Gainesville City Commission rescinds “partial restoration” vote, decides to repair Thelma Boltin Center

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At the December 7 Gainesville City Commission meeting, the Commission voted to spend no more than $1.5 million on repairing the Thelma Boltin Center, rescinding their previous vote to do a “partial restoration” for over $5 million.

The agenda item before the Commission was authorization of a Task Assignment Amendment with Wannemacher Jensen Architects for the design of the “partial restoration” plan previously approved by the Commission.

Early Public Comment

Four people spoke against the “partial restoration” plan during Early Public Comment, with most preferring the option, previously rejected by the Commission, of repairing the roof and other parts of the building for an estimated $450,000 instead of the $469,000 design contract that was on the agenda.

In between comments from members of the public, Mayor Harvey Ward said, “The $450,000 option is not even a real option… If it were real, it would be awesome. But that number is from a year and a half ago, at this point. It isn’t real.” He later added, “And my guess, not being a professional in that department, is that once it gets opened up, we’re going to find that there’s more money to be spent than we are sure of at this point.”

Waite: “The building would continue to fall apart”

Following a presentation about the history of the project, Commissioner Bryan Eastman asked whether the $450k option would correct the structural deficiencies, and Betsy Waite, Director of Wild Spaces and Public Places, said they won’t know until the City hires an engineer and an architect to look into it further. She added that it would just put a new roof on the building, but “the building would continue to fall apart.”

Commissioner Reina Saco pointed out that the $450k would not pay for the required design work and that the deterioration would continue, even with a new roof. She said she still favored the “partial restoration” option. 

Commissioner Ed Book said that although he had previously voted for the “partial restoration” option, it seemed that community input had “coalesced” around the repair option. He said that repairing the building would allow the City to open it sooner and would also put money back in the Wild Spaces and Public Places pot for other projects. He said he was ready to make that motion, but Ward asked him to wait until other commissioners had a chance to talk.

Commissioner Bryan Eastman said he was concerned that if they just repaired the building, it might “get to a point that it is now dilapidated, and there’s really no other option but to demolish it because we’ve not dealt with the underlying issues that caused all of those problems to begin with.” Saco said she agreed with “everything Commissioner Eastman said.”

Ward asked Waite about the claim made by members of the public that Wannemacher Jensen doesn’t do historic preservation, and she listed several prominent projects they had done, adding, “So they’ve received many awards of Florida, and they’re nationally acclaimed, but they do have a lot of experience in historic preservation.”

Ward: “We need to be thinking about this as stewardship, not as a patch”

Ward said that a future commission would need to deal with the building again if it were repaired: “At some point, we have to say the building was built with the best materials that could be had in 1943, during a war, and built with architectural and engineering standards that perhaps were not up to modern understandings, in a floodplain–or something like a floodplain. Those things are not going to be fixed by us fixing rafters, in the short term. We need to be thinking about this as stewardship, not as a patch, because those are not the same things.”

About ten people spoke during public comment, with most split between full restoration and repair. 

Motion to repair the building with a cap of $1.5 million

Book made a motion to repair the existing building with a funding cap of $1.5 million and pursue historic funding options for grant money to fully restore the building. He added a third part to rescind the previous vote for the “partial restoration.” After further discussion, he added a fourth part to send a letter to the County to see if they would contribute to the project from their Wild Spaces and Public Places funds. 

After a voice vote, Eastman said the vote was 4-3, and Saco said the vote was 3-4, so Ward took a roll-call vote. The final vote was 4-3, with Saco, Ward, and Commissioner Casey Willits in dissent.

Construction contract

They moved on to the second Thelma Boltin agenda item, and Saco immediately moved staff’s recommendation, which was to approve a construction contract for the “partial restoration” work to D. E. Scorpio Corporation. Ward stopped her, pointing out that the previous motion hadn’t passed, and Saco responded, “What? No.” When told that Eastman had voted for Book’s motion, she said, “Seriously? Okay.”

City Manager Cynthia Curry said they still needed to authorize hiring an architect to do the work, but Commissioners Eastman and Cynthia Chestnut suggested referring that to staff to bring back a revised Scope of Work instead of making a decision.

Chief Operating Officer Andrew Persons said the commission could approve the proposed construction contract because “they’re going to be implementing the revised scope when we bring that back from the architect.”

After public comment, Chestnut made a motion to approve staff’s recommendation to award the construction management contract to Scorpio. The motion passed 6-1, with Willits in dissent.