Consultant approved to design Wellness Center project

Boy and Girls Club also plans move to Lafayette Street location

In this Feb. 5, 2015 photo, Lincoln University student Marco O'Neil crosses the bridge from Page Library on Lincoln's campus.
In this Feb. 5, 2015 photo, Lincoln University student Marco O'Neil crosses the bridge from Page Library on Lincoln's campus.

Lincoln University's curators approved a new consultant's contract Thursday with Jefferson City-based Architects Alliance to design the new University/Community Wellness Center that Lincoln and the Jefferson City Parks, Recreation and Forestry department have been discussing as a joint project.

Jefferson City's parks commission will be asked to adopt the same agreement when it meets Tuesday.

LU President Kevin Rome told curators the Boys and Girls Club also wants to locate its new home near the new building - but that plan is covered by a separate contract and was not part of the contract approved Thursday and scheduled for approval next Tuesday.

Lincoln already had a contract with Architects Alliance, to design a building near the Locust-Atchison streets intersection in the southeast corner of LU's campus, with the Boys and Girls Club next door.

But LU and city parks officials have been talking about a Lafayette Street location for the three-level, 82,076-square-foot building between LU's Dwight Reed Stadium and the Jefferson City High School complex.

"This would be a replacement to that contract," Sheila Gassner, LU's Facilities and Planning executive director, said. "The total contract is $789,932 - this is below the state's basic services B range, which is good."

Curator Frank Logan of St. Louis was concerned about Jefferson City's commitment to pay half the costs.

Parks Director Bill Lockwood said that is the plan.

"We previously have entered some cost-share agreements on design services," Lockwood told the board. "Lincoln University would be the lead agency, administratively, and we would look to reimburse 50 percent of the costs, as indicated."

Details of that agreement still are being worked out as part of a memorandum of understanding between LU and the parks department.

Logan also was concerned the Boys and Girls Club building "would conform with the appearance of the university building."

Cary Gamphor noted Architects Alliance already has a contract with the club.

"That should not be a problem," he said. "We've been working with the Boys and Girls Club for a couple of years now on various sites around the city.

"They're very excited to be in collaboration with Lincoln University."

An artist's conception of the proposed site shows the Boys and Girls Club located a short distance to the north of the Community Wellness Center.

"There's debates on whether they are attached or detached" from the main building, "for security reasons for the children and things like that," Gamphor said. "But, they definitely want to be part of the architecture and the context of the campus."

Rome said having the club be a part of the project "is a big deal. It shows the collaboration.

"(It) just shows that community agencies, the city, the county and the university are as one, and we can work together and, hopefully, that's just one of many projects that could happen between us."

He noted the Boys and Girls Club, "as long as they're there, they'll own the land but, if they ever choose another location, it reverts back to Lincoln University."

Construction of the new facility is expected to cost between $10.5 million and $12.5 million.

It would require Lincoln to move its softball field, with a tentative plan to relocate it to north of the baseball field.

The goal is to begin using the new Wellness Center in fall 2016.

Gassner praised the city's cooperation in moving the project and planning forward.

"They very much respected our timeline for this project because, knowing that we had the funds and wanted to build a Student Fitness Center and Wellness Center, they stepped up to the plate and came together," she said, "and really respected our timeline."

Madeleine Leroux, of the News Tribune, contributed information used in this story.