Event center planned for Cotaco

Sep. 16—A new event center is planned for Cotaco, in eastern Morgan County, and while the plans are in the early stages, the county must move quickly in order to use certain federal funding.

The new event center would be located on 24 acres at Luker Road and Union Hill Road, across the street from Morgan County Commissioner Greg Abercrombie's District 4 tool shed. He said they have been looking for a while at what to build on the land, whether it be an event center or just a gymnasium.

"We'd for sure like to have some kind of sporting event center for a gym or volleyball," Abercrombie said. "That's been in the plans to start with. That's what we'd like to do. You've got to have places to change clothes and meet, this, that and the other, maybe some small rooms somewhere."

Ray Long, Morgan County Commission chairman, agreed with Abercrombie that they want to build a center that can accommodate sports.

"We're wanting to build something big enough that we can have ballgames. It'll be two gyms under one roof," he said. "Then there'll be rooms on the side for people to have birthday parties and have school activities. Just unlimited what you can do when you have a nice building sitting there for the community to use."

The event center will not just be used by the local community, Long said, but by the whole county.

"Make something that'll be there for years," he said. "If we want to have small concerts, it'll be big enough for us to have events in for the whole county."

Funding for the event center, Long said, will come partially from a 3M settlement relating to industrial contaminants and also from the American Rescue Plan Act. Federal ARPA funds were provided to governmental entities to aid in public health and economic recovery from COVID. The Morgan County Commission approved the use of ARPA funds for the center Tuesday.

Long said all the ARPA funds must be committed by December 2024.

"When it says committed, you've got to have signed contracts with where it's going. Time's running out. It'll be here before you know it," he said. "You've got to have it spent by December of 2026. Anything you still have, even though it's committed, in December of 2026, you've got to send back."

Long said they are planning for the future when it comes to spending the ARPA funds.

"We're trying to spend this money that the federal government sent us in a way that benefits people, not just tomorrow, but for years to come," he said. "The event center will be there for years."

Construction projects can take a while, Long said.

"We may bid that thing out next April and get the bids in, but it may be a year before contractors can come in and start working," he said. "The federal government gave all this ARPA money to people all over the country, so there's construction projects going on everywhere. The contractors are really behind most of the time. They've got more jobs than they can do."

Abercrombie said they do not yet know what the square footage or cost will be. He said the next step is to hire an architect to draw up plans for what they would like the center to include.

"We're hoping by February, April we'll have those plans, have them ready to go out to bid," Long said. "All of it's time sensitive because of the commitment we have to do, the ARPA funds have to be committed."

Abercrombie said they do not yet know the cost of the center. He said they need to get in touch rapidly with an architect who can give them a ballpark figure so they can put the project out for bid.

"It's only a guestimation, but it gives us something to think about number-wise."

Several million dollars in ARPA funds were allocated in Tuesday's commission meeting. Julie Reeves, chief administrative officer, said the commission still has about $1.2 million in ARPA funds to allocate.

—erica.smith@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2460.