Contractors estimate that the new Bartholomew County Highway Garage, with a price tag of between $7.6 million to $8 million, is about 80% to 85% completed.
Located east of Petersville, the garage facility consists of a 22,000 square foot main building off East 25th Street, located on what was once 11.25-acres of farm land.
Beside the main building, there is also a 14,400 square foot outer shed that will house 15 dump trucks, as well as a 12,800 square foot structure for storing other equipment, county highway superintendent Dwight Smith said.
While paving and landscaping is scheduled to get underway this month, construction likely won’t be completed until early July, Bartholomew County Commissioner Carl Lienhoop said.
Since mid-summer is the busiest time of the year for the 22-employee highway department, the move from the current garage at 2452 State Street may have to be done in phases, moving a few things at a time, Smith said.
For the past 10 months, there have been close to a dozen contractors working on the facility under the supervision of project superintendent Randy Strietelmeier of Taylor Bros. Construction.
“I remember one day we had over 50 employees in here working at the same time,” Strietelmeier said. “There were about 60 guys last fall when we were doing concrete work, including crane operators. But on average, we probably have about 35 people working here each day.”
The project manager says he has been “amazed” how all the different contractors worked together.
While not considered one of the contractors, Taylor Bros. is receiving $237,000 for construction management services to oversee the entire project.
The COVID factor
Progress on the structure was slowed down by global supply chain disruptions created by the COVID-19 epidemic, he said.
Metal frame studs used to arrive at a construction site within a few days of being ordered, but the last order took nearly a month to arrive, Strietelmeier said.
Special steel doors installed in the facility’s wash bay had a delivery delay that placed a number of workers three months behind schedule, said Taylor Bros. President David Doup.
While the delays can be frustrating, Bartholomew County commissioner Carl Lienhoop said he is counting his blessings. One is that the bids for the various projects were awarded just months before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in early 2020.
There have been two major price increases due to COVID issues, Doup said. The cost of lumber has more than doubled over the past 20 days, while steel is also very high, he said. The ripple effects of the pandemic has also delayed the arrival of required steel fabrications needed throughout the main building, Doup said.
If the project were to be bid today, the county would be paying more than $2 million more than the current price, according to an analysis made by Lienhoop and Doup.
But since the bids were made prior to COVID-19, “We are either close to being right on budget, or slightly over,” Doup said.
Building overview
When visitors step into the main entrance of the new building, they enter a modern lobby that immediately leads to offices on the south side of the building. If they head north, they will go through corridors with entrances to rooms containing utilities, restrooms, custodial and other facilities.
But it’s the large service and maintenance area that stands out from the rest of the building. Six large bay doors can be opened for bringing in dump trucks, snow plows and other large vehicles, Doup said. Attached to the ceiling and running nearly the entire length of the service area is a 5-ton bridge crane with a hoist capable of suspending heavy trucks for maintenance purposes.
When assistant highway superintendent Tracy Curry began working for the department in the late 1980s, he said there were smaller, single-axle trucks utilized by the department. In contrast, today’s trucks are much larger with two sets of axles, higher payload capacity and extra tires to handle more weight and remain stable. However, local highway officials say they are simply too big to be housed in a highway garage designed when Harry S. Truman was in the White House.
In the northeast part of the service area, two smaller bay doors have been installed that lead to a work area exclusively for county-owned cars and pickup trucks. This is also where Bartholomew County Sheriff’s Department patrol vehicles are brought in for service and maintenance.
On the far north side, the lengthy vehicle wash includes a drain to catch debris that falls off snow plows and dump trucks to minimize any risk to the environment, county highway engineer Danny Hollander said.
Financing
The new highway garage is being financed by a $6 million bond, as well as revenue collected through local income tax revenue.
For those who wonder if a nearly $8 million facility is necessary, Curry explained he had a total of six trucks down at the same time last week. At the current highway garage, only two trucks would fit inside the service bays. The remaining four all had to be serviced while they were outside in a gravel lot – sometimes in bad weather, he said.
While it is possible to drive a snow plow with a spreader into the service bay at the current garage, Hollander says there’s not enough room to walk around the plow – much less service it.
“In this new location, I may be able to get up to eight trucks inside for service,” Curry said.
At one point, the city of Columbus had expressed interest in buying the current garage. But at this time, the county has no plans for the aging and deteriorating building, although it might be used for storage.
The department will continue to use the 40-foot-tall salt and sand storage barn on the State Street property. It was only five years ago that the structure was built at a cost of $350,000.
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For years, the Bartholomew County Highway Department rented property in what was once a separate town in East Columbus to store road equipment.
In 1944, the department purchased the former Indiana State Highway Department garage property at 25th and California streets for $5,500.
That property, which included three buildings, was vacated when the state highway department moved into a new facility at the northeast corner of 25th Street and Central Avenue.
After the main building on 25th and California was badly damaged by fire, the property was sold to the Ohio Oil Company for $25,000, and a new county garage was erected in 1952 at 2452 State St.
The original 182-foot-long structure was built by Repp and Mundt Construction Co. of Columbus for approximately $45,000.
In early 2017, a structural assessment undertaken by DLZ Indiana concluded that the current garage is “functionally obsolete in needs and equipment.”
In July, 2018, the Bartholomew County Council unanimously approved the construction of a new highway garage east of Petersville.
Source: History of Bartholomew County, Vol. II (2003) and news accounts
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