The former Centre Crest building in Bellefonte is one step closer to a needed facelift that will repurpose the building for county use after Centre County Commissioners approved an ordinance on June 14 that will finance the project.
The ordinance authorized the issuance of $40 million in general obligation bonds to fund certain capital project in the county, including the renovations to Centre Crest.
The funds will also cover minor projects at the Willowbank Building and the courthouse, and the refunding of previous county debt.
In April, commissioners approved the $33 million Centre Crest project as part of the budget, which includes $29.2 million to renovate and repurpose Centre Crest and $2.8 million for updates to the Willowbank Building and continued improvements to the Centre County Courthouse.
The county plans to use $30 million from the bond issuance to fund this project, with the other $3 million coming from county funds.
The county had previously hired an architectural firm to determine the feasibility of renovating Centre Crest. The determination was that the building was structurally sound and worth the renovation investment to repurpose the building to include county offices with the purpose of creating a centralized human services location.
Commissioner Michael Pipe said he expects the county will put the project out to bid in the first half of 2023.
“We really don’t need the money until next year … 2023. However, we do potentially have some architecture costs, design costs and construction management costs that we might have to pay out. And there’s a potential we may do some smaller projects around Centre Crest. There’s a few things that we just might want to do prior to bringing in the general contractor next year, so it gives us flexibility,” said Pipe.
The bonds will also potentially refund a $6 million Kish Bank loan from 2018, if the interest rate of the bonds is less than that of the bank loan, said Pipe.
Jennifer Caron, a bond attorney with Eckert Seamans, said the final pricing of the bonds will occur on June 22. The final settlement of the bonds is scheduled for July.
County Chief Financial Officer Joni MacIntyre said the county was recently given a “very good” AA credit rating after a recent review.
“We were currently an AA, and that shows that the county is in a very stable environment, currently and going forward. We are forecasted to keep that rating. We can increase that rating as well to an AAA, but we are very happy with that AA standard,” said MacIntyre.
Pipe and Commissioner Steven Dershem approved the ordinance. Commissioner Mark Higgins was absent from the meeting, but Pipe noted his support of the project.
