City gets insurance update
No deadline to collect on building
The Cheney City Council heard an update Tuesday at its regular meeting regarding the insurance the city is expected to receive for the loss of the Wren Pierson Building. The roof of the building collapsed during heavy snows a little more than a year ago.
Paul Simmons, director of parks and recreation, told the council there had been questions about whether there are time limits to collect the insurance money.
“That’s actually not the case,” Simmons said.
He said that as long as the city is moving forward — trying to find funding for a new community center or making plans for a new building — there is no deadline to collect the insurance money.
There is, however, a length of time the city’s insurance company will pay for the department’s temporary housing. Simmons told the council that as of April 1, the city will have to start paying the rent on the office on First Street, but the city has budgeted for that.
Simmons said the insurance company will not pay for any more demolition on the old Wren Pierson Building. Crews demolished the parts of the building damaged by the storm and have removed the debris, but the rest of the building wasn’t damaged.
The city will receive insurance from the loss of revenue the city would have made through programs that had to find different housing.
Later in the meeting, Simmons asked the council to approve an agreement with Sherry, Pratt, VanVoorhis, the landscape architects on the 50-Acre Park, to provide the city with cost estimates for ball fields in Cheney. Simmons stressed that the city has a shortage of ball fields, and the city will need to know how much each element of a baseball or soccer field will cost in order to find funding, grants or donations. The cost estimates will include the fields and everything that goes along with them, such as bleachers or restrooms.
“It doesn’t mean we’re going to go out and build those,” Simmons told the council.
The city approved to pay the architects no more than $3,300 for this project. If more is needed, another agreement will have to be made with the company.