I just want the council to think about this when they're putting this together and what you want in the facility.
We have a I'm saying a handful. It's not much more than that. We'll say ten days a year. Our previous space was utilized for what I would consider Dilworth centric events. Our town festival local days. Right? Stags for our public safety officials, firefighters, Lions Club events. Okay? Good enough. What is the city's what is the city council and the city's appetite for being a competitor in the rental market for people to rent it out for weddings
and other events, which is what we utilized it for. Is that still something that city council wants to see occur, knowing that the majority of our rentals aren't from Dilworth residents necessarily before? But that's, I think that's really the kind of fundamental question. If this is gonna be designed in a way to replicate what we had before, then it's gotta be attractive for people to come and rent out for these events. There's I guess, the middle ground is for what they're talking about as well is that we could still make this space available for these type of events,
but it's not gonna be that that's not gonna be the primary focus of it. Right? So we could change some things around the room or whatever it may be to allow for a gathering of people for SAG, local days, whatever it may be. But I think the council has to ask itself that question. Do you want this to be a space that, you know, we're running rentals out of and, for weddings or whatever larger gatherings that we have there on a consistent semi consistent basis? Not a ton of. Do you have any numbers on what the
revenue well, after the cost of whatever security cleanup, whatever, what does it net? What has it netted? I'm not sure we come out. Everybody talks about it's really reasonable. That's why they like it. Absolutely. But I I mean, it's pretty reasonable. Absolutely. And I think we're gonna have something more, you know, more robust. It would definitely have to be ratcheted up. And yes, we're a very cheap venue to rent in the past. So Go ahead, Julia. I'm sorry. Yes. Well, and I guess maybe this will I don't mean so,
Mr. Seiko, what I'm thinking is those are two different things. Like do we want to design it so that's what it looks like and that's what it facilitates? And then the next question will be how do we put that into the market? Are we going to be a competitor? That's exactly what you are. Right. I mean, because that's and honestly, I don't want to compete against I mean, I don't want to compete against private business. I don't think that's right. We have a distinct and unfair advantage. I mean, I like the idea of having the venue, for our residents and and for for city functions. But that's kinda like,
I don't wanna go too far as to where we become like I said, we become competition for against hotels or TAC or other private businesses that are in that. You know, we have five or six different private businesses in the in the wedding game, if you will, within driving distance of us. And I don't think that's I don't think that's fair. So I think treading lightly into that into that realm again, I I wanna have the the community space for our community organizations, for our people. That makes sense. I don't want and I just kinda I'm leery about saying,
okay. We're gonna compete against TAC for the Fargo Moorhead rental market. I don't I don't think that's the right position for us. I agree. I definitely don't think we need to rearrange this building to make it a wedding rental venue or whatever. Like, I think we should focus on just, like you said, our community, what the people here are looking for, and kind of focus on what's going on. Very underutilized if it's 10 events a year. Well, I I don't think we should not allow rentals. Like, I'm not saying we cut that out totally. I just don't think that should be the focus of how we set this building
up. I think maybe that's what similar And then how we set it up should be for what, like, how's it best gonna serve our citizens and our needs? And if it can transform to a rental and or whatever, that's fantastic. But I think our number one priority should be community oriented, community goals. And then how do we build it so it can be the foundation for that next step? And, again, I'm I'm kinda worried, like, if we build maybe we look at, like, one of the ballrooms in in the Marriott in South Morad,
for example. If we build something like that, I'm worried that it's going to minimize the opportunity to have a more of a recreational feel because it's gonna be fancier. Right? You you don't necessarily want your dodgeball, you know, kids or your, you know, soccer kids or whatever, pickleball, you name it, walking through the foyer where everything's nice and and shiny and everything like that. So, I I don't know. I'm I'm I don't know the answer, and I'm a little hesitant. I'd like to see more before we make decisions. So it sounds like leaning more towards the activity type space that can be used for these events that are community events during the year.
And if if there's an opportunity for somebody to rent it, you know, for other uses, The opportunity is there, but we're not building a wedding venue. So that's that's number one. Number two is is the walking track component that we're showing of this. Because of the time when that might be happening when people are looking for for a space to walk in, it doesn't necessarily have to displace, or it doesn't necessarily have to happen concurrent with something that's going on in that 6,000 square feet. So if we can come up with a path that makes sense through there that could be extended with a future project,
that maybe takes care of that walking component, an indoor walking space that's quiet and and doesn't have to compete with the school for time. So so, potentially, that 2,000 square feet could come off of here, and we're back to that 15,700 square feet or just short of six 16,000 square feet. And, and we we and and we still with this with this scenario, we still would have a kitchen of some sort, but it's probably more of a catering kitchen than a full blown commercial kitchen. I think that's maybe, you know, when we talked,
with staff that day, we talked more about kind of that catering kitchen approach where you're probably working with somebody from outside or you're you're maybe doing some limited prep in there yourself, but but you're probably not making the whole meal there. You might have maybe one combi oven or something like that so that if you have the if you need to do there's so much you can do in those that that could handle a lot, but you probably don't need 2,000 square feet. And you're not gonna store a lot of food there. Whoever's prepping stuff there is gonna be is gonna be probably bringing their their food
in. So you don't need a lot of pantry storage. You don't need a lot of of refrigeration other than just for whatever you're whatever you're making for that event. They're gonna bring their stuff in and they're gonna put it in a fridge. So you need a little bit, but you certainly don't need big walk ins or things like that. So I'm gonna put you on the spot about something because I asked this last time. How large again is this room? I forgot. What do we say about it? I think we said this room was right around, what, 750. Yeah. 707 square feet. Let me try to paint a picture if we're talking a thousand square feet when compared to our previous Pretty good size.
Kitchen is I assume this is about what the size of the other one was. Right? Yeah. So I would I would guess it was smaller. Yeah. Maybe it's more smaller. I mean, yeah. We do a lot of churches, and when we program a church kitchen, typically, for a pretty robust church kitchen, we program about a thousand square feet, inclusive of everything. So I think that's a lot more what we we've been talking about. That's more what it feels like is the right fit for this than, than what you would think of as a commercial kitchen with a big event center type. It's still commercial in the fact that it's stainless steel, wipeable, cleanable,
scrubbable, all of that. It's just a scaled down version. So, I mean, just so I can put it in perspective, what would be the difference between what we had and what we'd get? Like, what is taking out? Like, I'm trying just be a basic stove? Would it be, like, a five burner stove, 10 burner? Usually, in a in this type of kitchen, usually, we don't put any stove in there. It would be if you have anything in there that's for for cooking, it would be more of a like a what they call a combi oven that can it can do everything that you could do on the stovetop traditionally.
And so that's most large operations. That's what they're doing because they can produce they can mass produce a lot of food quickly. Yeah. And it's a it's a very easy piece of equipment to use once you have just very minimal training. It's like a minimal fridge. Yep. Two door. Yeah. Probably a two door fridge, maybe a two door freezer just so that you have a place where you can put sheet pans and that kind of thing and and that's about it. So and then you have to have the the sanitation pieces, the hand washing, the three compartment sink, you know, all of those kinds of pieces. But most of what you do in here,
I would say all of what you're you're gonna do in here, you're gonna be using disposable tableware. You're not you're not gonna be using China and and that kind of stuff. If you do use that, you're probably renting it from somebody and they're bringing it in. Right. You know? So you don't need a full blown dishwashing and and some of the other components like that. In a thousand square feet though, I mean, we can do we can do convection oven if we need it for sure. Yep. Well, that's what a combi oven is that that has that capability. It does convection. It does, you know, traditional roasting. It does basically it replaces your deep fryer.
It replaces so many different things. So k. And again, you're I just wanna make sure I understand the terminology. And as as we look at this, the the commercial kitchen is an element and what we put inside of that. I mean, that's getting might be a little bit too far into the weeds right now. Yeah. We should dial it in. But but that's okay. As long as we're understanding, like, the concept, like, that commercial kitchen is is part of that community feel, and it's it's utilized across the board. We wanna make sure we're able to do that. That. And I think the the goal here would be to have a space where you can do some limited prep and limited cooking,
not, you know, not a full and if and if you wanted to do something, we can we can put whatever in there that you'd like to have in there. But if you wanted to do something like do a big huge spaghetti feed or something like that, you wouldn't have a burner to boil water for spaghetti. That's what I was kinda wondering because we do spaghetti feeds quite a bit. But, you know, that that but then if you're gonna do that, then you then you put a small hood in there and you put a small range top in there. So I think it just comes down to working with the kitchen consultant and and really down the want. Here's what you guys are gonna be using it for, and here's the pieces of equipment we need.
And a thousand feet square feet should be enough to accommodate what what you're talking about. Yeah. It did be four. So I'll make sure we did that. Alright. So and I know that when we were talking in the open meeting that people were saying, well, maybe a space up to 400 to give us room to but maybe that is competing, and maybe that's not what we need. And maybe we stick with more modular spaces that we could make more use out of. Because I'm thinking too, if you end up opening it up during the day where people are walking, is there a a small enough space that seniors might be able to use during
the day? Or, you know and then the other thing that I kinda was thinking about is maybe I know you have some storage space there. But if we could rent again, if we're using it as more of a community space, do we need to increase the amount of storage that we could use as a rental for people who may wanna store things there that have events more often that like, let's say, if the school's using it Mhmm. They could keep some equipment. Maybe we need to up the storage space and take some away from the open
space. That's a good point. If you're gonna have groups that are gonna almost be, like, tenant groups that are consistently having things in there, whether that's the school and having their dance their dance team rehearse in there or whatever, having a a small storage area that maybe is caged up into into individual storage lockers so that you can have groups have their own space and not have to haul everything back and forth all the time. That might be a really good idea to maximize flexibility. I wanna go back to what mister Steichen was talking about because as we're looking
at, you know, getting into the ins, like, I agree. I wanna make sure that we're designing something that is utilized and that it gives us the the greatest amount of flexibility as possible. And and I don't know like, we keep on talking about what it was and what it was. I'm looking at what is what can it be. Mhmm. And we're gonna run into things that we've never thought of. And and I think as we're looking at the space, that has to be a conversation is, like, when someone's, like, can we do this in the new community center? I wanna make sure we're able to answer that question, yes. Are we able to do this?
Yes. Are, you know, hey, we're thinking about, you know, taking it this out? Yes. So how we do that is going to be key. And I want it to be you know, we have, you know, like Peyton said, we have the the deal with community elements. But I'm interested to see what the next fifteen or twenty years brings with our community and where it goes and what the I mean, who would have thought we would have had the the Liberian Independence Day celebration in the city of Dilworth? You know, who knew that pickleball would be taking off? I mean, can we design a space where we can bring in,
you know, four or five temporary courts and and have a, you know, a little tournament in March or whatever? So I want to make sure we're designing a space that is flexible and as possible. Good. Yes. Let's just quick take a look at the estimate first because the question was asked you what kind of cost per square foot are we looking at. So right now, we're budgeting between $3.75 and $4.25. It's really hard to without knowing a little bit more about about what finishes we're using, what sort of, what sort of, building construction type we're gonna do.
You know, there's there's a big difference between conventional construction, maybe a, you know, a precast box with, with long span joists versus more of a pre engineered building kind of an approach. So there there would be some ways to maybe reduce cost for the big long span space. But then when you do that, you're limiting what you can do in terms of dividing that room up, you know, maybe having having a a rectangular space that could be to 6,000 square feet that could be divided into three two thousand square foot rooms if if the need arises. So all of those questions are are still out there.
But I think just for for the purpose of discussion and conversation, three seventy five to four twenty five is a good starting point for that 15,000, 15 and a half thousand square feet. And, and understanding that we're on a greenfield site there and so there's going to be quite a bit of site work to do on that site. We have utilities getting up to the site. We have on the on the, on the west side of the site, we have we have a paved road, but there's gonna need to be there's gonna need to be some other internal site work, obviously. So between 800,000 and $1,500,000
worth of site development, and then you look at at the other soft costs that are there and, you know, you're looking at a project that's probably somewhere between 7 and a half on the low end to 9 and a half on the high end in terms of of total construction cost. So setting the table for what this looks like in the future, I think, is is really important with this, making sure that the circulation that we're showing here, that pre function space has the ability to be expanded to connect to future components. So, but that gives you just
a very broad sort of snapshot of what this might look like in terms of a order of magnitude per cost. You mentioned two different possible construction methods. Would one limit you when if and when the expansion would take place? Not necessarily because the piece that lends itself well to more of a more of a pre engineered approach is the big box. So if that big box just as an example, if that big box was made out of rigid frames,
those frames would probably be somewhere around 20 feet on, you know, 20 foot intervals. And if you decided to expand that, many times we've taken a metal building and expanded it by adding additional frames and just moving the the the end wall further down. So you can you can expand it in one direction, basically. You can't expand it in two directions because the the the distance from bearing on this end to bearing on this end of that rigid frame is fixed. So once that's there, that's there. And and but you can you can stretch it. So, like, on the one on the upper upper right or on the the right there,
as you maybe expand this, that wall could move further to the to the left and you could just expand with additional. So, you really, either of those options, you can expand. The tricky thing with using a rigid frame for this is if if we were just imagine that without the court and without the the running track. If we were to build that box there and then put, and then put a, divider walls in there that could divide that 6,000 square feet up into three 2,000 square foot spaces, it's very difficult to hang partitions like that off of a rigid frame.
All the benefit you get from a rigid frame kind of goes out the door when you start to add things to it because it's a it's a really economical way to build until you do things that are outside the box. And when you do things that are outside the box, it becomes custom and then it becomes just as expensive as conventional construction or very close. So if it was used as a court, would you you'd have to have some sort of vaulted ceiling. Correct? You'd have a higher ceiling just in general. Yeah. Just for typical typical basketball court, we like to see a minimum of of 20 feet clear to the underside of the underside of the joyous. 23 feet is is much better,
and 26 feet is really ideal. 20 feet is is not a lot, you know, when you're talking about basketball or volleyball or stuff like that. That's gonna have a little different feel than our old place, which was Very squat. Yeah. But this building wouldn't look like a pole barn, would it? No. No. No. I I mean, even even a pre engineered building, you can put a skin on it that that looks really nice. But, again, you the reason you do a pre engineered building is because it's inexpensive technology. And as soon as you start wrapping it with something that is not pre engineered
building, you're spending conventional construction dollars to do that. So you you lose the advantage of the pre engineered building. So At that public meeting, you talked about you can you know, it all comes with a cost. You want something that looks very appealing from a distance, from the road, from wherever, that could still be incorporated. Yeah. The piece that in my mind, the piece that is going to be interesting is the as far as something that's gonna catch your eye when you're driving by isn't necessarily the big box. It's the it's the thing that's in front of it.
It's the the pre function space or the the smaller spaces that cluster kind of in front of that. So Or even the green space in front of it or however you And the and the green space being an extension of that, like the front lawn of the of the, of the building kinda. Something more than a parking lot. Yeah. Again, we what are those, rectangle oval looking preform? Oh, that's the building. Yeah. Something Potential entrance. I thought maybe there's a deck or patio outside. Oh, sure. Yeah. No. It's not a scale. Right? Yeah. It's I mean, it's roughly just In general, it's to scale with the with the boxes that we have on the or with
the dimensions that we have on our program. So in this case, you've got that pre function corridor that's organizing everything from left to right. On one side of that, you have some conference space and you have some toilets and maybe a small office. And then on the other side of that, you have your big event space or or activity space, whatever we want decide to call it. A commercial kitchen that is across from that that has its own access to the exterior and then some mechanical space and storage or seating in the corner. So it's a fairly compact program. There's a lot of different ways that this could be organized,
and, and some of it some of that organization is the relative to the site and what you're seeing when you drive up to it and what you're seeing when you drive by in Highway 10, there's there's we want the entrance to be visible and be be something that people identify as the entrance. And so to do that, we don't want to kind of tuck it around a corner. You want to have it visible when you're driving up. So, how you orient this on the site, how you how you organize those spaces, you know, I could see a scenario where you have a hallway along the the left hand
side of that event space coming off that pre function space and all of the things that you see on the other side of the on the other side of that big hallway, those boxes down there could flip up around the side there and then that hallway could become something that's visible all the way. Along it. It it could be more like a more like a, kinda like when when when we presented at the, at the interview and we talked about the depot, sort of the feel where you have that that covered walkway all the way along the side of the depot that is basically the platform for the train coming up.
That could be kind of that feel, but it's enclosed. So you as you're walking along that side yeah. Yeah. We got some other options too coming up here that are similar to that. You know, the nice the one thing we talked about is even if this was an event space, you potentially could still have if you extend that service corridor up, you could have something that potentially could be a walkable space around the like Brian was saying, maybe it's more through the corridors, through the hallway. You just make those corridors a little wider. And and during the day when it's less utilized, you'd still have that option.
Or during the week when it's less utilized, Maybe it's closed during you have special events, you probably would have that anyways if you had a special event in a in an activity space. But it would give you an option on grade through the building, you know, during the lower utilization. With almost zero cost. Right? Yeah. It's basically you're using the spaces there anyway, the hallway, unless there's some other activity, right, scheduled for Right. We don't wanna think hard about what kind of surface goes on the that portion. You know? What what kind of surface we're using in here so you don't see a bunch of wear lines through carpet or something like that from people use using it more.
But Versus an elevated track. Yeah. So that's With with the two, meeting rooms on the side there, you if those meeting rooms were divided by a movable wall, so it could be one big space, maybe that's your senior space. And and there's a little kitchenette in there, and that that's a space where seniors could meet and and have activities. And then you could use the event center at the same time for, for youth activity in the summer or something. So there's a lot of functionality built in here, and really I think the the uses that you might find for that are gonna
be limited by your imagination. You could really, I'm sure you could come up with all kinds of programming that could that could go in there, that goes beyond sort of the the events that are used that's gonna be mainly limited to nights and weekend weekends and, you know, like like Peyton said, 10 plus events a year that are that are things that were displaced when the old building was taken down. Then the the trick for this is gonna be to say how how can we set this up so that it's gonna maximize utilization during all of the other times when it's available for for community based activities,
adult education, you know, that kind of thing during during the week, during the day, senior events, youth events, that kind of thing. So so, yeah, looking at again, that's kind of the the track option with a court size in there. Again, the activity space necessary isn't a court, but just to get an idea of the scale and and what that might look like if it was twice as large. And then we had a couple of other layout options. One of them is kinda like Brian was saying. You have that exposed corridor along the side. You still have some functionality functionality where you could still kind of weave through the
building if you wanted to create that kind of walking indoor space, during the lower utilization times. And, again, that option maybe with a with a gymnasium or or a activity room space. This really pulls back into some secondary hallways and corridors, some of these alternative spaces, you know, like the kitchen and, mechanical store, and storage areas. And then the third layout is something I I think this is really close to what we showed in that interview, in in the initial interview.
That office maybe wouldn't be located right there, but it was just kind of a placeholder right now, which got that main corridor with the the service hallway, wrapping around the backside with the commercials, kitchen, and mechanical space off of it. So those are just some high level starting to kinda bubble diagram, think about what this would look like, and and then we can kind of, tune it in from here, I guess. And and thank you for for this. At least now we have a beginning of something to look at, and I'm glad we were able to bring in some of the insight from our first public meeting.
Would this be part of the second public meeting? Because I know we had another one scheduled. Would this be part of of what you bring forth to the community again? Certainly. Yeah. And and get some feedback. I I think that, after hearing what we've heard today, I think what we're talking about is probably something in between the extreme of this being purely an event center and the extreme of this being purely an activity center. It needs to be more a little bit more multi use, and we need to think about how it gets laid out accordingly. And if we can figure out how to get some sort of a walkable,
space in there on on grade so that we're not doing an elevated thing. If we can figure out a way to do that, that'd be a bonus, and I think people would react really positively to that. So if if that's the direction, I think when we show this, you know, in the in the next public meeting and have the that conversation, I probably would pull the court information off of there and and more talk about the types of activities that could happen in that activity space rather than showing a basketball court and having that stick in people's head that it's because that's not the
intent. I mean, the reason that we show that on there is more for scale because everybody can wrap their head around how big a Sure. How big a basketball court is. So Are there any other questions from council? Well, it looks like we're sorta in their budgeting range, so that's good to hear. I mean, things can change, honestly. But I like taking care of the residents, like mayor Olsen's talking about. They did lose something that's very valuable Mhmm. You know, when the community center went down. And who knows what's gonna be asked for in twenty years or thirty or next
five years. So, we do hear a lot of things, but it's neat that I've I've always said that we don't want to be right, but we wanna get it right. So, keep we need to keep that in mind that Yeah. These people have as much say as anybody, and we wanna make sure it's meeting their needs. Yeah. Yeah. We're excited to get started on on looking at what this looks like on the site a little bit more, but we thought it was kinda premature to get too far down that road without having this conversation first.
So I I think, with what with the input that we've gotten here today, I think now we can we can take this. Sounds like we're on track in general here, and we can take this and start to come up with some concepts for how it can sit on the site and what what future expansion might look like. So almost bubbles can be moved around. Absolutely. Oh, you have a huge site. I like seeing it in visual. To me, it looks helpful. Yeah. We'll we'll have more visual next time we get together that, that puts it on the site in context with the stuff that's around it.
And for the same cost, if you can make something as appealing as you can from the outside as you drive up, they're going to be presented with something, and they're going to leave with something fantastic in their mind, hopefully. Absolutely. Anything else? I do want to say thank you very much for coming out. I mean, we're not even at the beginning stages. Like, we've been doing this for a while, so it kind of feels good to see some things on paper, and remember that we are building it for the people in the audience, not for the people up here. I appreciate the opportunities and look forward to where we're gonna go next. So, gentlemen, thank you very much.
Yeah. We look forward to getting in front of the community again with another community meeting. That'll be a lot of fun once we have some things to show them. So Awesome. Thank you very much. Thank you. Alright. So with that, that does conclude our, special meeting this evening, for, work session on our community center. And with that, we'll call our meeting adjourned.