One of the Clearwater City Council’s goals for 2017 is fixing up the Lions Pavilion.

 

During last month’s meeting, members of the council agreed the building needed some repairs, like lighting, carpet, a furnace, air conditioning and new kitchen appliances.

Administrator Kevin Kress provided a complete list of potential upgrades, including blocking in two garage doors.

 

Monday, he said blocking in those doors would help the building function better.

 

“Some of the comments we’ve heard is there isn’t enough wall space,” he told the council. “We think if we block those two in we create enough wall space on the left side.”

 

The city receives fees from renting out the pavilion. The food shelf also rents out part of the building.

 

Mayor Pete Edmonson felt with all the proposed upgrades and the “patchwork” layout of the building, it might be better to start from scratch. He said if all the interior walls weren’t structural, wouldn’t it make sense to do a complete remodel.

 

“The purpose of the building has changed in the last five years or so. The Lions aren’t storing all their stuff in the outside area,” he said. “There’s nothing really stopping us from doing a simple remodel and having a very large meeting space with an open kitchen that we can close off, and also giving the food shelf an extra four to eight feet without us feeling like we lost any room.”

 

Councilman Rollie Lange said he liked the idea because he was in favor of improvements that attracted people to the city.

 

Kress said staff has discussed that option but decided against it because the pavilion is rented out throughout the year.

 

“And as far as the Lions and food shelf, if we were going to do that, we’d be better off building a new city building and attaching a structure for them,” he said. “I think that would be a pretty big project. And I  don’t know that we would come out with the result we intended.”

 

“You would lose that space for all those weeks during the remodel and you  have nothing else to rent to people,” said Council Member Andrea Lawrence.

 

Edmonson said the city would just have to stop taking rental reservations for a few months if they wanted to do the remodel. 

 

Kress said if that’s the direction the council wished to go, it would most likely be a 2018 project, because it would take an architect to design the new layout.

 

Councilman Richard Petty said if the council was considering the remodel, the city should hold off on making most of the improvements on the list.

 

Members of the council agreed, but gave Kress the go-ahead to block in the garage doors since it wouldn’t affect a remodel.

 

Edmonson said he would talk with Maintenance Supervisor John Schmidt about different options.

 

The issue will likely be on the council’s agenda in March.