BROOKINGS – The Brookings City Council approved more than a half-million dollars in renovations to the Swiftel’s County Resource Center in a 4-2 vote Tuesday. 

Voting in favor of the updates were Mayor Keith Corbett and councilors Ope Niemeyer, Patty Bacon and Mary Kidwiler. Opposed were councilors Dan Hansen and Holly Tilton Byrne. Councilor Nick Wendell was absent.

City Manager Jeff Weldon gave a summary of the scope of the work, along with an estimated cost of $574,172. The cost will be paid from the city’s third-penny fund, which has a “really healthy” estimated cash balance of $890,982.

There are no major renovations and no structural changes involved, Weldon said, adding that they found out Friday that they can save $50,000 by changing the fire alarm system from a voice-activated model to a simple siren activated system. 

Niemeyer, who owns a flooring business, said the estimates might be high and the city can get better numbers.

Hansen said the bulk of the cost is for updating the technology in the conference rooms, with a price tag of more than $140,000.

“I struggle with this project,” Hansen said. One of his main objections was not knowing what the city’s return on the investment will be. He wanted to know if Swiftel was losing business because it wasn’t up-to-date on the technology.

“As long as we’ve got those rooms, it’s almost a requirement to have this technology,” Weldon said. “If they don’t have technology capabilities, we can’t rent them.”

Most people renting conference space run presentations and expect the audio/visual capabilities, he added.

The upgrades haven’t happened before because “we didn’t own the rooms,” said Tom Richter, executive director of the Swiftel Center. The city recently acquired the building from Brookings County.

Hansen said the vast majority of the technology bill was projectors.

“What are we turning away today that we will capture?” he asked.

Richter said he didn’t have a prepared projection on those numbers.

“There has to be a reason for us to spend the money,” Hansen said.

Bacon said she was part of a group that uses the CRC and speakers need that technology.

“Technology is in desperate need of an upgrade,” she said.

There is a charge to use those rooms, and the technology is part of that charge, Bacon said.

“If we want satisfied customers, this needs to be added,” she said.

Hansen said the city has continued to invest in the Swiftel Center every year and always talked about future plans, like turning it into a convention center and adding a hotel.

“I struggle with not knowing what its future is,” he said. 

He wants a strategic plan so that whatever renovations they do will be in line with what the facility will become in the future, instead of spending a lot of money now, only to come back in a few years and tear down what they did because it doesn’t fit with what they will be doing later.

“I don’t feel comfortable taking action tonight,” Hansen said, adding his questions on the strategic plan and return on investment weren’t answered.

“We bought the building for a purpose, knowing it needed upgrades,” Weldon said, adding the expansion to a conference center needs to be a private sector project.

Designers “have taken great pains” to keep disruptions with future plans to a minimum, he added.

Weldon also pointed out the technology being considered can be moved later, if needed. 

“To keep the building viable, we need to keep it updated,” Weldon said.

Tilton Byrne said she had similar concerns to Hansen’s; she wanted to know how long it took to bring the third-penny fund up to the $890,000.

Weldon explained how the money is transferred but did not have an exact time frame for how long the fund has been growing. 

“To spare that much of it, we need to see a return on investment,” Tilton Byrne said.

She indicated the money could be used for other projects that have come before the council, such as the rec center.

Niemeyer said a large proportion of the money in the third-penny fund was generated by the Swiftel Center’s concerts, rodeos and other annual events that have gotten too large for any other place in town and had to move to the Swiftel.

“If you’re trying to find a return, it’s already sitting in front of our face,” he said.

“It’s our building, we take care of it,” Corbett said. 

“We need this place for our local people,” Kidwiler said. She organized a large event in the spring, and when she went to book the space, it was already taken, “and those people write big checks,” she added.

She acknowledged the estimate “looks like a lot of money,” but nothing’s been done to the resource center for more than 20 years, so that lump sum should be factored over that amount of time. 

Contact Jodelle Greiner at jgreiner@brookingsregister.com.