By Brian Biggane
Even as it continued planning toward the construction of a new Town Hall, the South Palm Beach Town Council received sobering news from Town Manager Jamie Titcomb about another significant expenditure: the new wastewater lift station.
Titcomb told the council at its December meeting that the initial estimates for the lift station of about $1 million have increased considerably, and the new price tag figures to be in the $3 million to $4 million range.
Titcomb added that “we made some very important connections” at a legislative conference in Orlando prior to the council meeting and that he’s hopeful the town will secure a federal grant to cover most, if not all, of the lift station expense.
Whereas Titcomb said the timeline for the grant would likely be 12 to 18 months — and getting it may prove unsuccessful — Vice Mayor Monte Berendes expressed optimism it
would be secured. He said he was part of a specific conversation Titcomb had with an unnamed official in Orlando.
“He was very positive we could get the money if it was under $5 million,” Berendes said. “I would like to recommend that we do go after it.”
Added Titcomb: “I think we got the sense from talking to our federal partners that there’s kind of a golden opportunity, timeline wise, to go get this in the hopper.
“Florida is a donor state to Washington; we only get 85 cents back on the dollar of what we send there. So, we’re certainly entitled to go after those kinds of resources.”
While Titcomb said he would expect the new lift station to last up to 50 years, he acknowledged the existing one will likely need repairs while the grant process plays out. One emergency repair on a pump in 2025 cost $54,000, and he said he was told by an engineer that a bypass valve needs to either be repaired or replaced soon.
“My biggest concern is that the projected costs are, in my opinion, three times what they’ve been projected over the last several years to rebuild or relocate this station. That’s a direct result of post-pandemic supply-side availability of construction materials and companies’ tariffs,” he said.
If the grant did not materialize, Titcomb said, the other option would be to pursue a bond through the League of Cities or another entity, such as “a very, very low-interest capital infrastructure dollar loan, or some other combination of assets we already have in place.”
The council unanimously approved a motion instructing Titcomb to pursue the grant.
Meanwhile, no representative from CPZ Architects attended the meeting, leaving it up to Titcomb to update the Town Hall timeline for the council. He said the firm expects to complete drawings for the new building by early January, at which time bids for the construction firm to oversee the project will be sought for a period of 30 to 45 days. He suggested the council anticipate a special meeting in late February to select a contractor.
Of course, elections involving four of the five seats on the council could make all that planning moot. Mayoral candidate Rafael Pineiro and council candidates Fran Attardi and Adrian Burcet are all running on the platform that they would prefer a retrofit of the current 50-year-old building over a new structure.
Both Titcomb and the current council insist that won’t work as state laws mandate the current structure be demolished if the cost of the project is more than half the value of the Town Hall’s current value.
Correction: The print version of this story misspelled the name of one of the council candidates. The candidate is Adrian Burcet.
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