Lovell Town Hall facelift

Town awarded funds for remodel

The century-old Lovell Town Hall will soon receive a major facelift after the Town of Lovell received word that the town has been accepted for a state grant.

Lovell Town Administrator Jed Nebel said the current town leadership has been talking about a town hall remodel project since 2020, but there is paperwork about a remodel going back to the 1980s.

Lovell Town Hall was built in 1920, Nebel said, and expanded once or twice since then.

Nebel said the town first attempted to use American Rescue Plan Act COVID relief funding for the project, but the project didn’t qualify. He said the town then looked into USDA Rural Development funding, but that program was more loan than grant and had a great deal of red tape attached.

With the end of the ARPA program, Nebel said, the town qualified for state funds and applied for a Mineral Royalties Grant through the State Loan and Investment Board. He said the town applied in February and received word in June that the grant request had been accepted.

Lovell will receive a grant in the amount of $648,500 toward a $1.29 million project, with the town providing a 50 percent match, which Nebel said will come out of town reserves.

Though the town has received word of the grant acceptance, the council must review and sign the grant agreement, he said.

Nebel said Pryor Mountain Engineering of Cowley assisted with a project engineering feasibility statement and, with Nebel, created the detailed project budget.

The design and engineering phase would come next, once the grant agreement is signed, and Nebel said hopes are that the project could begin in 2026.

The project

Nebel noted that the project will not change the footprint of town facilities other than repurposing space to the west of the current town hall currently used as part of the town shop.

According to early, tentative plans, the shop space to the west would be the site of a new council chambers and municipal court area, with a new entrance door to the north. Next to the council chambers would be public works office space.

At the east end of the building, a larger lobby with seating would be constructed, providing room for more people but also controlled access to the rest of the building with service windows. The current council chambers would be repurposed into administrative offices.

To the left of the main entrance where the current administrative offices are located, the space would be repurposed for a work room and office for the town administrator.

Nebel said the $1.29 million price tag for a remodel is a relative bargain, with a new building likely costing $4 million to $5 million if the town went in that direction.