Southeast Arkansas College Board of Trustees Wednesday tabled a motion to approve additional funding for the two-year college’s first housing facility, which opened last August.
Dee Brown, founder of Memphis-based development firm The P3 Group, requested a payment of $375,000 to cover mainly kitchen upgrades and related equipment purchases. Other retrofits including extra ventilation in shower areas and additional electrical work would have been covered by the payment as well.
The facility known as The Reef, in honor of SEARK’s Sharks identity, is located across from the college’s athletic complex and was transformed from a former nursing home. A grand opening for the 175-bed complex, which mostly houses student-athletes, was held Feb. 9, a week before Steven Bloomberg left as the college’s president.
“I think, initially, Dr. Bloomberg contemplated the food service operator building out the equipment,” Brown said after Wednesday’s special SEARK board meeting. “We were just supposed to deliver a vanilla box, and the food operator would complete it. A request was made of us to take that scope of work over because the company would not cover the costs as anticipated.”
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Great Western Dining operates The Reef’s food services. A message seeking comment was left for Great Western.
Without an approved resolution, Brown said, P3 doesn’t have the authority to pay vendors associated with the upgrades.
“The only way we can pay them is by making a loan to the project, and we can’t do that unless we have a resolution,” Brown said.
The upgrades increased the total cost of the project to $5.8 million, Brown said.
Trustees tabled to resolution to allow Tyrone Jackson, who will begin his duties as SEARK president Monday, to evaluate the matter. Board Vice President Shauwn Howell, who led Wednesday’s meeting in absence of President Rebecca Pittillo, agrees with Brown that the transition in SEARK’s leadership led to trustees being in the dark about the fixes, some of which were not included in a “punch list” Brown said that Bloomberg approved before work was done.
“The initial agreement didn’t deal with the contents of the kitchen,” Howell said. “Once the contents of the kitchen were identified, there were some additional costs. That equipment cost required some additional labor. That’s what’s driving the cost. That’s where the board is at. We didn’t have that conversation with the people who are no longer here. We are just trying to understand along the way what those changes were, how much did they cost, have those changes been completed. We just need that information to tidy things up to say, ‘Hey, now we understand how we got to the 375 (thousand dollars).’ We’re getting pieces of it.
“We’re having to fill in the role and we don’t have all the information.”
Of the $375,000, about $135,000 was for equipment and $185,000 was for the work, Brown estimated. The rest would cover closing costs.
The total is expected to increase since the college agreed to replace key-in locks at The Reef with an access control system using key fobs. The college owes $31,178.14 for the remaining balance of the system installation, according to a bill Brown emailed trustees.
Brown requested a walkthrough with Jackson, the board chair and SEARK’s facilities team during the week of July 15.
“The information Dee has provided really does provide a summary of everything done up to this point and all the projected costs to complete,” SEARK interim President Stacy Pfluger said. “It’s not an easy information to go through. It’s a big project, and there are a lot of pieces to go through.”
Board trustees are doing their due diligence before approving any payments, Howell said, although he added it’s unfortunate vendors won’t immediately be paid.
“I feel if we don’t do our due diligence, it just complicates things,” Howell said.
In other college business, the Trinity Foundation will donate $325,000 for the final payment of SEARK’s $1.2-million purchase of the former Seabrook Activity Center, now the Relyance Bank Athletic Complex. Barbara Dunn, the college’s executive director of institutional advancement and community relations, announced the contribution.
CORRECTION: The donor for the final payment on the Relyance Bank Athletic Complex was misidentified in a previous version of this story.
The dining hall at The Reef at Southeast Arkansas College is pictured Feb. 9. (Pine Bluff Commercial/I.C. Murrell)