Maryville council buys restaurant equipment

The July 9 meeting of the Maryville City Council had a short agenda with the main topic being contracts to lease restaurant equipment for the Mozingo Lake Recreation Park Conference Center’s William Coy restaurant.

As a matter of delayed business, city staff proposed the city enter into a $114,231.49 contract with Index Restaurant Supply, Kansas City, for a walk-in cooler, walk-in freezer, exhaust hood with fire suppression, gas connectors, several refrigerated coolers and wooden tables and chairs to be used in the new restaurant.

The council approved the restaurant lease with Brown Bread, LLC, for William Coy to become the conference center’s eatery. Within the lease agreement was the construction provision which detailed the furniture, fixtures and equipment (FF&E) to be provided by the city.

City staff noted that in order to defer capital expenses in the Mozingo budget, they applied for FF&E funding, $105,000, through a loan program with Nodaway County Economic Development (NCED). The remaining monies needed were loaned by a NCED revolving loan fund. These low-interest loans carry no penalty for early repayment.

The council approved the contract agreement to allow the equipment purchase.

A discussion topic of the South Main Street Corridor Improvement Project included a contract with Economic Modeling, LLC, Moscow, ID for a benefit-cost analysis regarding the project. This $26,000 work contract will be used in the extensive grant application along with Northwest Missouri Regional Council of Government aid to the federal department of transportation. The $10 million grant application will be submitted by July 19. City Manager Greg McDanel said notification of the grant acceptance or denial will be by December 31.

The project is presently divided into three phases, with design and engineering for the first phase and South Avenue to just north of the north Wal-Mart entrance being completed by early 2019. Construction would start in the spring of 2019.

McDanel noted that 62 percent of the city’s sales tax revenues come from the businesses of this phase, so the disruption of their customer traffic is important to both the business and the city.

If the grant is approved, new engineering and design for the entire project from South Avenue to Kawasaki would be done in about 18 months, so construction would begin in 2021.

Another discussion item was the possibility of having a business license for the City of Maryville. While the revenue generated by the license would be added to the city coffers, the main reason the city staff proposed this new license was to garner information about new businesses and verification of zoning and sales tax receipts.

McDanel reported the upcoming tourism meeting agenda, the asphalt mill overlay project is one-third complete and the July 4th fireworks event was successful.