County commissioners approve $40 million in bonds for Centre Crest building renovations
Moving forward with the renovations to the former Centre Crest building, the Centre County Commissioners approved an ordinance on Tuesday that authorizes the undertaking of a capital project, among other items.
The ordinance includes authorizing the capital project, a refunding project and issuing bonds in the maximum principal amount of $40 million to fund those items.
The final pricing of the bonds is planned for June 22, Jennifer Caron, a bond attorney with Eckert Seamans, said. The settlement of the bonds is scheduled for July.
The county recently went through a rating process, in which it filled out a questionnaire regarding the stability of the county and how the financing team will manage budgets, revenues and expenses going forward, Joni MacIntyre, the county’s chief financial officer, said. The county was given a “very good rating” of AA, she said.
“That shows that the county is in a very stable environment, currently and going forward. We’re forecasted … to keep that rating. We can actually increase that rating as well to a triple A, but we are very happy – very happy, with the double A standard,” MacIntyre said.
In April, the board approved a $33 million budget for renovations to reuse the former Centre Crest building as offices for the Centre County government, with $30 million coming from a bond issuance. The county has a $6 million bank loan from 2018 that they’re also considering refinancing, Commissioner Michael Pipe said.
“In addition to the $30 million specifically for renovation and capital projects, we also have the Kish Bank loan, which is a little bit over $6 million. That’s also looking to be refinanced potentially,” Pipe said.
But, if the bond pricing is over the interest rate of the bank loan, the county won’t refinance it.
Pipe expects the county will bid out the Centre Crest project in the first half of 2023.
“We really won’t need the money until next year, 2023. However, we do potentially have some architecture costs, design costs, construction management costs that we might have to pay out,” Pipe said. “And there’s a potential we may do some smaller projects around Centre Crest, there’s a few things that we just might want to do prior to bringing in the general contractor next year, so it gives us flexibility.”
The project budget approved in April includes renovations to the former Centre Crest building, the Willowbank building and continuing the ongoing improvements at the Centre County Courthouse. The preliminary budget shows $29.2 million for the reuse of the former Centre Crest building and $2.8 million for projects at Willowbank and the courthouse.
In March, the board approved a contract with Muhlenberg Greene Architects, LTD for an adaptive reuse design services proposal. The county approved paying a lump sum fixed fee of $882,300 with estimated reimbursable expenses of $17,500, and additional time and expense services.
The board previously said they anticipate using the Bellefonte building predominately for county government space, but they were exploring portions of space that could potentially be rented out to some partner agencies that work with the county government. During an August 2021 work session, the board reviewed renderings from an adaptive reuse study of the former Centre Crest building. Those renderings showed that the Bellefonte Senior Center and some county agencies could have a new home in the facility.
