Norfolk Daily News

Friday – March 21, 2008

If one building doesn’t work, try two buildings — one for Norfolk city offices and the other for other groups.

It’s the latest concept suggested for discussion by what’s known as the Shared Facility Work Group.

A new building for city offices is envisioned on the Salvation Army lot at Seventh Street and Norfolk Avenue.

Across the avenue, on the former KFC lot, could be another building for groups as diverse as the Norfolk Area Chamber of Commerce, Madison County, Northeast Nebraska Economic Development District, Madison County Convention & Visitors Bureau and others.

Tom Schommer, a spokesman for the work group, said the purpose of coming up with new drawings is to stimulate conversation and offer another choice in the ongoing discussion on office space.

“It’s putting another visual out there for people to ponder,’’ he said. “This concept is one of many choices I think the city council needs to have put before it.’’

The new design differs from the one released a month ago. That one was a single two-story building on the Salvation Army lot for both the city and the groups.

Schommer said the new design doesn’t have any cost figures associated with it, as the first one one did, so as not to “bog down” the discussion.

But as far as financing goes, the city could issue municipal bonds for its building and enter into a stand-alone lease purchase agreement — independent of the partners across the street, according to the idea.

The partners could either use a private investment group, independent of the city, or use “creative financing’’ to buy the facility and draft inter-partner agreements to handle ownership themselves.

Schommer also said he’s not contending a new building should be the city’s top priority.

“Nowhere am I or the shared group claiming that this project have any higher priority than any other project in the community, including recreation,’’ he said. “It just needs to be put on the table and identified. If this ends up fourth or fifth on the list, we’re all OK on that.’’

Another consideration, he said, is whether the community prefers a shared building with other entities over a stand-alone facility, or prefers simply moving city offices out of the auditorium and into any building that is the cheapest and quickest solution.