Citing a drop in interest rates, Charleston City Council voted to refinance the city's bonds with the West Virginia Economic Development Authority on Appalachian Power Park during its meeting Monday.
City Manager David Molgaard said the city is roughly halfway through its 20-year lease for the bonds.
"By refinancing, we can save probably $400,000 to $450,000 over the remaining life of these bonds," he said.
West Virginia Baseball, LLC., which owns the West Virginia Power, also makes payments on the bonds through a sublease with the city.
The company asked to borrow additional money to update the ballpark's digital scoreboard. Those upgrades would cost between $700,000 and $800,000.
"The team will actually be paying for the debt service on those additional moneys over the next 10 years," Molgaard said.
The agreement also extends the city's lease with the team.
"They wanted to make sure they were in that stadium for an additional five years beyond our 20-year lease with the team," Molgaard said.
The team's lease payments for those five years will be reduced from $250,000 to $200,000, "but by that time, we'll have paid off the bonds," he added.
"It's really a win-win for everybody," Molgaard said.
The team's lease payments to the city primarily are used to pay off the bonds, which were granted in 2004 and used to pay for the ballpark's construction.
Molgaard also discussed a change order to the Charleston Civic Center design-build project on Monday.
The majority of a $130,000 change order that Council approved is going toward streetscape changes on Clendenin Street outside the Civic Center.
Molgaard said Clendenin Street will be reduced from four lanes to two lanes, with curb bump outs installed on the side nearest to Charleston Town Center mall. A bump out is an extension of a sidewalk into the street, and is commonly used to shorten pedestrian crossing distances.
Molgaard said workers will also install an elevated crosswalk, also known as a speed table, for pedestrians walking to the Civic Center from the mall.
Another piece of the change order is for upgrades to the facility's air conditioning system, which was completed ahead of schedule due, in part, to the upcoming Garth Brooks concerts.
"We had a choice of either expending money to make repairs on an old system that was going to get replaced in a few months, or spending that money to accelerate it by paying overtime for them to get the work done early for this concert, so we elected to just...get it done early," Molgaard said.
Also on Monday, City Council voted to:
n Approve a $23,000 purchase to Reviewsnap, a web-based performance management system that will be used to track and evaluate city employees.
Charles Thompson, the city's Human Resources director, said the program "puts a mechanism in place to where our supervisors and managers can basically establish expectations and monitor the performance of their employees throughout the course of the next year."
As the city works to bring the program online over the next few months, it will develop the criteria by which to evaluate employees.
"The goal is to sit down with every employee, and outline the criteria and expectations for the upcoming year so they're well informed about what's expected of them," Molgaard added.
n Adopted the new strategic urban renewal plan for downtown Charleston, parts of the East End and the near West Side, which serves as the basis for future project funding by the Charleston Urban Renewal Authority.
n Authorized an agreement with PNC Equipment Finance, LLC, in the amount of roughly $545,000 for a three-year lease purchase period at a rate of 1.39 percent, as well as $2.32 million for a five-year lease purchase period at a rate of 1.56 percent to provide for the purchase of various vehicles and equipment for city departments, and subject to review and final approval by the city's legal counsel.
n Approved a proposal submitted by Stephens Auto Center in the amount of $27,000 to purchase one vehicle for the Metropolitan Drug Enforcement Network Team. The vehicle will be titled to the Charleston Police Department.
Reach Elaina Sauber at elaina.sauber@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-3051 or follow @ElainaSauber on Twitter.