During its April 15 meeting, Tomball City Council approved allocating American Rescue Plan Act funds to the Depot Museum and Louie’s Together Playground.
In a nutshell
Council approved allocating $450,000 and $100,000 toward Louie’s Together Playground, an inclusive playground set for Juergens Park, and enhancements for the Depot Museum, respectively.
The funds come from the $2.92 million the city received from the March 2021 American Rescue Plan Act, which authorized $1.9 trillion in federal pandemic relief funds, according to the April 15 agenda packet.
In January 2022, council approved using $1.76 million of ARPA funds for water meters, according to the agenda packet. Tomball has $607,959.44 in remaining ARPA funds to allocate.
Assistant City Manager Jessica Rogers said the $100,000 for the Depot Museum will be used for the electrical, concrete and lighting work associated with placing antique train equipment. During its April 15 meeting, council approved a donation agreement with the estate of Gilbert and Virginia Freitag for the antique train equipment.
“We don’t anticipate it being $100,000, but we felt like we were going to budget on the high end, and if we don’t spend that full amount of the ARP, it will go back into the ARP allocation to be reallocated to another project,” Rogers said. “So that should cover all of the site work that’s necessary for those antique items to be placed at the Depot.”
Stay tuned
Construction on Louie’s Together Playground is expected to begin around August, Community Impact previously reported.
