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The Andalusia City Council on Tuesday approved the hiring of a local engineering firm to assist with a new park project.

CDG Engineers, which is currently working with the city on other projects, such as the Prestwood Building renovation, will be the engineering firm working alongside Concordia, an architectural firm out of New Orleans, on the development of what is currently being called Heritage Park.

Representatives of Concordia presented a first draft proposal for the park in February. At that time, it was said that hiring an engineering firm would be among the next steps in moving the project forward.

“[Concordia] are architects. They design stuff and there will be some buildings and structures within the park that they will design, but they also need an engineering firm to work with them on a project like this. This is the next thing we need to do to move toward the construction of the park,” said Mayor Earl Johnson.

Part of CDG’s role will be to provide the engineering and to oversee the construction of the park.

CDG’s costs for joining the project is $81,300, which will come from the city’s capital account, which was strengthened Tuesday after other action approved by the council.

In what was described as a first for the city, the council approved moving $4 million from the general fund to the capital improvements account. With the transfer, city officials said the general fund still has a balance of about $2.5 million.

“This is an historic moment, in my opinion,” said Mayor Johnson. “This amount of cash on hand for the City of Andalusia puts us in the best financial position in the history of our city.”

The mayor and council gave credit for the city’s sound financial standing to city employees.

“There are a lot of people to credit for this, but primarily our employees who work so hard to stretch every dollar to get the most from it. The members of this council and our department heads work really hard to give our citizens the biggest bang for their buck. Because of that, we stand in a very strong position. This transfer is an acknowledgment of that effort,” Johnson added.

The council also discussed the following items.

• The council agreed to surplus a building currently being leased to Triple H Specialty Company, which has expressed interest in purchasing the building. The lease agreement provided Triple H an option to purchase the building for $300,000, minus the amount paid during the lease.
• A bid from S&P Communications of Opp to outfit five new police vehicles was approved. The work will include installing the communications system, lights, cages, and other equipment at a cost of $46,380.
• Tommy Agee was appointed to a vacant position on the city’s Recreation Board while Steve Bozeman was re-appointed the board.

The building located in the city’s industrial park began as a spec building.

“This is the last of our spec buildings and it has been a good investment for the city,” said Dist. 2 Councilman Kennith Mount.