Amarillo City Council Discusses Pavilion Proposal; Image via The City of Amarillo

Amarillo City Council members Freda Powell, Eddy Sauer, and Howard Smith met in a special meeting today to discuss and approve an expanded version of the events pavilion proposal tabled at their regular meeting earlier this week. Neither Mayor Ginger Nelson nor Councilman Cole Stanley were present.

Mayor Pro-tem Freda Powell, filling in for Mayor Nelson, called the meeting to order at 4:30 pm. As no members of the public signed up to participate in the Public Address, the meeting launched straight into discussing alternative options for the events pavilion.

The initial plan for the pavilion presented during Tuesday’s meeting was 14’6” tall, though members of city council, especially Cole Stanley, expressed concern that, while the proposal was touted as being fit for multiple purposes, the height as proposed limited options.

Three alternatives to the tabled proposal on Tuesday were presented by City Manager Jared Miller. The first option was similar to Tuesday’s proposal, though the version presented today was priced nearly $100,000 higher for a final price tag of $1.680 million. According to Miller, this was because the city “modified the colors of the building to match the buildings that are already out there on the Santa Fe Depot site.”

The other two options raised the height of the pavilion to 20 feet and 25 feet respectively. Each of these options also includes vertical eaves to mitigate wind concerns. Miller noted that, without the eaves, the winds would have been “problematic for WRCA.” He further stated that there would also be “multiple places for trucks to be able to come in with livestock or whatever.” Options two and three were priced at $2.055 million and $2.106 million respectively. Miller recommended that the city council choose option 3.

Miller also noted that these options do not include pouring of a concrete floor or the installation of lights in the facility, noting that those were not needed by the rodeo. According to Miller, the cost for the concrete floor and lights is estimated to be $600,000. Adding those elements to the pavilion would be done “in the early spring.”

As for the source of the funding for the project, Miller said that hotel occupancy taxes and civic center bond proceeds were available options before recommending going with the hotel occupancy tax option.

Howard Smith expressed concern that “with where the pavilion would be, it’s gonna make the (Santa Fe) Depot not as visible.” However, his concern was apparently not enough for him to oppose the project, stating “I’m fine” before voting to move the project forward.

The members present voted 3-0 to approve the project. Though the final cost of the option recommended by Miller is estimated to be about $2.7 million (including the concrete floor and lighting), the vote by the council today authorized the project for a total budget “not to exceed $3,000,000.00.”

Not everyone is happy with the council spending the money, however. Tom Scherlen, a noted critic of the council’s spending, spoke to the Pioneer after the meeting.

“It appears that the City Council is going full steam ahead on their master plan for the Civic Center without addressing the elephant in the room, which is the very bad infrastructure problem that has been neglected for over 50 years,” said Scherlen. “Every time we spend money we don’t have on things that are not a necessity, it just pushes back the big projects that need to be done.”