Flood recovery projects to get bulk of I-JOBS funds

Nearly two-thirds of the $118.5 million in state bond proceeds targeted for local infrastructure upgrades would go to projects in Johnson, Linn and Black Hawk counties under an initial recommendation today.

Members of an I-JOBS Board review panel approved applications for 58 projects seeking a share of the $118.5 million in state grants that Gov. Chet Culver and the Legislature made available to local governmental or nonprofit entities on a competitive basis. The preliminary recommendations now go to the full board for consideration at its meeting in Waterloo next Monday.

Eligible applications that got the initial nod, after meeting scoring criteria set by law and the Iowa Finance Authority, came from all four quadrants of the state for a mix of projects. But more than half of the allocated funds were designated primarily for flood recovery efforts in Linn and Johnson counties.

List of I-JOBS projects approved, deferred and declined

Review panel members recommended Coralville receive the largest grant of $27 million for flood recovery and protection of the city's 1st Avenue corridor along the Iowa River – an overall project expected to cost nearly $36 million.

“Coralville got hit pretty badly in the flood,” said state Sen. Bob Dvorsky, D-Coralville, who attended Wednesday's meeting. “Cedar Rapids got a lot of press, but Coralville got hit pretty badly, too. If they get hit again, there's not going to be a city of Coralville business area.”

Coralville Mayor Jim Fausett said state financial help was “absolutely critical” to the city's rebuilding effort.

Overall, the panel gave initial funding approval to four proposed projects in Johnson County totaling more than $34.3 million. Linn County was close behind with eight projects totaling nearly $33.5 million that garnered affirmative recommendations – ranging from $15 million in improvements to the U.S. Cellular Center and event center construction, $5 million for the Cedar Rapids Public Library, $4.8 million to restore the CSPS Hall and nearly $3.7 million to rebuild the juvenile law center.

I thought we did very well in getting support for some good projects,” said Brent Oleson, a Linn County supervisor. “It was a very good day.”

Three Black Hawk County projects totaling more than $9.7 million also made the initial cut, including $8.74 million to replace the Cedar Falls public works complex and restore the city's Ice House Museum.

Joseph Jones of the Iowa Finance Authority staff said more than 200 entities expressed interest in seeking the state I-JOBS grants. Of those, 186 were invited to apply for help on projects totaling more than $500 million and 136 applications were received by the state panel for projects totaling $333.6 million, he said.

Along with the initial round of recommended approvals, the review panel proposed that 36 projects seeking about $97 million in state assistance be deferred pending the possibility that the Legislature and Gov. Chet Culver could earmark another $100 million to the local infrastructure program.

However, board members said there may be some fluctuation if project costs can be shifted to other funding sources, like the federal Community Development Block Grants program, which could free up I-JOBS proceeds for deferred local projects.

“There's a lot of great projects that aren't going to get funded in this and we just hope that, if we make the impact in the state of Iowa that we intended it to, that the Legislature will see fit to see if this process can go through another round again so we can take care of some of these other projects,” said review panel chair Pat Baird of Cedar Rapids.

Another 44 applications were declined because they failed to meet the program criteria or score high enough to be considered.

The program – part of an overall $830 million I-JOBS bonding package -- was allocated $165 million for disaster recovery and prevention and for local infrastructure, with $118.5 million to be distributed on a competitive basis while the remaining $46.5 million was earmarked for specific disaster-related projects by lawmakers. The review panel recommended that $1 million of those earmarked funds be used for fire stations in Palo and Charles City that were damaged by last year's flood disaster.