Dayton, Rhea County Still Debating Proposed Convention Center

A joint workshop between the city of Dayton and the Rhea County Commission ended with both sides requesting more information on the building of a convention center on the Able Property they jointly own on Delaware Avenue.

Dayton City Attorney Susan Arnold suggested that City Manager David Shinn get in touch with the architectural firm to have them give a spec bid on what it would cost for the project and then both government entities have another workshop to discuss the matter. She reminded all parties at this meeting they could not agree to anything at this time.

City Manager Shinn started the meeting showing the multipurpose building that the city of Athens had built some 22 years ago at the cost of $1.25 million for the project. He said that the building has a large room of 4,360 square feet and a smaller room of 860 square feet. “And they say the only thing that they regret is that they didn’t make it bigger,” said Mr. Shinn. He said they are in the process now of applying for a Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) to add more room, including a gymnasium, to their facility. He said there is about eight acres of land that is not wetlands that is still left to put a convention center on. Previous plans for the Able property included having two multipurpose fields along with restroom facilities and parking along with a walking track.

County Commissioner Nick Welch, who is spearheading the move for the convention center along with County Executive Jim Vincent, said the Rhea Project will be larger and will have roll up doors to allow boat shows and RV exhibitions along with meetings. The project would portionally cost both governments $2.36 million to build the 22,000 square foot building. Both Mr. Welch and County Executive Vincent said most of the funding will come from grants the county is applying for along with some $365,000 from the city of Dayton. The county would match what the city was to put up as well.

Commissioner Leo Stephens brought up the fact that Dayton was nowhere near the size of Athens. “We only have some 558 hotel beds in the county. Where are wo going to get double that amount for a 1,200 capacity building?” he asked. He also pointed out that Athens has more restaurants and hotel facilities than Dayton does, which makes it a bigger draw.

Commissioner Sandy Francisco, whose district this project would be in, pointed out that there would be a problem with the existing Delaware Avenue handling this traffic that would be created by the new construction.

“I already have a hard time going from Morgantown to Food City on the weekends as it is with all the traffic around the middle school area and the soccer fields,” she said.

Dayton City Manager Shinn said the city was in the process of creating more parking spaces at the recreation fields that would end up with some 300 additional parking spaces being built. He did add, “The road is going to have to be widened.”

Dayton City Vice-Mayor Steve Randolph pointed out that they need to get all the projected costs for the project and think this out. “This is going to run about $107 per square foot to build. I don’t think it can be finished for that.”

Commissioner Stephens asked Vice Mayor Randolph about the new cafeteria project the city just completed for the Dayton City School.

Mr. Randolph replied, “It started out at being $3.7 million and ended up being more than twice the cost at completion.”

After much more discussion of the building of the project, Commissioner Welch remined the officials that the reason for the workshop, “Number One are we going to do a joint effort or not on this. Then we can go ahead and get specs and pricing on the facility. This meeting is just to see if we are going to do the project.”

Mr. Randolph reminded everyone that, “We need a projected cost of everything involved directly in the project and then see if it’s worthwhile to develop.”

Commissioner Stephens said, “I’m in the construction business and there are always a lot of hidden costs that are not included in this such as adding water and sewer lines and parking.”

County Commission Chairman Jim Reed echoed Mr. Randolph’s comments by adding, “We have to look at everything together that is involved - all the parking, and roads and everything else that has to be taken into consideration.”

Councilman Bobby Doss said that this is going to be a very expensive project.

County Executive Vincent again noted that a lot of the costs will be covered with grants from the State with a lot of them having in-kind matches involved.

“We have a lot of fill dirt stored over on Delaware Avenue from the Food City project that we could use for the matching costs,” he said and added that a lot of the grants were “stackable” and could be used on project needs.

Commissioner Stephens said, "That’s an unknown at this point.”

Vice Chairman Phillip Dunn reminded everyone that a motion was tabled at the January meeting of the County Commission on whether they are going to proceed on the matter or not. He added it will probably be voted on in the next 14 days at the February meeting.

City Manager Shinn then told the group that, “We can sit here for 24 hours and ask every question there is. But until we get more information we can’t go ahead.”

Dayton City Councilman Billy Graham pointed out that when you have a plan, “you always have a plan B in place. “The only place I’ve noticed where you have a lot of the boat shows, building shows is in Chattanooga at the Convention Center there and they are not always full. We need to make a building for people and the boat and RV shows can be outside. Build it for 600 people.” The proposed plan by Commissioner Welch has it built for approximately 1,200 people in attendance.

Vice Mayor Randolph said, "We need to build for the potential of what it would be for."

County Executive Vincent said, "We may have to size it down and make it affordable for all involved. But we don’t want to make it too small. It would be a mistake to make it too small, but it needs to be affordable.”

Commissioner Stephens said, “It would be a mistake for it to stay empty and not used. We would have to hire people to run the center and keep it running.”

Mr. Randolph also remined the officials in attendance of the depreciation of the building as well as the upkeep both city and county would have to bear.