McQuillen Place progress on schedule, developer says

McQuillen Place progress on schedule, developer says

Middle school proposal may be ready for review this month

A roof should not be too far away for McQuillen Place, developer Charley Thomson said Wednesday, as framing and cement flooring for the project’s third level are taking shape. Roofing trusses are expected to arrive sometime around Dec. 15. Clark Street, which is now partially closed with construction materials sitting onsite, is expected to open once the roofing is complete.

“They keep working and making more progress everyday,” Thomson, of Amelia Management, LLC, said.

Discussions are still underway regarding parking lot configurations, with some rough ideas including a partial closure of Jackson Street, Thomson said.

“We’ve probably done 15 different possible reconfigurations of that parking lot. A few of them have included changing the path of traffic. That is more complicated than it would seem,” Thomson said.

Any change to the roadway would have to consider nearby small businesses and the Cedar River’s floodway, City Engineer John Fallis said. That may mean waiting until McQuillen Place is running commercially to study how traffic flows through the available space, although there is no planned timeline for action, Fallis said.

“At this time, we’re looking at all different options. We’re not entering with any preconceived ideas on what the final configuration would look like,” PROJECTS

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Fallis said. “We’re not rushing into this. We want to take a look and see what’s happening.”

The county assessor is scheduled to raise the property’s completed value on Jan. 1, although the project will still be in construction.

The combined value of two residential levels and the main commercial floor will be about $7.5 million, City Administrator Steve Diers said. An Amelia Management purchase proposal for the Charles City Middle School building is in the process of being drafted, Thomson said, adding that he hoped to have the draft completed for the school district to review later this month. “There’s no particular urgency in terms of weeks to get it done, but 1 think the sooner we have all the details discussed and out there …it just seems to be easier,” Thomson said.

By Kate Hayden khayden@charlescitypress.com