Can a multipurpose building with two sheets of ice at the Mower County Fairgrounds be built for $5.

Thursday, November 09, 2000

Can a multipurpose building with two sheets of ice at the Mower County Fairgrounds be built for $5.5 million?

Inquiring Mower County Board of Commissioners and Austin City Council minds want to know.

So does Hormel Foods Corp., the Hormel Foundation, Austin Youth Hockey Association and Riverside Figure Skating Club.

Add the Austin High School coed hockey teams to that list, too.

All the financial players in the project have been waiting for this moment. Now, they will have to wait longer.

Jon W. Erichson, Austin’s director of public works, reviewed the plans late Wednesday afternoon at a joint city-county meeting.

He encouraged county officials to allow at least 60 days for the bids to be reviewed.

"There are a lot of people interested and involved in this project and I am sure they will want to be in on the final decision-making process to accept a bid," Erichson said.

After two years of meetings and planning, the county board members saw what County Coordinator Craig Oscarson described as the "final, final design plans … unless any changes are made."

The county commissioners agreed Tuesday to accept bids Dec. 19 on the multipurpose building project.

LHB Engineers and Architects Inc. submitted final plans for the proposed new 59,000 square foot building and the five-member county board, plus Oscarson, reviewed them Tuesday.

The county board has committed $2.8 million to the project and the commissioners, most notably Ray Tucker, Second District, and Richard P. Cummings, First District, have said the county’s share will not increase and the building must come in within budget or "other financial sources will have to step forward," as Cummings said a month ago.

The city of Austin is contributing up to $950,000, plus equipment from the Riverside Arena facility it hopes to close when the new building is constructed.

Riverside Arena was built in 1973 and holds one sheet of ice. It annually costs the city more than $113,000 to subsidize its operations.

When it closes, the city plans to turn it into a recreation facility.