CEDAR RAPIDS - The Paramount Theatre renovation is getting closer to starting.

The City Council this week gave the go-ahead to seek bids on the first of two bid packages for work on the flood-damaged theater with a second bid package expected to come before the council in the near future, Sandy Pumphrey, an engineer in the city's Public Works Department, told the council this week.

Pumphrey noted that the city and the Federal Emergency Management Agency have reached an agreement that the theater sustained $16.5 million in damage in the flood of 2008.

According to city figures, the renovation project will cost an estimated $35 million, none of the funds of which will come from local property taxes. The project is being funded with FEMA disaster-recovery funds, revenue from federal and state historic tax credits and a state I-JOBS grant.

The first phase of the renovation will include expansion of the stage, the addition of extra dressing rooms and the construction of a “penthouse” in which to place mechanical equipment out of danger from future flooding.

The second phase will include mechanical, electrical, plumbing, historic plastering, audiovisual and lighting work.

Construction should begin in August and be complete in the fall of 2012, Pumphrey said.

Jim Hoffman, a member of the board of directors of Orchestra Iowa and the head of a City Council-appointed citizen committee overseeing the theater reconstruction, told the City Council this week that the renovated theater will “wow” the public upon its completion.