LULA — The City of Lula is continuing the necessary preparations that will allow renovation work to begin on the city’s depot building and grounds.
“We’re about done with the demolition,” City Manager Dennis Bergin told AccessWDUN after Monday night’s city council meeting. “We waited until the Fall Festival was over with to complete some of the outside demolition.”
Most of the interior work already had been completed, but some exterior demolition was delayed until most of the largest community events were over for the year.
“You’ll see the deck removed this week,” Bergin said. “So now we’re trying to schedule the subcontractors to come in through our main contractor. It’s a difficult task; these are busy times, and that’s all good but it means we’re probably not going to meet the timeline. I’d love to have that thing done in December, but it’s not going to happen. We’re going to get into January, and that’s ok.”
Bergin said he looks forward to the time when the construction process is just a memory.
“It was like the inconvenience we had this weekend with the Fall Festival,” Bergin said. “At the end of the day, nobody noticed, and we still had a good crowd turn out. Three or four months from now, all everybody will remember is what a great job we’ve done with the new community center, so we’re excited about that.”
Bergin is confident the new depot community center will stay booked much of the year by residents, organizations and churches.
“We have so many community churches working with us, and I promise you once we get those depot improvements and the community center made, we’ll be fighting off how many weekends there are in a year, 52, and how many activities we can have,” Bergin said. “It wouldn’t surprise me if it will far surpass anything we have done in the most recent past.”
