As Edwardsville works to transform the 246 N. Main Street building into the future home of the Edwardsville Arts Center, aldermen will be asked to approve an agreement with S.M. Wilson as construction manager.
The agreement is one of several voting items on the agenda for the City Council meeting at 7 p.m. Oct. 6 at 118 Hillsboro Ave.
City Administrator Eric Williams explained during the Administrative and Community Services meeting on Oct. 1 that adding a construction manager to the project would allow the restoration to move more smoothly.
“As we’ve kind of been going through this process, we kind of came back around to this project delivery of using a construction manager to work for both of us at the same time, rather than having to wait and wait for one to finish our project and the other to start. So they can work these together,” Williams said.
The Edwardsville Arts Center opened its front gallery at 246 N. Main St. on June 30, but restoration work is continuing on the rest of the building. Once completed, the Arts Center will have approximately 1,200 square feet of gallery space.
The remaining space will likely include an outdoor event space, such as a rooftop patio, that will connect to the Wildey Theatre and be managed by the Parks and Recreation Department.
Edwardsville bought the building in October 2025 with the support of the Edwardsville Community Foundation, which awarded $525,000 from the David Kriege Family. It is leasing space to the Edwardsville Arts Center.
If the projects move forward together, the Edwardsville Arts Center could be completed as soon as mid-2027, about a year earlier than under the current schedule, according to Williams. He said the city's portion could take until mid-2027. If the work does not overlap, the Arts Center's build-out would begin afterward and could take another year.
S.M. Wilson's Kerry Lort outlined additional advantages of having S.M. Wilson serve as construction manager.
“Instead of taking one bid from a general contractor with one number, you’ll receive three bids from an electrician, three bids from a concrete company, three bids for mechanical, and be able to assign those to us,” Lort said. “We come to you with a GMP, guaranteeing the overall cost.”
The bids and guaranteed maximum price would come back to council for approval before the project moves forward.
Aldermen also will be asked to approve a supplemental agreement with Gray Design Group for the building.
“Everything has to be brought under the city’s purview, so part of the agreement would address what the Arts Center would reimburse the city for. A portion of this supplemental amount would be reimbursable to us from the Arts Center,” Williams said.
The overall project approach has been revised to combine the previously separate Core and Shell and Tenant Improvement packages into a single design and construction deliverable.
In addition, the overall renovation approach has been revised to demolish portions of the existing structure that have been determined to be infeasible for the intended redevelopment and replace those areas with new, single-story white-box construction.
The lump sum fee is $77,406.
Water treatment plant improvements
Aldermen will be asked to approve a professional services agreement with Crawford, Murphy and Tilly for $1.4 million for water treatment plant improvement plans.
The city has a permit to discharge sewage effluent into the Mississippi River. A new phosphorus limit was added to the discharge permit.
The city's water treatment plant will need to undergo improvements to meet the new 0.5 milligrams per liter (mg/L) discharge limit by 2030.
In January 2025, the city hired Crawford, Murphy and Tilly to determine what improvements would be needed.
“The outcome was that to get down to the 0.5 milligram-per-liter requirement, we had to install tertiary filtration, which is basically just a final type of filtration, as well as an aluminum sulfate chemical feed to help drop and precipitate that phosphorus out,” Public Works Director Ryan Zwijack said.
The project could cost between $15 million and $20 million.
“This is to design the tertiary filtration, intermediate lift station, chemical feed station, and then we’re also going to roll into this getting rid of the gas chlorine and going with probably UV disinfection for the wastewater plant,” Zwijack said.
Also on the agenda
Edwardsville aldermen will vote on several other items, including:
- Ordinance amending Codified Ordinances for the City of Edwardsville regarding solid waste
- Ordinance amending Codified Ordinances for the City of Edwardsville regarding utilities
- Resolution to sign a contract with restoration contractor Mark Phipps
- Resolution to sign a contract with restoration contractor Tom Doyle
- Appointment of Gayle Michel to the Tourism Advisory Committee
- Approval of bond for Class B — retail sale of alcohol on premises only. Apex Family Entertainment LLC, doing business as Edison’s Entertainment Complex
- Approval of bond for Class B — retail sale of alcohol on premises only. Cabo Azul LLC, doing business as Viva La Fiesta
- Approval of bond for Class C — sale of alcohol for consumption on the premises as well as retail sale of alcohol in the original package. 1929 by Pastri LLC, doing business as 1929 Pizza and Wine