The city will employ the help of financial adviser Davenport & Company to seek a bond for $5 million for the construction of a new Stryker Center.
City officials announced in February they received an unsolicited bid from builders to construct a new community building that would replace the current Stryker Building, which now houses space for public meetings and events. The bid — from contractor Henderson, Inc. and architect firm Guernsey Tingle — was for a new, larger structure that would fulfill the Stryker building’s current purpose and have extra space for the expansion of Williamsburg Regional Library.
Since that time, the city decided it would also consider design plans submitted by two more teams:
- Contractor Daniel & Company, Inc. and architect groups David Stemmann Architect, LLC and Edwin J. Pease Architect
- Contractor W.M. Jordan and architect group Hopke and Associates
Officials later employed the help of Guernsey Tingle to sharpen their goals for the interior and exterior of the building. City Manager Jack Tuttle announced at Saturday’s City Council retreat those goals — based on conversations with Guernsey Tingle — had been sent to the three teams for consideration.
The teams were charged with deciding whether they would like to participate further, or withdraw their bid from the job. If they participate further, the would need to redesign the plans they submitted in February to include the new design goals and to fit a $5 million to $6 million budget.
Now, that budget is being used to start the funding process as the city announced Thursday it will be using Davenport & Company to take bids from banks willing to fund the project at $5 million. According to Director of Finance Philip Serra, the city is deciding to look into funding the job now because interest rates are beginning to rise — starting process now could save money.
Serra said that while the city does not know at what interest rate the bond would be funded, that does not stop speculation.
“There are a lot of numbers being thrown around,” he said. “That’s a good reason to do this. Let’s firm this up and see what we can get.”
Serra said the next step will be for Davenport to receive bids — typically for a 15-year repayment plan — which the company hopes to present to the council in November.
At Thursday’s meeting, Tuttle also said the design teams had responded to the question of whether they were still interested in bidding the job. Without naming the teams, he said one team said they wanted to participate, another had “serious questions” and Henderson/Tingle will continue their involvement.
Design groups will be compensated up to $7,500 for moving further into the process. The next step for the groups is to resubmit their plans to the city by Nov. 22.
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