Sioux City secures funding for Vision Iowa match

Sioux City’s reached an eight-million-dollar funding goal for a new events center, the last step in getting a big Vision Iowa grant. Vision Iowa board member attorney Marv Berenstein says the final step this week is a mere formality. He says the legal promise since May 9 was to go through with it once the town raised eight million and that’s now been done, so Berenstein says it’s time for the state Vision Iowa board to sign on the dotted line. Berenstein says the city proved it’s got backing to support civic improvement plans.Sioux City put up a theatre and arts center even before Vision Iowa was created to support that kind of project. Mayor Marty Dougherty says even though the city will borrow funds to start construction, money won’t come out of the pockets of taxpayers.Some funding options, like naming rights, aren’t actually completed yet, so the city will borrow money for now to pay for the construction as it gets underway. Mayor Dougherty says the next step comes Wednesday when the Vision Iowa board meets to vote on the 21-million dollars in state money for the facility.With eight-million local funds and the 21-million expected from tomorrow’s Vision Iowa final approval meeting, the only thing left to disclose is which local Sioux City businesses have taken the various naming opportunities for the center. We could learn that in the next week or two, and the facility itself is scheduled to be completed late in 2003 or early in 2004.