The Madison County Board of Supervisors are researching options to finish the ongoing Hoover Ridge Outdoor Recreation Center Project.
Last week, supervisors approved via consensus the creation and issuance of an invitation for bids for the completion of the project, which aims to convert six acres of the more than 181-acre park property into basketball, tennis and pickleball courts, a new playground and splash pad, a new hockey rink and walking paths, shady structures and restrooms. Fundraising for the project has been ongoing for several years with the county initially allocating just under a million dollars to engineering, site work, stormwater work and more. The board recently also appropriated $68,000 from the sale of surplus vehicles for the project.
Late last year, supervisors authorized a contract with Sparks at Play for the construction of the new accessible playground. That $714,657.49 contract is being funded using a portion of an approximately $1.6 million grant from the Walton and Ada Thompson Charitable Foundation. Walton and Ada Thompson relocated to Madison County in the 1970s and supported the community through donations to the rescue squad and other local organizations. The foundation continues their work. The playground is nearly complete and substantial work has been completed on the hockey rink, but work is ongoing with funding still needed.
Deputy county administrator Brian Gordon estimated that the project is 70% complete.
“There’s not a lot to be done from a surface standpoint, but there’s a lot to be done from a utility standpoint,” he said.
That includes lighting needed for the new hockey rink. County administrator Jonathon Weakley said it’s the big focus currently especially as the fall hockey season approaches.
Gordon said trying to pin down the actual remaining costs to complete the entire project is tricky.
“With escalation and inflation, every time we bid something it’s higher than expected, other than surfacing which was actually lower,” he said. “The only way to know [the true cost] is to bid it out.”
Weakley said the project has been done piece by piece as funding became available. He said once bids are received and a true cost is determined, the supervisors can decide if it’s something they’d like to fund or if they want to pursue funding from an outside organization. He said the preference will be to utilize local vendors.
Supervisor Mike Snider asked that a firm deadline be included in the bids so the project doesn’t continue to linger.
“In a perfect world, it would be done by June to open the splash pad up,” he said.
Weakley said recent projects have had completion deadlines of 210-240 days from the issuance of a contract.
“We would want to have that in the contract,” he said.
The county currently has a $4 million note that was borrowed last fall and will soon be translated into a longterm, fixed rate. Weakley said the funding for the Hoover Ridge project could be packaged with that note.
