Following an Executive Session during Tuesday morning's meeting, the Brownwood City Council unanimously approved awarding a $3,975,707 contract to Waldrop Construction for the renovation of the Bennie Houston Recreation Center.

The project is supported by the City of Brownwood's largest Texas Parks & Wildlife Department grant to date, valued at $1. 5 million that will go toward construction, abatement, and project costs, as well as grant administration.

Brownwood City Manager Marshall McIntosh said, "We did a competitive sealed bid process for the Bennie Houston Center renovation project and that started back in August. The project includes major demolition and reconstruction of the existing rec center, as well as surrounding site improvements. Since we reviewed the bids we had proposals from six general contractors from Abilene, Waco, and Brownwood, as well as out of state. After we did the public opening we went into an evaluation of those, we ranked the proposals and relied on the architects Jacob & Martin to review the overall plans and look for some cost saving measures. We look forward to getting this project to construction." The construction period of the project is an estimated 330 consecutive calendar days.