Bonner center to be renovated

SANDPOINT - The Bonner Business Center is set for renovation following a series of recent council actions.

Council members approved a slew of renovations this month to the city-owned business center, ensuring that prominent local company Lead-Lok remains in Sandpoint while its parent company, New York-based Graphic Controls, enacts an expansion plan. Part of the agreement with Graphic Controls requires the dismantling of the center's industrial kitchen, which council members declared surplus equipment to donate to the Bonner County Fairgrounds.

"I've met with the fair board members and the director of the fairgrounds, and they're enthusiastically moving forward with this concept," Grimm said. "They've even gone to the length of hiring an architect to develop plans for a commercial kitchen out there."

According to Grimm, the arrangement offers a solution to keep a publicly-owned commercial kitchen in the community while still meeting Graphic Controls requirements to stay in Sandpoint, preserving dozens of well-paying jobs in the community. To donate the kitchen to the fairgrounds, however, the council had to declare the equipment as surplus.

According to Grimm and fairgrounds director Rhonda Livingstone, the fairgrounds are in dire need of new kitchen equipment. Existing facilities are dilapidated and badly outdated, they said.

The construction and installation of a new kitchen building will allow the fairgrounds to host new events and classes while keeping the kitchen open for commercial use.

Livingstone, the fair board and Grimm are investigating funding sources for the construction of the new facility. Possibilities include grants or funding from the Sandpoint Urban Renewal Agency's northern district.

Meanwhile, council members awarded a $99,650 contract to low bidder Idagon Homes for installation of improvements to the Bonner Business Center. Funded through an Idaho Gem Grant, the improvements include putting in a partition wall and installing a new sterile white room with positive pressure for manufacturing medical devices.