The Perry City Council will decide at their regular meeting Monday night whether to spend more than $280,000 on new heating and cooling systems for the 36-year-old McCreary Community Building.
The project will involve removing of the original chillers and boilers from the MCB’s mechanical infrastructure and replacing them with new units. The building’s water heaters are also due for replacement.
Eight contractors asked to examine the project’s design and construction specifications prior to the Sept. 12 deadline for bids. Three of the companies placed bids, with the Des Moines-based Baker Group’s bid the lowest at $280,949.
MMC Contractors of Kansas City, Mo., bid $300,000, and Drees Co. of Carroll bid $356,307.
The design and construction documents were prepared by Polk City-based ETHOS Design Group, which stepped in on the MCB project in February after the city ended its relations with West Des Moines-based SVPA Architects.
Perry City Administrator Sven Peterson said performance and quality problems cropped up with SVPA, the firm originally hired to draft a master plan for the recreation center.
Once the city leaders make the necessary and long overdue repairs to the rec center’s mechanical infrastructure, they will turn to more user-friendly proposals for improvements, such as an outdoor aquatics facility, a new gymnasium, an enlarged senior center and the repurposing of the MCB theater into a strength-and-conditioning room, according to Perry Parks and Recreation Director John Anderson.
Plans for the MCB improvements were first outlined in November 2018 at a public open house focused on the Perry Parks and Trails Master Plan, with ISU students of landscape architecture and community and regional planning presenting ideas for future development of trails and green spaces, neighborhood parks and regional parks.
An online survey given in the weeks before the open house showed some 92 percent of the more than 800 people who responded wanted to see Perry build itself an outdoor aquatics center.
The MCB opened Sept. 24, 1983, with the original impetus coming from a $650,000 bequest from the estate of Rex and Irma McCreary. Rex McCreary was a former president of the Perry State Bank – now the Raccoon Valley Bank — and he and Irma set up a series of trusts and foundations that provided ongoing support for the city of Perry, the Dallas County Hospital, the United Methodist Church and numerous other local organizations.
The McCrearys stipulated that the community center should include senior services and daycare services and that the city should match the McCreary’s funds. The voters of Perry passed a $1.14 million bond issue for construction of the MCB in the summer of 1981.
The recreation center has operated at a loss since it opened, but the value of the facility as a public asset — its social value — has made it well worth supporting over the past generation, according to Perry residents and city officials.
