Albany City Commission hears updates on Kalmon Malone, Carver recreation projects

ALBANY – The city of Albany, with the help of state and federal funds, is making a major investment in three neighborhoods with the replacement of recreation centers that were constructed decades ago.

On Tuesday, city commissioners got an update on progress for those centers and how the city can tap into those grant funds before a fall deadline.

Grants for the Bill Henderson complex, which is under construction at 701 Willard Ave., Carver Gym at 410 W. Mercer Ave., and Kalmon Malone Community Center at 312 Vick St., were among the $225 million in recreation grants awarded in 2023 by Gov. Brian Kemp. Each of Albany’s projects received $2.2 million in funding through the grants, which also included funding for sidewalks and healthy food projects, for recreation projects for the cities of Arlington, Camilla and Damascus. 

Albany has a deadline in October to spend down the grant dollars.

Moultrie-based JCI contractors was selected in late 2025 to act as construction manager to manage the overall construction.

For the Kalmon Malone and Carver projects, since February the company has been in contact with some 500 companies in seeking bids on various parts of the contract, Lynn Jones, JCI’s director of pre-bidding, told commissioners. Through March 26, it had received more than 332 proposals.

“We’ve had great participation throughout the process,” he said. “We feel like (it) has been very competitive to projects in the market conditions today.”

The bids include 26 proposals from disadvantaged business enterprises (DBEs), which can include women- minority- and veteran-owned companies. DBE participation in total is in the range of $14.7% of the project, with minority-owned firms representing 2%.

Overall, “62.7% of work is local contractors” located within 50 miles of Albany, Jones said.

One concern is that the price of $9.3 million presented on Tuesday for the Kalmon Malone and Carver projects is now estimated at $12.4 million. 

“What happened?” Commissioner Chad Warbington asked. 

The lower number represents earlier estimates prepared before JCI was enlisted in the project, Jones said.

“We believe the numbers presented were from the city of Albany and not updated numbers,” he said.

The older numbers do not reflect that costs have increased in the time since the city received the grant, City Manager Terrell Jacobs said. Like everything else, inflation has affected the cost of construction, he said.

“We’ve been seeing this across the board,” he said.

While value engineering could cut down on some costs, Mayor Bo Dorough said that the facilities should be seen as a long-term investment and not subject to cost-cutting that impacts the final product. Things like substituting rubber for wood flooring for the basketball court may save money but run contrary to that ideal.

“When my son was 6 years old we went to Carver,” Dorough said. “It was dilapidated, but you could see how it had been great. This is a 40-year investment as far as I’m concerned. I would be on the side of we just need to do this right. If we need to postpone other projects to do that, we need to do it.”

In addition to the grant funding, the city is using special-purpose local-option sales tax (SPLOST) dollars to fund the projects.