The Innsbrook Board of Trustees approved a change order for their new village hall to the tune of just over $50,000. The change order, submitted to contractor Hankins Construction, was for a supplemental agreement for engineering services and will be used to pave the parking lot of the new village hall. 

This was a move board chairman Dan Reuter said was carried out at the request of Hankins Construction because they felt the timing and material costs would be cheaper if the parking lot, paved with asphalt, was completed sooner. At the Oct. 8 board meeting, they voted unanimously to approve the change order. 

“If you ever are going to pave this parking lot, now is the time to do it otherwise the base would be more expensive,” said Reuter. 

One attendee at the meeting, Micheal Caton, questioned where the funding was going to come from as costs for the project continue to increase. 

“As of today, the total project cost for the village hall is $980,466, and of that amount, it’s the Hankins Construction contract, is $870,600, and with respect to Cochran (Engineering) you have spent, or will spend $109,866, so the question, the issue is funding,” said Caton. 

Reuter felt this was an unfair representation of the project costs, and said Caton was including costs related to the village’s application for a USDA loan on a previous iteration of the project.

The village is also contracted with Cochran Engineering for design and architecture services on the project. 

The cost of the new village hall and the source of its funding have been points of contention at Innsbrook board meetings for over a year as citizens balked at the $1.4 million price tag that was originally planned. 

After the village failed to obtain a loan from the USDA last year and decided instead to pursue private financing, those plans were dialed back to what the board hoped would be a $600,000 project, according to previous Record reporting. 

Now with the combined costs of Cochran’s services, the $870,000 contract to Hankins Construction, a $54,000 change order and the roughly $45,000 that was spent to purchase the land, costs are quickly approaching the original price tag. 

Reuter stressed that while the village originally hoped to spend roughly $600,000, the cost of construction and materials had tied their hands. 

“The trustees have been looking at what is the most economical way of building a 2,500 square foot building,” said Reuter. 

Hankins’ bid of just over $870,000 was the lowest bid received for the project. 

He went on to say while they wanted to keep costs for the project low, they had to work with the options available to them. 

“We have been very conservative about how we’re going to do this,” said Reuter. “But the cost of something is the cost of something.”

The village had previously considered financing options from First State Community Bank and Reuter said at the meeting they planned to reconsider those options at the beginning of 2025 in the hopes they would receive lower interest rates on whatever loan they do pursue. 

In the meantime the village hall project will move forward, despite objections from citizens at numerous meetings. 

“If the question is do we need a village hall, yeah,” said Reuter.