Tony London
County officials are seeking a contractor for heating, ventilation and air conditioning replacement in the Bartholomew County jail.
The Bartholomew County Commissioners recently voted to release a notice to bidders on this project.
The commissioners approved a $155,000 professional services agreement with DLZ Indiana, LLC in September to design the extensive upgrades.
“We’ve completed the design side on the HVAC upgrade project for the jail,” said Josh Apling with DLZ. “So it’s a replacement of pretty much a lot of the major equipment in the original portion of the jail, as well as an alternate bid to replace the boilers and the expansion portion of the jail. … It’s a big project, but it’ll get all the equipment in the existing jail replaced and provide a much more reliable system.”
“We’ve needed it for a while,” said maintenance director Rick Trimpe. “A lot of those units are in pretty bad shape.”
Commissioner chairman Carl Lienhoop said officials planned to advertise the notice to bidders this month. There will also be a pre-bid meeting in the jail’s training room on Thursday. Commissioners will not open bids until April 18.
According to Apling, DLZ estimates that construction will take about 270 days once the bid is awarded, assuming there aren’t major lead time issues. Lienhoop said that while the “biggest part” of the work will likely take place in 2022, the project will carry over into 2023.
“A person needs to think about their own furnace, air conditioning unit in your house,” he said. “And then think about the complexity of that building over there, how spread out it is, multi-level.”
“And you have to do it when it’s full of people,” added Commissioner Tony London. “It’s not like you can move everybody out for six months. It’s got to stay operational while they do it.”
London said that American Rescue Plan dollars will be used to fund the project, which will help support the county’s general fund moving forward.
“One way or another, this was going to have to be paid with real dollars,” said Lienhoop. “… It will be a substantial figure.”
As of early 2022, county officials said that an estimated $1.25 million in ARP funds had been budgeted for the HVAC upgrades, but only $25,530 had been spent as of late 2021.
“Originally, we had that budgeted at $1,250,000,” said auditor Pia O’Connor in late January. “We think the cost will exceed that amount, so we have raised it as sort of a placeholder to $1,300,589.”
A previous estimate from county officials in mid-January put the project at $1.8 million.
