The City of Denison is looking into the possibility of making the hard-court gym space at the Crawford County Wellness Center a safe house and to pay for that change through the FEMA BRIC grant.

BRIC stands for Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities. The program supports states, local communities, tribes and territories as they undertake hazard mitigation projects.

An attraction of the BRIC grant program is that communities do not provide matching funds. The federal government provides 90% of the project cost and the state provides 10%

The City of Denison has an advantage in the grant application process. As one of two cities in Iowa designated as a community disaster relief zone (CDRZ), it will be awarded 40 points in the grant application selection process.

However, as City Manager Jessica Garcia explained, other states have CDRZ entities, and the competition for the FEMA BRIC grants is nationwide.

According to FEMA’s website, for this grant application cycle, BRIC’s available funding is $1 billion, and for flood mitigation assistance the available funding is $800 million.

Each applicant for a BRIC grant can ask for a maximum of $50 million.

Garcia told the city council on Tuesday that she continues to have meetings with officials connected to the FEMA BRIC grant.

“I did present to the wellness center committee last Wednesday that one of the first pieces of continuing with the BRIC grant was to have the potential of running two sets of plans, side by side, with each other; one that would include a safe room concept and one that would not,” Garcia said.

She asked representatives of HGM Engineering, the firm that is designing the wellness center, what it would cost for a Plan B that would include the safe room. Garcia said she was given a range of $265,000 to $300,000 for engineering.

“I sent some clarifying questions to Homeland Security, who I’m working on with the BRIC grant,” Garcia said. “I have not received responses to that, so I have not updated the wellness center committee yet. I did do an intent to apply for the grant, just because that needed to be done.”

She explained there is no harm in deciding later not to apply even after filing an intent to apply.

Garcia said if the city does decide to move forward, the BRIC grant application is a phased process, and it is her understanding that the HGM fees and expenses would be phased as well.

“So, if we get to a certain point, if we do phase one and they charge us an amount for Phase 1, and then we find out that we're not awarded (the grant), we could stop at that point and move forward with the plans the way we have them,” said Garcia. “So it's not the $300,000 right up front. It’s my understanding that's what the total end result would be if we completely changed the plans.”

She added later that it is her understanding that the BRIC grant would cover everything with the construction of the facility except for the fixtures. She is trying to clarify a lot of this information, she said.

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City Clerk Jodie Flaherty added that the BRIC grant would cover the engineering if the city is awarded the grant; if the grant is not awarded, the city would be responsible for any engineering fees.

Garcia said that she had not yet asked HGM what Phase 1 of the engineering would entail or what it would cost because Homeland Security has not yet given her what Phase 1 of the application process would entail.

When asked, Garcia repeated that the safe room would be the hard-court gym area of the wellness center.

Councilman John Granzen questioned the amount of fees HGM would charge for developing a plan B that would include the safe room concept.

Councilwoman Jennifer Zupp-Smith asked for a break-down on how much of the total $18.8 million for the wellness center is for the non-gym areas.

Garcia said she would get the exact numbers for that. She explained that when taken by size, the fieldhouse is comparably the largest cost, and adding the second floor was the second highest cost, while the gym would be the third highest cost, but she couldn’t be sure without first looking at the exact numbers.

Discussion also took place on why the gym and not a smaller room would be designed as the safe room. The answer is that the safe room would be for the population that surrounds the building.

In other items related to the wellness center, the city council voted 4-1 to approve a resolution of support of the operation of the Crawford County Wellness Center.

Zupp-Smith, who is a member of the wellness center ad hoc committee, said that she and Garcia would be presenting before the state Community Actions and Tourism (CAT) board on Thursday. She said one of the questions posed by the CAT board the last time was that the city didn’t have anything in its operational budget that showed the city would cover operational shortfalls, if there are any.

“We will have to fund it going forward, which obviously it falls on our shoulders to do a good job,” said Zupp-Smith.

She later explained that the document is like a good faith resolution.

Councilman Dustin Logan wondered how an operational contract with the YMCA would affect the issue.

Garcia said part of the city’s contractual agreement with the YMCA is that if the wellness center does not cash flow, the city would cost share in the deficit in order to keep the wellness center operational.

“So what Jen (Zupp-Smith) is proposing is really nothing different than what we're going to end up having to do anyway. It’s just to show the CAT grant board that the city council is aware of it and supports it, and knows that we’re going to end up paying operating expenses if there’s a deficit or downfall,” said Garcia.

Granzen was the lone no vote on the resolution.

Later in the meeting, Garcia said she is working on a 28E agreement with the YMCA and hopes to be getting closer to bringing that in front of the council.

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