By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
County commissioners court members have agreed to move forward on a major project at the county fairgrounds – renovating a series of five shed rows rented to stable horses.
The court made its decision on the project during its meeting May 24.
County Judge Lewis G. Owens Jr. announced the agenda item, “Discussion and possible action on proposed improvements at the fairgrounds regarding shed rows F, G, H, I and J and projected cost estimates for improvements and/or replacements.”
Owens asked County Engineer Carlos Velarde to come to the podium and speak about the planned improvements.
“We came up with two different budgets. One is for complete tear down and destroy and build new, and the other is just restoring what we have already and re-roofing,” Velarde told the court.
Velarde estimated it would cost the county $390,135.84 to complete tear down and rebuild each of the five shed rows for a total estimated cost of renovating all five buildings of $1,950,679.20.
Velarde broke down the individual costs involved for each building, including $135,000 for the pens, $55,000 for metal structure labor, $45,000 for demolition, $40,000 for asbestos abatement, $25,000 for labor on the panels, $19,000 for metal structure footings, $19,000 for labor on the footings, $17,500 for tin metal sheets, $10,000 for a ridge vent, $9,985.44 for 6-inch metal purlin, $7,700 for miscellaneous clips, plates and anchors and $6,950.40 for metal columns.
“For the option of re-roofing, we received a bid of $563,000, which includes just the roof, the asbestos on the pavilion and on the five sheds and also includes the grandstands,” Velarde said.
Breaking that down by building, he said, it would cost the county $100,117.50 to re-roof each of the five shed row buildings.
Velarde provided other expenses associated with renovating each building, noting the total cost would be $153,560.50 per building.
“If you multiply that by five (buildings), and we’re talking about $767,802.50,” Velarde said.
Adding the cost of re-roofing the grandstands would add an estimated $23,400, and adding asbestos removal on the pavilion would increase the overall cost by $39,400, as well as $3,642 for prorated tips and bond for the asbestos removal.
“If we add up everything for repairing, we’re coming up with $834,244.50,” Velarde said.
Owens noted there are 42 stalls in each of the shed rows under discussion.
“Are they all rented?” County Commissioner Pct. 3 Beau Nettleton asked.
“No, sir. Out of all the fairgrounds, there are 184 stalls rented at the end of March,” Owens replied.
County Commissioner Pct. 1 Martin Wardlaw asked how much insurance money the county had received for the fairgrounds.
Owens said the county had received just over $1.3 million.
“From what we’ve spent, we’ve got a little over $1 million left,” Owens added.
County Commissioner Pct. 4 Gustavo “Gus” Flores asked if the costs presented by Velarde were for doing the work of renovating and re-roofing the five shed rows in-house.
“Or going out and hiring somebody?” Flores asked.
“It’s for going out and hiring somebody,” Velarde replied.
“We need to go out for bids before we accept anything,” Flores said.
Owens noted the estimated $563,000 cost for re-roofing the buildings was a bid provided by a contractor who works for the Texas Association of Counties (TAC).
“So the $100,117.50 (re-roofing per building) is a firm bid,” Owens said.
Owens then went over some of the other associated costs, like painting and concrete work, for which county officials had sought several bids.
He said if the court opted to allot the estimated $834,244.50 for re-roofing and repairing the shed row buildings, the grandstands and the pavilion, there won’t be enough left of the $1 million in insurance money that “we would not be able to fix all the other buildings we received money for.”
He also noted repairing or rebuilding the shed rows was on all of the plans previously presented for improvements at the fairgrounds.
“On all of those plans, those buildings were fixed,” Owens said.
Nettleton noted the rented stalls in those buildings bring in about $66,000 in annual revenue for the county.
Owens said county officials have “called around to figure out stall rental,” and learned that stalls at other fairgrounds around the state are usually rented by the night.
“They were rented for events, only, and it ranged around $25 a night. We did make phone calls to other counties to see which other counties rent stalls. I couldn’t find them, but I did Google ‘stall rental,’ and the cheapest I could find was close to Pflugerville and they started out at $165, and we ended up talking and it went down to $145,” Owens said.
He re-iterated repairing and re-roofing the five shed rows was part of every plan for the fairgrounds.
Owens also agreed more money would likely be needed to carry out other work at the fairgrounds.
“I’ll make a motion to approve to re-roof and renovate the existing stalls not to exceed the amount that we have available in insurance (monies),” Nettleton said, with Flores giving the second.
The court approved the motion unanimously.
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