Iffy, flood-damaged city facilities like the Sinclair plant may provide the city with a surprise pot of FEMA funds

CEDAR RAPIDS - FEMA has said it early and often: Its job is to help with flood recovery, not to fix everything, not to make the community “whole.”

That may not be entirely true, though.

The exception is a little-discussed, disaster-recovery program in which the Federal Emergency Management Agency will pay the city to build “alternative” or “improved” projects if a flood-hit city facility cannot be brought back to life.

“For all the crummy things that have happened to our community, I think this is the silver lining in the dark cloud of flood recovery,” says Greg Eyerly, the city's flood-recovery director.

The most gigantic case in point is the flood-and-fire-damaged, city-owned Sinclair meatpacking site, for which the city may receive between $20 million and $45 million for use on an “alternative” project somewhere else in the city, Eyerly reports.

Other flood-hit facilities now slated for demolition and the early estimates of how much the city may get from them: The hydroelectric plant at the base of the 5-in-1 dam, between $11 and $13 million; the city's animal shelter, $1 million; the First Street SE parking ramp, $1.2 million; the city's forestry-operation buildings near Czech Village, $815,000; the Time Check Recreation Center, $1.66 million.

Smaller projects on the list include the city-owned, former Quality Chef site on Third Street SE in New Bohemia, the damage value of which is still under review but could reach perhaps $500,000, Eyerly estimates.

Nine, hard-hit, historically insignificant buildings in Ushers Ferry Historical Village also are slated to come down to provide as much $300,000 for other uses.

On the list, too, is more than $35 million in flood-damaged sanitary sewer line in flood-hit areas in which it may not be rebuilt.

Eyerly says the FEMA program is broad-shouldered enough to give the city a “second chance” on some city buildings that were “lightly used and obsolete.”

The Sinclair plant, he says, had been largely an empty eyesore of a City Hall problem with the millions of dollars needed to demolish it the only thing keeping it from the wrecking ball.

At the same time, though, the Sinclair plant was a functioning facility at the time of the flood, home to several small businesses and also used as a warehouse. In FEMA's eyes, the Sinclair plant is not unlike any other kind of warehouse and small-business operation hit by a flood, Eyerly says.

Not only can't the bulk of the Sinclair buildings be saved, but FEMA has agreed to pay for the plant's demolition because the agency has deemed it an imminent threat to public safety. The demolition contract awarded last week was for $7.7 million.

Eyerly says FEMA allows some flexibility in how the city will use FEMA money for an alternative project or an improved one. The city will get 81 percent of the damage value for an alternative project and 100 percent of the damage value if it builds an improved project of a similar kind.

Steve Hershner, the city's utilities environmental manager, notes that it will be up to the City Council at the end of the day to decide which alternative or improved projects benefit from FEMA funds.

Nonetheless, Hershner reports that the city utilities department has looked at using the money attached to the damaged hydroelectric plant at the 5-in-1 dam to pay for a couple wind turbines at the city's Northwest Water Plant.

Julie Sina, the city's parks and recreation director, hopes that $300,000 available from Ushers Ferry village buildings stays in the village to build a new reception hall and meeting space.

The City Council already has shown its hand in one instance, in which in recent weeks it directed what Eyerly now estimates will be about $60,000 in alternative-project funds to the proposed Cedar Rapids City Market that otherwise would have gone to fix up The Roundhouse at Czech Village.

Mayor Ron Corbett says that money attached to the Quality Chef buildings also may be directed to the proposed City Market, which, for now, likes the Quality Chef site for the market. Beyond that, he says the City Council will solicit ideas from the community on how best to use other FEMA funds in the program.

“That's FEMA's whole concept,” the mayor says. “You don't have to rebuild exactly what you had before the flood. You can get something better. And that's the benefit of the flexibility of the alternative projects."