City Commissioners approved a $995,190 contract to Wadsworth Builders to replace the seats in the Mansfield Theater at the Civic Center.

The project is part of a larger package of projects the city is funding through the State-Local Infrastructure Partnership Act that the Montana Legislature approved in 2023.

The bill allocated about $20 million from the state general fund to the Montana Department of Commerce to be distributed to cities and towns to help them fund the maintenance or repair of local government facilities on a partnership basis, with local governments supplying a cash match.

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Great Falls was allocated $755,461 of SLIPA funds.

Commissioners approved the package of projects for SLIPA funding in March and ratified contracts with Commerce in September for each project.

Replacement of auditorium seating installed in 1938 with newer more comfortable seats that still maintain historic character. The project was identified as a potential priority use of ARPA funds in 2022. The previous commission decided to wait until the city received notification of the result of an application for the Montana Historic Preservation Grant application. The city was awarded a $250,000 grant. This was a tier two ARPA project.

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The project was initially estimated at $650,000 and the city received $487,500 in SLIPA funds for the project, plus $162,500 of downtown tax increment financing funds for the project.

Since the initial approval, city staff worked with Nelson Architect on design and bid documents for the project that includes demolition of the existing seats on the main floor and the balcony, grinding and recoating of the floor, and re-carpeting of both the main floor and the balcony landing areas.

The city received four bids for the project in November, all of which were higher than the initial estimate, ranging from $1,534,773.45 to the lowest bid of $995,190 from Wadsworth.

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The increase was in part due to the amount of seating needed, a complete demolition and reconstruction plan and inflation since the last estimate, according to city staff.

The biggest cost included in the bids is the seating supply and installation, according to staff.

Staff considered options for the higher bids, including canceling the project entirely and releasing the SLIPA funds back to the state, cutting the project scope to only replace seats on the main floor, or moving forward with the project by identifying additional funding.

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Sylvia Tarman, city project manager, told commissioners during their Dec. 3 meeting that funds like SLIPA are rare and staff doesn’t expect to see similar funding in the foreseeable future.

She said that cutting the project scope would have other impacts, such as mismatched theater seating and additional expenses replacing the second set of seats since the city would pay a second round of contractor mobilization, shipping and material costs.

City staff recommended moving forward with the full project, despite the overage of $345,190, plus $12,000 in design fees to Nelson Architects.

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Staff said the overage will be covered by remaining COVID relief funds and staff is working with the contractor and suppliers to trim the project cost if possible and exploring fundraising options to reduce the impact on COVID funds.

Tarman said those fundraising options could include new seat sponsorships or selling the old seats.

“We want people to be invested,” Tarman said, and will attempt to get community investors.

Commissioner Joe McKenney asked if staff would come back to the commission regarding fundraising.

Tarman said additional commission approvals would not likely be needed.

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Tarman said staff is planning to complete the seating replacement project in conjunction with the theater ceiling restoration project so that the seats could be removed, simplifying the scaffolding the ceiling contractor needs, potentially reducing some cost to that component of the project.

Staff told commissioners that there is a foundation for the Mansfield Theater that could accept community donations toward the project.

Mayor Cory Reeves asked which country the seats were coming from and whether the administration change and potential tariffs would impact the project.

Tarman said the supplier is based in North Dakota and is the same company that did the seating in the Great Falls High theater renovation.