With the David S. Palmer Arena Board having accepted a $909,000 bid from Blackies Heating and Cooling in Danville for the installation of a new HVAC system, the next thing on General Manager Teri Gaffney’s mind is what happens now with assistance from the City of Danville and Vermilion County.
Six of the current eight HVAC units at the Palmer Arena are not even working. And the Julius W. Hegeler II Foundation has committed to offering some assistance, based upon what the city and county commit to.
The Danville City Council will be voting Tuesday night (March 19th) on committing $275,000 in ARPA COVID relief money to the project, which was passed by the Public Works Committee on March 12th.
As Gaffney points out, there is a long way to go here. First, it’s a matter of seeing what the final verdicts on offering assistance are from the city and county. But then, there’s everything else. Gaffney says it’s wonderful to have selected a local vendor like Blackies. But once the real work starts, there are actually two different entities; the arena portion of the building, and the offices portion. And it’s no surprise that the arena part is more complex.
AUDIO: The arena itself, that’s going to be, just to get the stuff; is probably going to be at least 30 weeks to get it. On the other side of the building, like where the offices and conference rooms and such are; once we can dot all the I’s, cross all the T’s, the appropriate way, through all the channels; once it gets going it may be three to four weeks. So that’s much better.
The Tuesday evening Danville City Council meeting is set for 6 PM.
