City adopts Mozingo center fee schedule
TONY BROWN/DAILY FORUM
A mild winter has moved construction ahead of schedule for the Mozingo Lake Recreation Park conference center, pictured, which city officials say could be completed by sometime in November. City Hall is to start accepting reservations on Monday, April 3, from groups, organizations and businesses wishing to use the center on or after Jan. 1, 2018.
The Maryville City Council this week approved facility rental rates for a $4.7 million conference center and golf course clubhouse currently under construction at Mozingo Lake Recreation Park.
Rates for groups, businesses and organizations seeking to use the facility will vary depending on the time of the week and whether or not events are held on a holiday.
Renting the entire banquet area Monday through Thursday, for example, will cost $1,500, while holiday and weekend prices are $3,500 and $2,500, respectively.
Conference center tournament rates for Mozingo golf events are $2,000 (holidays), $1,500 (weekend) and $800 (weekday).
The modular banquet area, which is designed for events attended by up to 500 guests, can be partitioned into four smaller meeting spaces available for rent on a per-room basis.
Other rentable facilities include an outdoor “events lawn,” a multipurpose lounge, a portable 24-foot by 24-foot dance floor, a decorative metal arch and table skirts and linens.
City Manager Greg McDanel said rental prices were set after municipal staff reviewed rates charged by similar facilities within the triangle formed by Omaha, Nebraska, Des Moines, Iowa, and Kansas City.
The city-owned conference center, which will be equipped with a warming kitchen, is also to house a privately operated restaurant. Patrons who pay a kitchen fee will be allowed to bring in their own pre-cooked food for events attended by fewer than 100 people. Larger events will require the services of a caterer chosen from an approved list.
Alcoholic beverages must be purchased from the facility, and no outside alcohol is permitted. Bar service will be available with both open- and cash-bar options.
The city plans to start accepting conference center reservations and deposits on April 3 — next Monday — for events scheduled on or after Jan. 1.
However, McDanel said a relatively mild winter has allowed center construction to move well ahead of schedule, and that he expects the facility to be completed as early as November of this year.
He added that interest in the center is running high, and that about 20 wedding parties have inquired about bookings, as have three or four companies wishing to hold corporate events there.
Taking up a related issue during its regular Monday session, the council approved a change order submitted by E.L. Crawford Construction, the conference center’s general contractor.
The order adds just over $156,000 to the cost of the facility, mostly for additions anticipated by municipal staff when the original contract was signed last November.
McDanel said initial “value engineering” efforts reduced the original Crawford bid by $1.1 million, but that the offer still included “several items that staff sought to analyze further” and “ultimately knew would be required for the project.”
These items embrace, among other things, a concrete, as opposed to asphalt, parking lot; curbs for the golf course entry street, and a retaining wall.
In requesting that the council approve the change order, McDanel pointed out that significant savings are expected from a number of the design changes, such as exchanging an $85,000 poured concrete retaining wall for a modular block wall provided by a local supplier at a cost of just under $14,000.
Other costs added by the change order include builders risk insurance, $14,000; the concrete lot, $38,000; deck and masonry columns, $33,000; architectural drawings, $10,000; and concrete curbs, $21,000.
In further justifying the added expense, McDanel said all new funds for the project come from savings and deferred spending associated with the Mozingo Recreation Fund.
By statute, the fund, which consists of revenues from user fees and a half-cent Mozingo sales tax, must be spent for park development and maintenance. This means that Mozingo revenues cannot be transferred into other municipal funds and used for non-park projects, such as streets and sewers.
Proposed transfers from other portions of the Mozingo budget include $50,000 earmarked for marketing; $50,000 in architect’s fees, unpaid after Wertzberger Architects of Marshalltown, Iowa, was fired during the center’s pre-construction phase; $30,000 in riprap funds budgeted for lakeshore stabilization; $36,500 budgeted for a new event coordinator’s position; $8,000 budgeted for a part-time event coordinator position; and $8,000 saved when a park lawnmower bid came in lower than expected.
Lakeshore stabilization is a priority for both the council and the Mozingo Lake Advisory Board, and McDanel said that another $75,000 for riprap rock earmarked for such work remains in the city’s spending plan and is already being spent.
In other Mozingo-related business, the council approved new policies for the Group Camp compound at the lake, a facility consisting of five cabins, a bathhouse and a multi-purpose building equipped as a dining hall.
The resolution ends the practice of allowing youth organizations to “bump” other parties who have reserved the camp and paid a deposit. However, youth groups will still receive a 25 percent discount off their facility rental fee.
Implemented on a one-year trial basis, the new policy changes the compound’s name from “Youth Camp” to “Group Camp” and calls for making reservations involving multiple cabins available online.
Municipal staff proposed the changes in an effort to increase the camp’s occupancy rate, which in recent years has averaged between 14 and 16 percent.
Other approvals by the council this week included:
· A $29,000 expenditure for a sewer line replacement along North Mulberry between West Fifth and West Sixth streets.
· Hay harvesting agreements with private vendors for 146 acres of Mozingo pastureland.
· A Greater Maryville Chamber of Commerce request to hold its annual Kids’ Block Party in downtown Maryville beginning at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 18.
· A Nodaway Broadcasting request to hold a Country Showdown talent contest on the Market Street side of the Maryville square beginning at 7 p.m. Saturday, June 10.
· A Maryville Pubic Art Committee request to hold its downtown Art, Rhythm & Blues festival beginning at 7 p.m. Friday, May 19.
TONY BROWN/DAILY FORUM
Maryville City Manager Greg McDanel, right, projects photographs onto a viewing screen at this week’s City Council meeting illustrating the progress of conference center construction at Mozingo Lake Recreation Park.
