No MUF Lite
Rec Commission rejects “phased” approach
After being asked for direction on how to move forward with plans for Mammoth’s proposed Multi-Use Facility, Mammoth’s Recreation Commission agreed at their meeting on Tuesday, March 7 that it wanted to see the project done in a manner befitting a world class recreation destination, rather than as cheaply and quickly as possible.
“I’ve gone through 20 years of Mammoth Lakes’ motto being ‘it doesn’t have to be good, it just has to be good enough,’” said Commissioner Christine Osborne, saying that a “new vision” for Mammoth as the best destination in the country for outdoor recreation had inspired her as a Recreation Commissioner. She said that vision is “starting to permeate the entire community… so if our priorities have changed, I need that information.”
Osborne’s comments were in response to several options presented at the Recreation Commission meeting and also at a Community Workshop on Monday, March 6, by Public Works Director Grady Dutton and Parks and Recreation Director Stuart Brown.
This week, Brown and Dutton presented a “value-engineered” option for the Multi-Use Facility that shaved about $900,000 off of the $10,580,000 project calculated by HMC Architects in late December 2016 (See “Hollywood MUF,” December 23, 2016).
“We think it’s going to be closer to $9.2 million, and that’s for the entire project,” said Dutton on Monday. However, “That doesn’t include the money for the playground change [the current playground will need to be reconfigured, at a cost of approximately $170,000], it does not include patio areas and outdoor areas and landscape areas. We were asked to do value engineering. It’d be really nice to have those things, but they’re not essential to the operation of the facility.”
