LA CYGNE – The La Cygne City Council took the next step in building a new fire station by hiring a Fort Scott architectural firm for the project on Wednesday, June 15. The council approved signing a letter that will let Zingre and Associates begin design work on the structure.
The cost of the design work is about $48,400 plus nearly $2,400 in expected expenses. The cost of all the work from preliminary design through the bidding phase is about $38,100 with the construction phase adding another $10,300 once the council decides to accept a bid.
The building is expected to be put out for bids by mid-August.
The council last month voted to proceed with building a 5,800-square-foot, pre-engineered steel building rather than a wood pole structure. Zingre’s estimate for just the steel building with four equipment bays was about $553,000.
The estimate included two options: building interior office space and a meeting room and constructing a 1,500-square-foot addition that could be used for the police department at a later date.
The cost to build a meeting room, office and restroom with storage above that space was almost $132,000, which would push the cost up to around $684,000. The addition for the police department with only basic power and no heating or air conditioning was estimated to cost more than $189,000. The total with both options and fees was estimated by Zingre to cost more than $935,000
The cost to go ahead and finish the area for the police department was estimated to be another $126,000, which would have brought the total cost to nearly $1.09 million. The council did not choose that option.
The council rejected the option of constructing the building using wood posts, which would have been about $50,000 less. However, the metal-frame building is designed in a way to allow more storage above the rooms, according to City Clerk Jodi Wade.
The city expects to use several sources of revenue for the project.
In April, the First Option Bank Trustee Foundation awarded the city a $100,000 grant for the new station. With about $300,000 in the city’s capital reserve fund, and use of a large part of the $171,000 received under the American Recovery Program Act (ARPA), the city would need as much as $350,000 or more by selling revenue bonds or taking out a loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Wade said she had been in talks with the city’s Public Building Committee about issuing revenue bonds for the project.