Columbus City Council members approved additional funding to go towards a new salt barn at the future home of the city’s Department of Public Works.
The Columbus Redevelopment Commission Wednesday morning agreed to fund the salt barn for the new facility at 1350 Arcadia Drive for an amount not to exceed $3.7 million.
The council a few hours later unanimously approved the funding 9-0. They had to give their consent because it is a city expenditure greater than $500,000.
The funds will come out of the central tax-increment-financing district, which has a current balance of around $30 million, according to redevelopment.
Force Design said the estimate was based on a similar project INDOT commissioned in Sullivan in March of 2022. Redevelopment added a 15% contingency to account for the increase in construction costs since that time.
City officials say its addition at the new site will greatly enhance efficiency compared to the department’s current set up at 2250 Kreutzer Drive.
The council in September backed redevelopment’s expenditure of about $8.7 million to buy the property at 1350 Arcadia Drive and renovate the building for the new use. The agreement for the property itself, which was previously a data center, was for $2.6 million. The cost to retrofit it was estimated by Force Design to cost about $6.1 million.
The salt barn had not been included in the initial design as a cost-saving measure, with the idea being that public works would continue using the out-of-date dome-shaped salt barn at the current facility. Council members indicated they thought it would be more prudent for the new facility to have one, making operations more seamless while also allowing the city to potentially offload 2250 Kreutzer Drive later.
Department of Public Works Director Bryan Burton has discussed in city meetings how the department has significantly outgrown capacity at the current facility. He has stated they are maxed out on electrical capacity, don’t have enough parking or office space for employees and have insufficient storage.
The new location is twice the size and will include a 15,000 square-foot building addition for maintenance, a 10,000 square-foot covered storage building addition and a nearly 2,000 square-foot addition for a wash building. It’s set to have a maintenance area with 10 service bays, two underground fuel tanks and would be able to house significantly more vehicles.
What’s being proposed is an enclosed barn, with a salt storage unit, brining station and an additional wash bay for vehicles hauling salt.
Getting salt from the existing barn is a not-so-easy task, Burton has said. It had been designed to have an auger on the top, but never ended up getting installed.
Public works employees have to drag the salt out using a series of ramps and then push it back in every night, Burton has said.
In addition, the brine system is all the way across the parking lot at the current facility.
“We have to transport the material from the dome to this facility to make our brine,” Burton said Wednesday morning. “With the new barn we’re going to have this all be contained in one area. That way we can make it more efficient and not have to transport the salt and lost material across transport and so on.”
The current barn holds about 2,000 tons of salt and the new one would double that capacity, according to Force Design.
Sometimes when salt is shipped to Columbus it can come in large batches, so Burton said having the extra capacity will be helpful, especially as the city continues growing.
City officials observed the new barn will also be useful in a situation where salt may be needed on short notice.
“If we’ve got ice on the roads or snow, it’s slick— like I said it’s public safety,” Burton said previously. “We want to get out there as quickly as we can, so if we’re spending time every time we go get the salt, with that distance, it’s taking time away from putting the material down to prevent wrecks and save lives.”
