With County Approval, PFD Bond Moving Forward

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After months of bureaucratic back-and-forth, the Lewis County Public Facilities District is finally ready to move ahead with its long-planned expansion at the NW Sports Hub, following county commissioners’ approval of a study that will allow the PFD to proceed with a refinanced bond.

“It’s a big relief,” said PFD Board Chairman Todd Chaput. “It’s been a long time coming. … We’re done, we’re moving forward and that’s a good thing.”

The PFD is currently on a $5.7-million, 20-year bond that began in 2007. The new plan will extend that for 15 years — allowing for a more stable payment structure — and bring in $1.9 million in new capital. That funding will be used to complete the second floor at the Sports Hub and start work on expansion at the facility. 

For much of 2018, the PFD’s new bond plan was stalled, as paperwork hiccups and confusion about state and county roles slowed the process. Lewis County serves as guarantor of the bond, and the county was at one point hesitant to sign off on the plan until a required Department of Commerce study showed it was financially feasible. However, the feasibility study could not move forward without county approval, leading to what Chaput called a “chicken and the egg” situation.

Ultimately, it was determined that the county would not be on the hook as guarantor if the plan was deemed not feasible, allowing Commerce to proceed with the study. On Monday, county commissioners voted to approve the results of that review, which showed the refinanced bond to be viable. 

“That has been completed now, and the county’s bond council has reviewed it and okayed it. The feasibility (study) basically says that this is feasible and the numbers work,” said County Manager Erik Martin, who then read an excerpt from the study. “We believe that the PFD will have sufficient revenues to meet its annual obligations under the proposed financing structure.”

Chaput said the PFD is hoping to move forward with its bond sale soon, working with Key Bank, before moving into a bidding process on the expansion work. Although it’s possible work could start in the next few months, Chaput noted that contractors may already be getting booked up for the year.

“If we can get these started this spring, we will,” he said. “Right now we’re kind of running into that crunch time where people have already completed their bids.”



PFD Board member Ron Averill noted that increasing rates dictated by the Federal Reserve System dropped the value of the additional capital in the PFD bond from $2.2 million to $1.8 million during the time it waited for approval.

“It took a little bit longer than we expected for Commerce to get this study up,” he said. “Our (feasibility study) came out very, very well.”

Averill said the expansion is important to keeping the NW Sports Hub competitive with other venues nearby.

“We haven’t completed the inside of the building on the upper level,” he said. “We’ll put some bathrooms up there and some spectator things. Plus the fact that we’re going to expand the facility by about 20 percent and put in new courts for basketball, wrestling and things of that nature. We’re getting competition from Lacey and others that are trying to build similar facilities, seeing the success of ours. We want to stay competitive in the market.”

Averill said he’s hopeful to see construction begin this summer.

The new bond won’t give the PFD enough money to complete furnishing of the expansion area, but Chaput said he’s looking at federal and state funding sources that will enable that work to be completed.

“We’re bursting at the seams already, and we’re excited for the opportunity to expand and continue to be an economic driver in our community,” Chaput said.