Photo by Deb Gau Patriot Park, located along Windstar Street in Marshall, doesn’t currently have amenities like restrooms or a picnic shelter. However, this month the Marshall City Council has awarded construction bids to build a combination shelter and restrooms, and approved a property tax abatement to help finance the project.

MARSHALL — It’s one of Marshall’s newer city parks, but there are amenities that Patriot Park doesn’t have. This year, the city will be moving ahead on building a picnic shelter and restrooms at the park.

After a public hearing Tuesday, Marshall City Council members voted to approve a property tax abatement to finance the project.

The city plans to issue a maximum of $275,000 in tax abatement bonds to finance the restroom construction, although city staff said the actual amount issued would be less, because the cost of the project was not that much. At a previous council meeting, council members voted to award construction bids of $188,886 for construction of the building and $19,685 for installation of water and sewer lines.

Bathroom improvements at city parks are among the projects that the Marshall parks department has been working on over the past few years, parks superintendent Preston Stensrud said at the council’s March 9 meeting. “We’ve done Justice Park, we’ve done Liberty Park which was a new construction, and last year we did the replacement at Freedom Park,” Stensrud said.

Next on the list for improvements is Patriot Park, which is located in an area of newer development along Windstar Street. The park currently does not have either a picnic shelter or restrooms. Stensrud said the plan was to build a picnic shelter with restrooms attached, which would be located next to the current playground area at the park.

“It does end up being about a 36 by 56-foot structure,” Stensrud told council members March 9. The construction is planned to be completed this summer.

Council members awarded bids to Bladholm Construction for the picnic shelter and restrooms, and to D&G Excavating for installation of water and sewer lines.

At Tuesday’s city council meeting, Marshall director of administrative services Annette Storm said the city was seeking to issue up to $275,000 in tax abatement bonds to finance the project. The bonds would be paid back by collecting funds from an abatement on the city portion of property taxes on a total of 22 parcels of land. The abatement would be fore a maximum of eight years and would apply to taxes payable in the years 2022 through 2030.

Storm said Marshall wouldn’t actually be issuing the maximum of $275,000 in abatement bonds, because the cost of the project is now known to be about $209,000.

Council members voted 6-1 in favor of passing the property tax abatement, with council member Russ Labat casting the dissenting vote.