Council supportive of Hoosier Desk partnership but wallet remains closed
Jim O’Neal WITZ AM/FM News Director contributed to this report
Mike Jones, president of the Jasper Community Arts Commission, found the Jasper Council was supportive of a partnership with the Jasper Public Library at the Hoosier Desk site.
But they aren’t ready to open the city’s wallet just yet.
Besides the benefits of the partnership and the community-building importance of the proposed cultural center, Jones pointed out that this project would allow the Jasper Arts to expand for roughly half the cost of a proposed expansion at their current location adjacent to VUJC. The arts commission has been working towards expanding the arts center for several years but held back as the city completed construction on the Sports Complex and finished paying it off last year.
Estimates on the expansion have ranged from $9 million to $12 million and the Hoosier Desk site would cost the arts commission about $6 million after the recent industrial site recovery tax credit is applied to the project and it was split between. Story here.
The move would also bring the arts closer to the heart of the city.
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The city council members who spoke up gave positive reactions to the concept although one council member, Tom Schmidt, asked if the city of Jasper was going to have to purchase the Hoosier Desk property, to which Library Board President Dean Vonderheide, who was in attendance said no. (Story here)
Schmidt added the caveat that he would only support it if the building was demolished. Councilman Ray Howard agreed.
“In our scenario, we took the approach where we would completely demolish the building, because that was the lowest cost to the taxpayers,” Vonderheide said. “I think that as we go forward and go through an RFP (a request for proposal) for an architect and designer, that question can be raised once again to what can be re-purposed. Ideally, the library board has said we are ready to go in and demolish the building and go forward. The site is what we are interested in.”
Vonderheide explained that the library board is moving ahead with the purchase of the property irrespective of what the city does.
“Yes. I mean, that was the decision of the library board,” Vonderheid said. “We went down that path in our scenarios that we would be the ones to purchase the property.”
Vonderheide clarified that the library doesn’t necessarily want to own the entire property and portions of it could be sold off in smaller sections to interested developers for housing or retail purposes.
Furthermore, Vonderheide says they won’t be in the real estate business long term. While there’s a part of the property needed on which to place the new library, there’s more than enough to share with other entities.
Jones says he was happy with the way the presentation of a cultural center was received by the council and is encouraged by the possibilities. “It will be a cooperative effort. City, private enterprise, grants. We already know, for example, that the DINO tax credit is going to account for about 22%, $3.5 million of the project,” he said. “That’s huge.”
Next up for the library board is to finalize the purchase and begin working with bond counsel to set up a referendum vote for 2016 on the location.
It was suggested last night that the Arts Commission go ahead and establish a nonprofit [501(c)3] organization so that funds can be raised from private donations to put towards the project.
According to Jones, the commission would like to know the city supports the efforts and in the future would like to know how much, if any, money the city would contribute to the project. “If we know how much you are going to put towards the project, then we as a group know how much we will need to raise for our side,” he said.
Several factors affect the future of the proposed cultural center.
The library’s decision is slated to be finalized in a public referendum on the November 2016 ballot.
Additionally, on the city side, at least three of the current council members will no longer be on the council. Dave Prechtel, Schmidt and Howard are not running for re-election this year.
