City building needs whole new roof

Coulee Dam’s “Community Building,” the one that houses The Melody Restaurant, Riverview Bowl and the currently unused theater space, has a bigger problem than the city’s budget can currently fix: it needs a new roof.

Not a patch job on the leaky roof that customers at the businesses below having been putting up with for years, dodging buckets when it rains, but a completely new covering for which at least one contractor doesn’t even want to offer a cost estimate until he sees an engineer’s specifications.

It’s a project that City Superintendent Mike Steffens has been working on when he can and city council members have been encouraging for years, but with little funding to back up their wishes.

The current budget does include $25,000 to fix the leaks, but Steffens, who has been trying to gauge the extent of the problem and consulting with roof contractors, said one told him it would be a minimum of three times that amount for a new “membrane system” on the flat roof — after it’s already been stripped bare of coatings, wiring and more.

“Realistically,” Kimberly Christensen told the city council Wednesday, “it’s going to be $95,000 to $96,000 to do what needs to be done … including insulation.” Christensen has been investigating what it would take to reopen the theater. She offered to help with grant writing.

Steffens said the roof currently holds nine to 11 old heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) units, and he’s not sure if any of them even work. Christensen asked that they be removed in favor of more efficient, smaller systems similar to those installed in the restaurant.

Council discussed one idea floated regarding the possibility of even adding a pitched roof above the current flat one. All considered, though, the council wanted to find out if a currently contracted engineer could be consulted on the problem. The city clerk said she would look into that.