Funding short for YSU project

By HAROLD GWIN

gwin@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

It looks like Youngstown State University will have to come up with an additional $700,000 to build its proposed Watson and Tressel Training Site Center.

The YSU Board of Trustees had set a $10 million price tag on the project which is to include a full-size indoor football field, a 300-meter indoor track, locker rooms and related facilities in 120,200 square feet of space.

The plan was to take $7 million from a bond issue borrowed for campus construction and renovation projects and raise $3 million in philanthropy to pay for it.

Gene Grilli, vice president for finance and administration, told the trustees’ Finance and Facilities Committee Friday, that, based on the low bid for the project, the funding is $713,132 short.

The university does have some $4.6 million in various reserve accounts that could be tapped to make up the difference, he said.

He told the committee that Hively Construction Co. Inc. of Canfield is the apparent low-bidder on the project at $9,084,460. However, another $400,000 for movable equipment to go into the building, $767,212 for engineering, legal and other fees and $461,460 in a contingency fund raises the total to just over the $10.7 million mark.

The committee took no immediate action on his report.

Plans call for the construction to begin at mid-year with an early 2011 completion date.