- April 19, 2024
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Work on Holland Park is costing more and taking longer than expected, with the city asking its elected representatives to approve an additional $50,000 for the project.
That's $50,000 in addition to $100,000 of unexpected expenses the city already paid for the project, which was supposed to end in March.
"I think you all are aware that we’ve had some troubles with Holland Park," City Manager Jim Landon told the City Council at an April 12 workshop. "This project was started before I came here, so about 10 years ago. That’s how long some of these things take. ... We obviously have put more hours into it than anticipated."
City Council has already approved an extension of design contracts with Arcadis U.S. and Littlejohn Engineering Associates for an amount not to exceed $100,000. But that money has been used, and the project needs another $50,000, Palm Coast Construction Manager Carl Cote told the council. The city might be able to recoup some of that money, Landon said, through a contract provision that lets the city collect damages if contractor delays cause the project runs overtime.
A master plan for the renovations was completed in 2007 and updated in 2009 and 2011, then construction started Feb. 2, 2014, Cote said. The contractor now expects the work to end in July, Cote said.
Part of the delay, Cote said, is because of a problem subcontractor who has since been replaced: Some of that subcontractor's work had to be redone.
And, Landon said, "One of the major challenges we had there was, there was a lot of excavating ... and it was a lot worse material than anticipated. It was sort of that mucky, kind of swampy underground stuff that you can’t build anything on."
At this point, Cote said, work on the park's restroom building is about 80% complete, installation of roadway base material is about 10% complete, and the playground is about 15% complete.
Upcoming work will include landscape and irrigation; paving, signing and striping; and work on the park's tennis courts and basketball courts and its facilities for shuffleboard, volleyball, handball and fitness.
About 20 residents came to the April 12 City Council workshop to push the city to create a senior center.
"This city really needs a senior center," said Annette Russo, creator of the Peoples Friendship Social Club.
The club has been meeting each week at the Palm Coast Community Center, she said, but needs more space. When she created the club in 2010, Russo said, membership grew to 150 within three months.
"We had to stop taking members. We had to turn away people. ... My house is the storage," she said. "When you hear the word 'seniors,' you think, 'Oh, God, they’re over the hill,' but we are not. ... This city was built for us, but yet you look at us like we are — I just don't understand it."
The Rev. Sims Jones, pastor at God's Love Ministries and a current candidate for the District 1 City Council seat, said the issue of a senior center "is somehting that’s been real dear to my heart."
"One of the things that I’ve seen in talking with seniors and being involved with them in a lot of things that I do is that our seniors are not getting the proper acknowledgement that they should be getting," Jones said. "Also, we would like to see the seniors helping the younger ones, because the seniors have the experience and everything that they can be teaching the younger ones. So we need a center for them to use where they can store their stuff, where they can teach, where they can learn, where we can help them and they can help us as a community."
