Work on ag center to begin in July
By Steve Herring
Published in News on June 19, 2016 1:45 AM
A groundbreaking ceremony will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday, July 14, for the Maxwell Regional Agricultural and Convention Center.
Construction is anticipated to be completed by December 2017 or January 2018.
"It really depends on the weather and how they are able to move forward with it," said Wayne County Commissioner Bill Pate, chairman of the board's Agriculture Advisory Committee. "If we have a wet year like we did this past year, it may push it out further."
Site work could begin as early as next month, he said.
"Things are getting ready to happen pretty quickly," Pate said. "We will be making a decision on Tuesday about who will be the construction firm that will take care of the grading out there and land prep. There was a bid conference Tuesday (June 14), and there will be a recommendation made this Tuesday for us to make a decision.
"At that point we can go ahead and go forward with the project, and that puts everything into motion at that point as for the agreement with Goldsboro and the hotel occupancy taxes. We will start getting the dollars from the 2 percent that was agreed with Goldsboro."
The hotel tax revenues will be used for operational, not construction costs.
"At some point, probably late fall, we will be looking to hire an events director because you need to have someone on board doing that at least a year in advance before the facility is constructed and ready to open up," Pate said. "Those dollars will be used for that, too.
"It is also being used help pay for the salaries in tourism. Of course we had a huge loss when we lost (Goldsboro travel and tourism director) Betsy (Rosemann). She was part of the whole thing and involved in a lot of the planning. She was one of the stronger people in tourism who knew all of this stuff."
Meetings are ongoing, and materials are being selected for the building's interior, including the size of tables and other furniture, Pate said.
Under the agreement with Goldsboro, the county will loan the city $3 million for its planned multi-sports complex. The city donated a 12-acre site on North Wayne Memorial Drive just north of Wayne Community College for the agricultural and convention center.
An adjoining city-owned six acres remains as the site for a possible hotel and restaurant.
The county has set aside $4 million for the project. It also has applied for USDA loans/grants totaling $2.6 million.
The 10-year, zero-interest loans account for $2 million of the total. The county also plans to seek state and federal funding as well.
In February it was announced that the Maxwell family's Goldsboro Milling Co. had made a $750,000 donation to secure naming rights for the center.
Earlier this month, AgCarolina Farm Credit donated $50,000 for naming rights for the farmers market at the center.
On Tuesday, commissioners are expected to announce a $25,000 donation from BB&T.
"I think there will be a lot of interest in this farmers market," Pate said.
The center's assembly hall has been the one place the county has yet to find money for naming rights, Pate said.
The assembly hall is designed to accommodate 840 people when set up banquet style and 1,554 for assembly seating.
It also can be broken into four rooms of different sizes to accommodate crowds of 190, 210, 380 and 494 respectively.
To date, the county has verbal commitments for up to $1.22 million, including the Maxwell donation. Pate said he expects the final total to be close to $2 million.
Some people don't want naming rights, they just want to donate, he said.
In February commissioners awarded T.A. Loving Co. of Goldsboro the contract construction manager at risk for the project.
A construction manager at risk provides construction management services and guarantees construction costs.
The company also provides services that may include preparation and coordination of bid packages, scheduling, value engineering, evaluation, pre-construction services and construction administration.
The company also works closely with HH Architecture of Raleigh that is designing the project.
"We have already identified about $300,000 of cost cutting that they (T.A. Loving) have been able to see in the plans," Pate said. "That is the whole reason we went this way. That way you don't have change orders at a later date. You get it done up front and hopefully save dollars up front that you don't pay for later.
"So I think we made a wise decision doing that. I believe we will go much better than that because they have not gotten to the mechanical part yet. There should be some savings there."
County Manager George Wood has told commissioners that the county's annual debt service payment would decrease by $1.7 million by 2020, growing to $2.2 million the following year.
"We would issue the debt for the Maxwell Regional Agricultural and Convention Center in January, 2017," Wood said in a memo to the board. "Until then, we would use existing funds to cash flow the project. Bear in mind the board of commissioners has already adopted a resolution to reimburse itself from the debt issue. The first debt service payment would then be July, 2017, which is in fiscal year 2018. We only need to bridge fiscal year 2018 and fiscal year 2019 in order to get to an annual savings of $1,714,445 in fiscal year 2020.
"The estimated issue for the Maxwell Regional and Agricultural Center is $11,000,000. Financing level principal payments on $11,000,000 for 20 years at 3.5 percent annual interest would require debt service payments of $935,000 in fiscal year 2018. Thereafter, the interest payments would decline by $19,250 each year."
Those two years of savings nearly would replenish the fund balance used in 2018 and 2019 for the two projects, Wood said.