The City of Yelm was awarded a $200,000 grant from the state of Washington in 2021 to study, design and plan for the possibility of constructing an education and innovation center (EIC) and has $60,000 remaining from the original funding.
An EIC building could potentially house a library, the historic Yelm Museum, office spaces and other concepts, if the City wished to implement them.
During a City Council study session on Tuesday, March 5, Public Works Director Cody Colt told councilors the City has several different options on how to spend the remaining money. He said one option is to use the funds to flesh out the design of the facility.
“The reason I’m going to use the term EIC is because that’s what the grant is labeled as. Nothing says after the project is done, it has to be named EIC. For the namesake of the grant, I’m going to reference it as EIC,” Colt said.
Colt noted if the remaining $60,000 isn’t spent, it goes “back to the pot,” and Yelm can no longer access the money.
“The one thing I want to let you know about is when you have grants and money left over, they don’t like to see money come back,” Colt said. “They have a budget. They issue that money, and if money comes back to them, that’s money they lose, which means, in the future, when a grant application comes up, you’re not as desirable because you’re someone who didn’t spend the money they granted you.”
Colt proposed using the remaining funding to expand on and modify the design. He said the leftover grant money would also be used to design frontage improvements and to conduct a formal land survey.
Mayor Joe DePinto specified that the design resulting from the EIC grant could be utilized for other buildings the City has planned in the future. He said if the council eventually wants to see a new City Hall, they could save money by using the design created with this grant money.
Councilor Tracey Wood asked about the existing, empty building near City Hall that used to house the museum and if it could be restored and eventually used as an EIC building. He stated he’d heard it was “dilapidated.”
“If we already have this existing building, and there’s $60,000 left in this grant, is it possible to use that money to update this building and put our museum back in that thing,” Wood questioned.
Colt said the money from the grant has to be specifically used for conceptual design, and that it cannot be used for construction work. The grant also has certain criteria that must be met, including an availability of rentable space and flexible businesses spaces.
“There’s things in that grant that I don’t think that museum building would check the box for,” Colt said.
Wood said that it is important to note that these construction plans do have expirations on them.
“You can’t just put it on the shelf and 10 years later pull it off and say ‘here we go.’ In essence, we’ve run across this before where we’ve had to start all over on a plan or a design because it sat on the shelf for too long, maybe not here in the city, necessarily, but in other aspects of our governments — county, state,” Wood said.
Colt agreed, and said city standards do change.
“You’re right, the plans would only maybe have a 10-year lifespan, or however long,” Colt said. “But you’ll at least have a starting base for anything you do in the future. We would never have to go back to scratch.”
Colt will bring a formal proposal to the council later this month.
