INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — Kast Construction Company out of West Palm Beach should be breaking ground this spring on a 37,000-square-foot gymnasium and multi-purpose recreation complex at the South County Regional Park.
The Board of County Commissioners voted 5-0 on Tuesday to spend $10.7 million on the facility, which should be completed in time for the summer of 2016.
The funding will come from $7.5 million in optional sales tax money and from $3.2 in Parks and Recreation impact fees paid by residential and business property owners to increase the County’s capacity to serve additional people due to growth.
“We think this building will serve a multitude of ages and a multitude of activities,” said Public Works Director Chris Mora.
Mora told commissioners that the Intergenerational Center has been planned since 2004, but that it got shelved due to that year’s hurricanes and picked back up in 2011, when an architect was hired.
County Administrator Joe Baird said the original plan called for a 24,000-square-foot gymnasium, but that county officials reviewed and expanded those plans.
Commissioner Tim Zorc questioned what the need was for so much more space.
“If we wanted to put on tournaments to help tourism, we were going to have to build it bigger, 22,000 square feet would be doing an injustice,” Baird responded.
Then Zorc criticized the big-box design of the building.
“It looks to me to be out of place for the neighborhood,” Zorc said, noting that $10 million is a lot of money to spend and that the design could have been more aesthetically pleasing.
“The team on this looked at a lot of different designs,” Mora said. “Obviously as an engineer, the most functional is a big box.”
Baird and Mora explained that specifications for gymnasiums limit the design options because of the lack of windows and the required ventilation system.
“We’ve never built a gym before. We went to five different facilities across the state and looked at them to see what we might want,” Baird said.
Eight firms responded to the county’s request for proposal, six of those bids were considered responsive and Kast Construction came in with the low bid at just over $10.67 million.
Baird explained that the job did not attract some of the local firms who generally bid on county projects, due to the high-dollar bonding requirement on a $10.7 million price tag. Firms are required to set aside, typically, 10 percent of the total bid in a bond as security to the county taxpayers that the job will be completed.
“The flooring is very expensive to make it tournament quality, and a lot of local contractors don’t have $10 million in bonding capacity,” Baird said.
In addition to multiple gymnasiums for basketball and volleyball, the new complex will have offices for Recreation Department staff, classroom space and a covered bus loop and drop off area for loading and unloading of teams and equipment.
The gymnasium building is the first phase of the project, but there is space at the park for another planned 26,000-square foot-expansion later on.
Mora said that some drainage issues at the park will be taken care of as part of the plans for the park, and Baird said that some other upgrades to the facility, including an open green space for events or free play for kids, will be brought back to the Board separately.
“There is room for an event lawn on the north side, a lot of green space and a covered patio area,” Mora said.
Once a contract is executed, site preparation for construction is expected to begin within 90 to 120 days.
