Jasper Council approves purchase of school property for Regional Wellness Center
The Jasper Common Council approved the purchase agreement for a 10-acre plot located between the Jasper High School and The Parklands.
Earlier this week, the Greater Jasper Consolidated School Board of Trustees approved selling the 10 acres to the city for $221,722.50 as a potential location for the Regional Wellness Center.
The Regional Wellness Center is a proposed 90,000-square-foot facility featuring an 8,000-square-foot fitness center, four full-court gymnasiums, a 14,000-square-foot indoor aquatic center, an indoor, elevated walking track, four group exercise studios, and five community rooms, including a community kitchen. As a future phase of the project, an additional 19,000-square-foot Early Learning Center is in the planning stages.
The Tri-County YMCA is a partner in the project and will manage the facility, offering YMCA programming.
During the discussion at Wednesday’s council meeting, City Attorney Renee Kabrick told the council the corporation had completed an appraisal of the property before the offer. In 2014, the city sold the property to the school corporation for $173,445. The current appraisal set the property’s value at about $270,000.
According to Kabrick, during negotiations, the corporation reduced the property’s increase in value between the 2014 sale price and the current appraisal by half to establish the offering price.
The city will use Hoosier Enduring Legacy Program (HELP) funds to pay for the property. About a million dollars of the HELP funds have been allocated to the project. HELP funds are part of a program established by the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs to increase the impact of America Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds made available during the pandemic.
The City of Jasper and Dubois County collaboratively applied to participate in HELP for this project, the recently announced homeowner-occupied rehabilitation program, and funding for the TriCAP Head Start program. In doing so, they allocated about 30 percent of the federal ARPA funds to leverage more funding through the state’s HELP program to fund projects within the context of the HELP program’s requirements.
According to Kabrick, the property should transfer to the city within 60 to 90 days.
As part of the agreement, if the Regional Wellness Center project does not move forward at that location, the city will return the property to the school corporation for the same sale price.
During Wednesday’s discussion, Councilman Chad Lueken asked if the construction of the Regional Wellness Center would impact the Birk and Berg Bike Trail located in the wooded area next to the property. According to Mayor Dean Vonderheide, the trail is on school property. He added that the only way it could be impacted is if the school corporation wanted to add some connectivity between the two campuses.
Councilman Paul Lorey observed that, if anything, the development would increase accessibility to the bike trail with the additional parking at the Regional Wellness Center.
Funding for the estimated $40 million project comes from several sources. An ongoing capital campaign has garnered about $6 million in donations; the HELP funding mentioned in this article; the Food and Beverage tax that added a one percent tax to customers’ receipts when purchasing prepared foods and drinks at restaurants, delis and convenience stores/gas stations; Tax Increment Finance funding from business property taxes in the Central Tax Increment Finance District; and potential grants through the state (READI 2.0).
The council and city would like to avoid using any property taxes to pay for the center.
