The Cottonwood City Council voted once again on Wednesday, Dec. 18, to sell the Rough Cut building and directed staff to explore building a new municipal center.
Council had directed staff to list the property for sale in September before directing that the bidding process be halted in order to further discuss the city’s needs and space assessment in November.
Mayor Ann Shaw made the case that it would be possible to build out only the lower half of the building and complete the upper half at a later date to save money. She also described it as an opportunity to reuse the solar panels currently at the Water Reclamation Facility to offset costs at the Rough Cut building, a suggestion previously made by Councilman Stephen DeWillis.
Cottonwood Utilities Director and interim City Manager Tom Whitmer said that he had looked into the council’s solar panel suggestion and explained that the panels are not in use because they broke about a month after their warranty ran out and the equipment needed to repair them is no longer readily available due to their age. He received a bid of almost $500,000 to restore them to working order.
Councilwoman Felicia Coates said that she had initially favored completing the Rough Cut shell, but changed her mind after doing more research.
“I think construction of a new building adjacent to this one is a wiser use of city money, provides city staff with a new building that is built to purpose and exposes the city to less risks,” Coates said.
She also said refurbishing their existing building would have the advantages of creating a Main Street-facing symbol of the city and making use of a property the city already owns and in which it has invested over $400,000.
Conversely, Coates said that the city should build a municipal center for the future rather than use a building that is already 17 years old, and commented that the building is 22,000 square feet larger than the amount of space the city’s space study stated the city requires, which will incur extra expenses for heating, cooling and upkeep.
“While I’m a very strong advocate for recycling and repurposing things, including buildings, in this case, I think it makes more sense to construct a new building that will be fit to purpose,” Coates continued. “Exactly what the city needs and nothing more.” She added that the cost of the new building would be offset by the sale of Rough Cut. Councilmembers Joy Mosley, Chris Dowell and Bob Marks expressed agreement with Coates..
DeWillis referred to the construction of the Water Reclamation Facility building and said city residents shouldn’t be paying high costs over a long period of time, as occurred during the construction of the WRF.
“As a resident, I don’t want that,” DeWillis said, adding that he believed the same process could occur with Rough Cut.
“I think it’s obvious that we’re way better off moneywise for our residents and our businesses to build a new building,” Vice Mayor Debbie Wilden said.
She suggested doing tilt-up construction and provided an estimate from one company for constructing a 28,000- to 30,000-square-foot cement building in 12 weeks, excluding roofing, electrical wiring equipment and other features. “For all of the reasons that have already been said, we need to build a new building and I don’t want to wait any longer,” Wilden said. “The staff needs it. The residents need it. We need it.”
“My strongest objection to this is using this piece of park land next to us,” Shaw said. “I really worry that the eventuality will be that 10 years from now when none of us are left on the council, people are going to wonder what were we thinking, giving up the last piece of park land and putting in a roundabout, having a flow of traffic in this area that’s never been here before.”
“I’m not sure that in the long term it’s the best thing,” Shaw continued. “If we had another better location, I don’t think I would object, but my objection is using up the land next to us for a city building when I think the park space should be preserved.”
Vice Mayor Wilden made the motion to resume the sale of the Rough Cut building and develop a contract to build a new city hall located next to the current council chambers, which passed 6-1 with Shaw as the single dissenting vote.
Staff said the process of listing the property for sale will take approximately three months, and bids must be a minimum of the appraised value of $3,875,000. The money received from the sale of the property would be returned to the capital improvements fund. The design and construction of the new building will likely require the city to issue bonds.
