City Manager Nate Pagan on Tuesday highlighted various capital projects either currently underway or on the near horizon, with a total estimated cost of approximately $44.6 million. Two major projects include the construction of an indoor sports facility and a transient boat dock.
There was no action taken during the presentation.
Pagan said that should City Commissioners opt to bond the payments over a 20-year period, it would cost about $3,328,000 each year.
The projects include:
- Indoor Sports Facility (SportsPlex) – $19,000,000
- Transient Boat Dock – $9,500,000
- Fire Station #3 Replacement – $6,700,000
- Fire Training Center – $5,000,000
- Fisher Park Light Poles – $1,400,000
- Various Projects – $3,000,000
The fire station and training center, Fisher Park, and various projects would all be funded entirely by the Your Community Vision (YCV) fund over the 20 years.
Money for the sports facility and boat dock would come from multiple sources depending on the year.
Pagan said the city could use money from both the YCV fund and General Fund, as well as use revenue from the transient room tax. However, the room tax funds would not be available for the first few years due to that money having to go to the Owensboro Convention Center operations fund.
“Technically there will be some general fund dollars going into the [indoor sports facility] because we use the restricted funds for their restricted purpose and then free up the general funds that are unrestricted to put toward the indoor sports facility, and the transient boat dock is a similar approach,” Pagan said.
Pagan clarified that after the first few years, most of the funding for those two projects would come from the transient room tax revenue.
Assistant City Manager Lelan Hancock said that the boat dock is expected to last 50-80 years, which would allow about 30-60 years of use after the project was paid off.
Director of Finance and Support Services Angela Waninger said the projections that were made for the room tax funds are “conservative estimates” given they were based on numbers collected during the COVID pandemic, as well as because the city has never collected taxes from Airbnbs and VRBOs before.
“So from that standpoint, our revenue stream should be higher and so it’s hopeful that it won’t be in the too far future that the transient room tax will pay for the indoor sports facility,” Waninger said.
