Park Board: Sale of 2nd Street property approved

Bond issuances approved

Jeff Helfrich
Posted 1/17/22

At its Monday meeting, the Flagg-Rochelle Community Park District Board of Commissioners unanimously approved the sale of property at 735 N. 2nd St.

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Park Board: Sale of 2nd Street property approved

Bond issuances approved

Posted

ROCHELLE — At its Monday meeting, the Flagg-Rochelle Community Park District Board of Commissioners unanimously approved the sale of property at 735 N. 2nd St. 

The property includes the park district’s former office and storage building that were vacated by a move to the newly-constructed REC Center. The property was purchased by C&C Plumbing, Heating and Cooling for $170,000, the highest of three bids. It will be used for office space and storage. 

Other offers included $160,000 from Unger-Horner Funeral Home for use as a crematorium and $145,000 from Hacienda, LLC for an office rental space. 

“I would recommend we move forward with the highest bid of $170,000 from C&C,” Park District Executive Director Jackee Ohlinger said. “I think it's a nice location and a good use for that space. We removed the last of our things from that location today.”

Board President Tim Hayden said work will be done on a closing in February. The property was appraised for $160,000.

Bonds

The board unanimously approved an ordinance providing for the issue of $850,000 in general obligation park bonds (series 2022A) and $300,000 in taxable general obligation park bonds (series 2022B) with Byron Bank. 

The park district issues bonds like these each year to pay for projects. 

“We received five proposals,” Ohlinger said. “We were expecting to be somewhere around that one percent. We were happy to find competitive rates exactly to what we had last year. Byron Bank was the low bid and was .50 percent for our series A and .60 percent for our series B. That's a huge win for the district.”

Helms Roof

After the board approved a $32,400 bid from Top Roofing to redo the roof at Helms Field over the winter at last month’s meeting, Ohlinger said permits have been filed with the city and Top Roofing is waiting on materials and a third party contractor has been hired to oversee and inspect the project. 

“That project will be completed by April 1,” Ohlinger said. “We're moving right along with that.”

REC attendance

During her executive director comments portion of the meeting, Ohlinger said 72,000 members and drop ins were in The REC facility throughout the past year. The new facility first opened its doors in Nov. 2020. 

“That does not include our programming like the kids stuff and swim lessons you see out there tonight,” Ohlinger said. “It's a pretty incredible number for our first year. I think each program we do and each day we learn something new and we discuss it. I think we've done a good job and continue to improve everything that we have. After we've had an experience, we try to improve upon it. They're good numbers.”