New Recreation Center and Pool for Livingston in the Works

new

« Prev
1
Next »

Poor Richard
Senior Plus

New to Glastonbury

Posts: 993

New Recreation Center and Pool for Livingston in the Works Mar 9, 2023 9:19:40 GMT -7

Quote

Post by Poor Richard on Mar 9, 2023 9:19:40 GMT -7

New Recreation Center and Pool for Livingston in the Works

The Livingston Enterprise reports "Officials with 4 Ranges Community Recreation Foundation Inc. say they’ve obtained philanthropic commitments of $18.7 million from donors and anticipate $4.5 million in other funding to go toward the construction of a new recreation center in Livingston, which would include a large indoor pool.

The foundation proposes to raise enough funds to build 4 Ranges Wellness Center, which it describes as a multi-use recreational complex with amenities in Livingston for residents to enjoy year-round. The facility is envisioned as “a comprehensive community recreation complex” of almost 50,000 square feet, at an estimated cost of $33 million, according to www.4ranges.com/. Proposed amenities include a recreational pool and separate lap pool, double-width gymnasium, elevated running track, studio space, classrooms, locker rooms, offices and a large community room.

“We have to get to roughly $30 million to pull this off, so we’re asking people to join us,” said Chase Rose, who is assisting the foundation as the principal of Bozeman-based fundraising consultant firm Bannack Group LLC. “We are asking folks to consider a gift at a level meaningful to them.”

Livingston city officials have suggested the new recreation center could be built on the site of the current Civic Center.

“We are open to funding any site that provides walkability from the schools and qualifies for federal funding,” said Andrew Field, chairman of 4 Ranges Community Recreation Foundation.

The City Commission voted unanimously Tuesday evening to enter into a memorandum of understanding with 4 Ranges to “collaborate to explore opportunities to provide recreation facilities and programs that will serve the residents and visitors of the City of Livingston and Park County,” in the language of the MOU. The MOU doesn’t obligate the city to fund any project or require that a certain site be chosen for a new rec center.

“I think this is a great opportunity,” said commission Vice-Chair Karrie Kahle during Tuesday’s meeting. “This is a starting point.”

Kahle said the decision on the wellness center will ultimately be up to the citizens at the ballot.

It’s proposed that residents be asked to decide on whether to create a special district to help fund parks and recreation amenities in the city, including the wellness center. During Tuesday’s meeting, Livingston City Manager Grant Gager told commissioners the plan so far is to have the question of a special district placed on the November ballot.

The wellness center operating budget is estimated at $1.4 million, with $900,000 being generated from taxes and $500,000 being generated from memberships, according to the foundation’s project website.

A crowd packed the commission chambers during the meeting, most of whom appeared to be there for the wellness center agenda item. At least two dozen people, including some school district staff and students, addressed the commission on the topic. Most expressed support for a wellness center but residents were divided on where it should go. Some preferred the Civic Center site as proposed, while others warned of flood risks, environmental concerns or spoke of a desire to preserve the historic building.

Patricia Grabow, president of the Livingston Downtown Building Owners and Business Association and a former City Commissioner, said the Civic Center site “is unstable” and it would be “a disaster to put the wellness center in that location.”

“Do not tear down our wonderful, magnificent Civic Center,” said Grabow, who sits on the Park County Historical Society board.

Wendy Weaver, executive director at Montana Freshwater Partner, also warned of risks associated with the river. She told the commission FEMA will be mapping the area floodplain zones and said if the Civic Center site “falls within the floodplain, this will be a significant risk.” She urged officials not to build “in high-risk zones like the channel migration zone and the floodplain along the river.”

Foundation officials indicated they aren’t concerned with flooding at the Civic Center site or other environmental problems.

“We’ve done initial geotechnical engineering surveys that dug test pits at low and high water marks that suggested there was no sign of water or debris from the landfill,” Rose told the Livingston Enterprise after the meeting. “However, out of an abundance of caution, we have proposed to the city that we do an additional study with deeper test pits to ensure the site is conducive for building.”

Rose said one of the benefits to the Civic Center site is the city already owns it, so no funds would have to be expended for land purchases. Other benefits, he said, include the site’s proximity to schools, low-income residents, accessibility to city utilities and its location in a zone that qualifies investors for tax credits. The foundation expects to be able to sell tax credits for $4.5 million, which would help fund the wellness center project.

Losing the tax credits and having to buy 10 acres somewhere “would cost millions” and the foundation would “struggle to reach our goal,” he said.

“I grew up in Clyde Park ... and played basketball for years at the Civic Center,” Rose told the Enterprise on Monday. “These facilities served us well, but it’s time for an indoor, year-round facility that meets the needs and desires of the community.”

Foundation officials told the commission their group would raise money for residents of limited means to help them afford memberships at the proposed facility. This could consist of free memberships or partially subsidized memberships, depending on the circumstances, they said.

“The Foundation is committed to raising money after construction ensuring the facility is fully accessible to all regardless of their ability to pay,” reads the foundation’s website. “We are confident we can accomplish that goal, while ensuring memberships are some of the most affordable anywhere in Montana.”

This is a developing story and more information will be provided.

Board members of the 4 Ranges Community Recreation Foundation:

Andrew Field, Chairman
Michael McCormick, Vice Chair
Dan Vermillion, Treasurer
Maggie Tarr, Secretary
Dr. Scott Coleman
Doug Braham
Robin Ogata
Caroline Rehder
Bruce Lay
Tawnya Rupe Mraz"

Forum articles are often built upon previous articles. As a result, infrequent readers may find some articles difficult to understand. I try to include blue highlighted links so readers may reference information used in writing the article like official Minutes, Financial Statements, and previous articles. I also make errors and sometimes forget that what is clear to me, may not be for you. If you have questions please post them under the article and I will answer them.

Poor Richard
Senior Plus

New to Glastonbury

Posts: 993

New Recreation Center and Pool for Livingston in the Works Mar 10, 2023 11:47:02 GMT -7

Quote

Post by Poor Richard on Mar 10, 2023 11:47:02 GMT -7

Engineer warns about major flood risk in Livingston

The Livingston Enterprise reports "Not long after the City of Livingston began soliciting bids to repair the levee protecting Sacajawea Park, a local civil engineer commented that she believed “it was a miracle” the levee held under last summer's severe flood.

“The dike and levee aren’t FEMA-approved structures,” said civil engineer Wendy Weaver in her comments to the City Commission on Tuesday.

Weaver, executive director of Livingston-based Montana Freshwater Partners, said the Civic Center and the Park High School are in the Yellowstone River’s channel migration zone and “the historic floodplain.” Her comments pertained to a proposal under consideration to build a city-owned recreation center on the site of the Civic Center, which is adjacent to the levee and Yellowstone River.

“We should definitely reconsider investing huge sums of public dollars and other funding into a facility that’s going to be located in this high-risk area along the river,” Weaver said. “I think flood hazards are considered one of Livingston's highest risks, according to the county’s hazard mitigation plan, and an important strategy for minimizing flood damage in the future is to avoid building in high-risk zones like the channel migration zone and the floodplain along the river.”

Weaver said there was a “concerning” “paper trail” related to why the Civic Center area was “mapped outside the floodplain."

“I think it’s a miracle the levee didn’t collapse under this flood," Weaver said. "We know that that is not the first of these floods we’re going to see. And this is my opinion: we’re going to see more of these events happen with atmospheric rivers. This event could have extended another six hours. Had it done that, that levee would have been gone, this town would have been completely flooded, so we’re very lucky it was a short precipitation event that occurred, but we are going to see events of this magnitude and greater in the future.”

Weaver said that although she is “in 100 percent support of the Wellness Center” and is in agreement with almost all comments made during that meeting about the need for the project.”

“What I don’t agree with is the proposed location adjacent to the river, and I think it poses pretty significant risks and complications that people may not be aware or, after what I heard tonight, maybe they’re aware of, and we’re going to choose to ignore,” Weaver said.

The format of Tuesday’s meeting wasn’t set up for a real-time, back-and-forth between disputants — residents were asked to address their comments to the commission, not to one another — and time was limited, so Weaver’s concerns were not answered immediately.

But after the meeting, one person involved in fundraising efforts, Chase Rose of Bozeman-based fundraising consultant firm Bannack Group LLC, told the Enterprise of the environmental work that’s been done so far. He said “we’ve done initial geotechnical engineering surveys that dug test pits at low and high-water marks that suggested there was no sign of water or debris from the landfill.” There used to be a landfill on the site.

“However, out of an abundance of caution, we have proposed to the city that we do an additional study with deeper test pits to ensure the site is conducive for building,” Rose said.

After the meeting, another person involved in the matter commented that the area hadn't flooded since the Civic Center structure was built, but the Enterprise has not confirmed this yet. The Works Progress Administration began building the structure as an armory in 1936 with the building dedication celebration held on July 1, 1937, according to the city's National Register of Historic Places Registration Form.

More on the wellness center project can be read at bit.ly/41ZA6kk. As this is a developing story that involves a possible ballot initiative in November, more will be reported over the course of the year.

Weaver also is a city zoning commissioner. She told the City Commission Tuesday that she’s a licensed civil engineer who has worked for about the last two-and-a-half decades on water resource projects in Montana.

“One of the first projects I ever worked on was the Double AA Ranch following the ‘96, ‘97 floods, so I have a lot of experience working around rivers and seeing what they do,” Weaver said. “We also played a pretty significant role after the flood this summer of working with the city and the county and the state’s emergency services as well as many landowners in the valley who were impacted from the flood through The Upper Yellowstone River Assessment Committee, so we’ve been trying coordinate and work with the [Army] Corps [of Engineers] to figure out how we can improve and get more flood resiliency into our community.”

The city in February began preparing for an invitation for bids “for the immediate repair of our riprap on the levee,” said Livingston City Manager Grant Gager in a Feb. 24 email to the Livingston Enterprise.

The city published the invitation earlier this month. The city's goal is to receive bids and start work "before the spring high-water period,” Gager wrote.

“This will be funded, in part, by FEMA Public Assistance funding related to the 2022 Presidential Disaster Declaration,” Gager wrote. “The City expects that the work may exceed $50,000 but, again, most will be covered by FEMA.”

The scope of the levee project will include the area near the south end of Sacajawea Park and then running downstream to the city property line behind the ballfields, a little over 4,000 linear feet, according to information from the city.

The city’s call for bids describes the project as a repair of the Livingston levee riprap blanket that was damaged during the June 2022 flood.

“The work includes furnishing and placing riprap within the existing riprap blanket to repair damaged sites and re-establish continuous riprap coverage,” reads the call for bids. “There is a priority in the sequence of work. The area from the Civic Center downstream is very important and working on the toe of the levee in the priority area is very important in case of early runoff. All work shall be done in strict accordance with the requirements of the contract documents.”

The city will receive bids until 2 p.m. March 15."