Black Bay Depot jumps the track

New Post Falls recreation center doubles original budget

POST FALLS — Renovating an old building is never a streamlined process, and the Post Falls Parks and Recreation Department saw this firsthand with the Black Bay Depot.

Located at 1211 E. Third Ave., the 5,500-square-foot community recreation facility is directly connected to the North Idaho Centennial Trail. The city began remodeling the building — formerly the Post Falls Senior Thrift Store — in 2019 and completed construction in spring of this year.

The original project presented to Post Falls City Council estimated a $464,495 budget, including the building purchase and improvements. After dealing with the reality of renovating an old building, the actual costs reached $602,713.06.

The main contributors to the increase were the installation of new plumbing, the HVAC system, commercial windows, doors, and an electrical system.

Freshly finished, the center offers two rooms; one for fitness and active programs, the other featuring a sink, counter space, refrigerator, and basic audiovisual equipment.

“When we started the process we were really trying to create that recreation space and get the public out of the rain,” said David Fair, director of Post Falls Parks and Recreation. “At the time, we were using the tree house, which wasn’t set up for people to congregate in for any fitness activity.”

Partway through the planning process, he said staff recognized that addressing some of the issues in the rear of the property early on, rather than waiting a few years, would save time and money. The exterior improvements included fixing site drainage issues, ADA access, fire and safety exits, the building, a playground, and synthetic turf.

By adding the second project, Parks and Recreation attached an additional $559,498.26 price tag to the center, which brought the total project budget to $1.2 million.

“We realized we would need to do some work on the outside of the building in a few years, and instead of turning around and putting stuff in later it made more sense to just move that time table forward,” Fair said.

In a presentation Tuesday, Councilor Alan Wolfe wasn’t as excited about the increased cost.

“When you brought this to us you said this is going to cost us $457,000, and it ended up costing us almost $1.2 million, that’s a big miss,” Wolfe said. “I think if you had come to us in the beginning and said I want to build this building and it’s going to cost $1.2 million we would’ve said forget it Dave, no way.”

Fair pointed out that if Parks and Recreation had built from scratch, the cost would have been about $2 million.

“I’ve had a lot of experiences with cities buying older buildings and you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into, there’s a lot of costs you don’t see,” Councilor Steve Anthony said. “People expect first-class public facilities now, and they did a first-class job on it.”

The Black Bay Depot had a soft opening since plans for a larger ribbon-cutting celebration were cut short by COVID-19.