City of Tracy cashes in on half-million community facilities grant to put toward necessary upgrades to recently-purchased ADO building
Business and pleasure were mixed at Monday’s Tracy City Council meeting when Tracy librarian and resident grant writer Val Quist announced that Tracy has been awarded a $500,000 Minnesota Multi-Purpose Community Facility Projects Grant.
“This is huge,” Quist said. “To see that number come through. We put that out there thinking sometimes they offer a little bit less, but we were going to shoot for the moon on this one and go for the full amount that we were allowed to ask for, and that’s what we got. Just thinking about how excited everyone would be and looking forward to sharing it with everyone … it’s just fantastic.”
Quist, working with the City and Bollig Engineering, had about three weeks to craft the grant. The application was submitted on Jan. 3.
“Everything just came together,” said Quist. “A lot of teamwork. This definitely was not a one-person show. It was the right project at the right time (for the grant).”
The grant is for community center use only; in Tracy’s case, upgrading the ADO Practice Solutions building on South St. Its purpose is to support community revitalization, connectedness and equity by promoting education, work and health.
“This grant is just for community facilities,” Tracy City Administrator Jeff Carpenter said. “It couldn’t have went to streets, or infrastructure; it couldn’t have went to anything else. It created a lot of work, but it was a lot of work for a lot of money.”
The City worked with a swift-moving Computers and Beyond out of Marshall on the technology and equipment piece of the grant, with an estimate of $49,415, which includes two private kiosks for telehealth/workforce access; two public computer stations; projectors, screens, webcams, adapters and network setup; an office computer for the Community Development Director; and a security system and electronic door access.
“We called them at 4 in the afternoon on a Wednesday, and on Thursday morning they were here for four or five hours with us writing things down,” said Carpenter. “They sent it back to (Val) at 11 o’clock on Friday, in detail and with everything we need. Exactly what we asked for. We really want to put this on the fast track now, because we have money.”
• ABOUT THE GRANT
Key items included in the grant-funded project scope:
• Technology & equipment
• Roof replacement
• Parking lot acquisition and development
• Building improvements
‘
Everything just came together. A lot of teamwork. This definitely was not a oneperson show. It was the right project at the right time (for the grant).
— VAL QUIST The project scope also encompasses roof replacement ($42,500); parking lot acquisition and development ($115,000), which includes the purchase of the adjacent lot); and improvements to the building ($350,000) including interior renovations and ADAcompliant restrooms and layout; mechanical and accessibility upgrades; and vault door removal.
Monday’s news was welcomed by the council and the Community Center Workforce Group, which was represented at Monday’s council meeting by members Kent Witt, Karen Krog, Dave Lenertz and Jeanine Vandendriessche.
“I just have to say, Jeff, you just kept persevering, pushing …” council member Jan Arvizu said. “He really kept at it. Val, you have been invaluable as a grant writer — you turned this around on extremely short notice. And to the community center group, I really got to know each one of you, and you guys put in over four years of hard work and dedication and never gave up. Sometimes it looked kind of bleak, but it’s been a really great experience, and the community will benefit greatly from this.”
Vandendriessche said getting to this point — meetings and fundraising — has been a long four years, and a lot of hard work has been put forth since the very first meeting between the group and others, including Tracy residents.
“We just slowly kept moving forward, one step at a time,” she said. “I would like to thank everybody, especially our workforce group; I don’t know how many meetings we’ve had … many, many, many meetings. This is almost unreal. I think this is going to be something our city residents appreciate, and it’s going to help our city.”
A contract that outlines what exactly the grant can be used for will be sent to the City sometime this week. The only money that has been spent to date was funds to purchase the ADO building.
The CCWG has planned a meeting for April 2 to go over the next steps.
“Now, we’re going to have to start really planning,” said Carpenter. “We want to get contractors lined up; programing is something I really want to push hard with this. Now we don’t just have the money for physical things, now we can maybe look at some serious programming.”
