• By Catharin Shepard •
• Staff writer •
The Hoke County Board of Commissioners Monday approved a new set of contracts for design work on a proposed Parks and Recreation center, featuring what would be the county’s first public swimming pool.
The contracts include costs for the design of the building itself, plus plans for a pool design, an acoustic design and a roof design. The separate contracts are necessary because of the swimming pool, County Attorney Grady Hunt said.
“All three of the additional consultants, it’s all pool related,” Hunt said. Hunt reviewed the contracts and answered commissioners’ questions about the documents before commissioners voted on them.
The costs are an expected part of constructing an indoor swimming pool as part of the project, Commission Chairman James Leach said.
“With your pool, you’re going to have to have a pool guy. There’s no way around having a pool guy. The pool is a special part of it, you’ve got to have a designer that knows something about pools,” Leach said.
Commission Vice Chairman Harry Southerland, and Commissioners Allen Thomas and Bobby Wright additionally asked questions about the exact costs involved. Overall the contracts for design work came out to about $1 million total, assuming the board doesn’t require additional services during the design phase.
The basic architectural design work will cost about $870,000, while the additional development expenses will cost around $29,000 for a roofing consultant, $82,000 for a pool consultant and a $22,000 acoustic consultant, according to county officials.
The expenses for design work are separate from the building cost for the proposed rec center and swimming pool.
“This has nothing to do with building, this is just the design phase,” Hunt clarified.
The overall project could cost upwards of about $15 million, according to estimates.
After discussions, the board voted unanimously to approve the contracts with an additional limit in place to make sure the design work didn’t go over a certain point.
“I think when you read a contract and it’s got some variables in that thing, I think you need to protect yourself and have a limit to how much you’re going to spend on this thing,” Wright said.
Later in the development process, the board will have a chance to have discussions on choosing contractors and vendors to do the work, officials said.
“We certainly have promised the citizens a pool and I certainly want that to be a part of the project,” Leach said.
Commissioners recessed the meeting until 11 a.m. Tuesday, May 26, when the board will meet again for a three-day series of budget workshops. County department heads will present budget requests to the commissioners. The meetings are being conducted slightly differently this year to allow for social distancing measures.
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