Marathon considers re-worked park plan
By Kevin O’Brien
A new plan to build a baseball/ softball complex in Marathon City – with the village serving as the general contractor on a multi-phase project – was met with optimism by village board members at a meeting last week Wednesday.
Village adm inistrator Andy Kurtz presented the reworked proposal seven months after the village declined to award a bid to either of two companies that submitted proposals that were way over the original cost estimate of $3.9 million. He said the low bid was $5.7 million and the other was $6.4 million.
Since then, Kurtz said he has been working with the plan’s engineers and architects to develop a more cost-effective proposal going forward. As part of that plan, the board approved a construction management contract with Market & Johnson of Eau Claire, which will charge 4.5 percent of the total project cost, an estimated $86,000, to oversee construction.
Kurtz said the village has served as the general contractor before, when it built a new fire hall in 2010, which provided more bidding flexibility and the ability to control costs.
“In doing that, we believe we can get the project down to the funding number that we have available to actually build some- thing next year,” he said.
The new park plan calls for starting with two softball fields and scaling back some of the facilities at first before adding two baseball diamonds and other amenities in a second phase, he said. A central concourse will still be built in the first phase, and so would a lighted walking trail and tunnel, two basketball courts and a full parking lot.
One of the softball fields will have a 15foot fence at the back of a 205-foot field, which makes it “very comparable to a men’s softball field in terms of effective length of the field,” Kurtz said. (Organizers of local adult softball tournaments have expressed concerns about the new fields not being big enough.) The other field would be 200 feet, the standard length for high school softball.
A covered seating area in front of the concession stand will be removed, allowing the concession building with its second-floor pressbox to be reoriented, opening up more space on the concourse, he said. A two-ended pavilion originally planned for the complex will not be fully built right away, but it will provide additional seating.
“It would be built in a manner that would allow for future expansion in phase two,” he said.
Redevelopment of Veterans Park, which has been a concern for many village residents, will not take place in the first phase, Kurtz said. Selling the park to developers would still be part of the plan for financing the second phase of the project, he added.
“Ultimately we still want to build the larger project, but it’s a financial thing at this point,” he said. “The cost of materials, the cost of inflation has impacted the project in a way that we can’t build it fully the way we wanted to. We can phase it and build about half of what we wanted to.”
With the village serving as its own general contractor, Kurtz noted it will be easier to accept bids from local contractors who want to donate their time.
“If a local excavator wants to take the job and donate 15 percent of the costs, it’s much easier than doing it under a GC (general contractor) contract,” he said.
Kurtz said this new version of the project will not affect the $450,000 grant, awarded by the Wisconsin DNR in 2021.
Board members said the phased approach could go a long way to reassuring reluctant village residents about the viability of the new sports complex.
“It demonstrates that we as a board are listening to the members of our village and our community, and it gives them time to digest this new park and the potential future uses of Veterans Park,” said trustee Keith Paul.
Village president David Belanger agreed.
“As people see the value of the facility with two fields, their mindset might change,” he said.
Trustee Jeff Lawerence said he likes the idea of a multi-phase approach, but expressed some concerns about the completion of the complex. “I’m just afraid that if we go with this, phase 2 will either never happen or it’ll be 15 years down the road,” he said. When asked what will happen to Veterans Park in the meantime, Kurtz said some maintenance will be required, including the possible removal of bleachers along Fourth Street due to safety concerns. “The structural steel that holds those bleachers together is significantly degraded and cannot be effectively replaced, so that limits our options for what we can do there,” he said.
Not selling the park property to a private developer could cost the village between $45,000 to $75,000 per year in tax revenue, Kurtz estimated.
Kurtz said it’s up to village trustees to decide how much money the village spends on maintaining Veterans Park.
“We’ll have to cross that bridge when we get there,” he said. “Those will be decisions made by the board in terms of future investment in that particular property.”
Bids for the first phase of the sports complex, which will be built along CTH NN east of Marathon Area Elementary, could go out as soon as January or February, Kurtz said. The goal is to stay within the $2.2 million of currently available funding, he said.
“The underlying driver is zero impact to the taxpayers,” he said. “All of this money we have is donated and grants.”
In other business:
n The board accepted a $39,672 bid from American Asphalt to pave Market Street.
n The board passed a resolution to vacate portions of East Street, from Second to Third Street, and Third Street, from East to Chestnut street. Those portions of the streets will be used by Marathon Cheese to improve parking at its facility.
n The board passed a new one-year labor agreement with the village’s six unionized employees. New salaries and wages were also approved, with Administrator Kurtz earning $104,264 per year, deputy clerk LuAnne Wiesman earning $22.77 per hour, office assistant Anita Krautkramer earning $16.50 hourly, and superintendent of publics Ken Bloom earning $36.75 hourly. Chief of Police Kory Gertschen will be paid $76,505, and volunteer fire chief Mike Tylinski will earn $1,550.
Jeff Lawrence
