As Powell leaders prepare to ask taxpayers to fund a new senior center, their counterparts in Cody may seek funds to upgrade the city’s aging auditorium.

The Powell City Council decided in January that it wants to ask voters across Park County to temporarily hike the local sales tax rate from 4% to 5% to replace the aging Powell Senior Center. While Powell leaders are seeking $7.9 million, it’s expected that the total amount of the so-called “specific purpose tax” will grow to include projects from the county’s other communities.

At a Tuesday night work session, Cody City Council members indicated that they’re interested in using the tax to bring the Cody Auditorium up to code and potentially equip it to host regional conferences.

Mayor Lee Ann Reiter said the facility is “in dire need of some repair” — plus, “we’ve gotten a lot of requests from the public to spend some money to dress it up a little bit” to attract events from outside the area.

Pulling in conferences?

Cody Country Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Jennifer Thoma said her office receives a half-dozen requests a year for help finding a place for 300-person conferences. However, Thoma said there’s no place in Cody that has both space for large dinners and smaller breakout sessions.

If a remodel of the auditorium included new conference rooms in the basement, “I think that that would be really appealing to people wanting to come here and stay for days,” Thoma said.

Powell Mayor John Wetzel added that, based on his time on the Park County Travel Council, he believes there are numerous conferences that Cody is currently missing out on. The travel council’s prior director “could have sold convention after convention if they had a shiny facility that had above that 250 [person capacity],” Wetzel said.

“And had bathrooms that were usable,” chimed in Thoma.

The current restrooms are too small given the facility’s nearly 1,000-person capacity and are subpar.

Making improvements

Consultant Mike Scholl of the firm Ayres Associates said upgrading and expanding the bathrooms is the most challenging aspect of the project; it might require altering the auditorium’s facade and pushing the building toward the street. The bathrooms are among a long list of needs that include an HVAC upgrade, asbestos removal, electrical and structural upgrades and accessibility issues.

Councilman Jeremy Laing at one point wondered if the city might be “putting lipstick on a pig,” asking “is it really worth doing all this renovation versus tear down?”

However, building new would be more expensive and the rest of the council indicated that they supported renovating the roughly half-century old facility.

Cody Council President Don Shreve said it would be nice if the city can accommodate more conferences, but said council needs to keep in mind “the ultimate purpose of this building is for the local community.”

Laing suggested earlier that the city could look to host more events like community theater performances and piano recitals.

“I think if we do all this work and in the end don’t have an increase of use, we’re basically wasting our money,” he said.

Meanwhile, Cody resident Carla Egelhoff told the council that she “would have to think, if there’s all that much demand [for a conference facility], that some private investor would come in and build such a place to meet that demand.”

However, Reiter noted there’s little land available for such a facility in the downtown area; in the case of the auditorium, conference goers can easily get to nearby restaurants, hotels and amenities.

A question of money

During the lengthy discussion, Shreve said he thinks that “it all boils down to money.”

Depending on what the city wants to do, Scholl said the upgrades might run anywhere between $5 million and $15 million.

“You’re probably going to land somewhere around $9 to $10 million once all is said and done,” he predicted.

Shreve suggested the council consider what it could get for perhaps $7, $8  or $9 million, indicating he’s wary of bringing the figure into double digits. Keeping it in the ballpark of Powell’s request would be “far more palatable for the citizens,” Shreve said.

He and Councilwoman Kelly Tamblyn also noted that whichever projects are presented to voters in November’s general election will pass or fail together. That includes whatever Meeteetse proposes.

“We need to make sure we are giving out a good product and a good education on what we’re going to do [in Cody],” Tamblyn said, “because we don’t want to screw it up for them [the other communities].”

When they went into the design process, Wes Vining said Powell Senior Center leaders tried to “buy as much square footage as we can in a very utilitarian facility.”

The proposed 8,600 square foot senior center would be constructed on a piece of land off South Fair Street, owned by the city and leased to the nonprofit center.

“... hopefully they’re compatible, the two projects,” Vining said of the Powell center and Cody Auditorium.

Leaders from Powell, Cody, Meeteetse and Park County will have to decide by June 16 on what projects they’re proposing and what amount of money they’re seeking from voters. Scholl said he needs direction from Cody officials by the end of the month in order to have renderings and cost estimates ready in time.

The Cody council plans to discuss what items they might want to include in a renovation — and at what cost — during a special 5:30 p.m. Monday meeting in the Cody Auditorium’s club room.