Mike Wolanin | The Republic An exterior view of the Bartholomew County Governmental Offices building in Columbus, Ind., Monday, Oct. 28, 2024.
County officials on Monday approved a proposal to purchase a couple of HVAC units for what will be a new county storage facility at the Bartholomew County Fairgrounds.
Bartholomew County Commissioners approved a proposal from the maintenance department to buy two five ton, Tempstar HVAC units from locally-based South Central Company for $14,580.43. All three commissioners voted to approve the purcahse of the HVAC units.
The maintenance department received two other quotes from HVACDirect and United Refrigeration Inc. at $14,936 and $26,040 respectively.
The commissioners earlier this month awarded a project to build a 16,200-square-foot storage building on the northeast corner of the county fairgrounds to Larry Mohr Construction of Flat Rock.
The new storage facility is needed because of the large amount of government documents and other items previously stored on county properties that have either recently changed hands, are being renovated or are just out-of-space.
The building was expected to cost just under $1 million, but Larry Mohr will be doing it for $740,350.
Some of the documents have to be stored for 50 years by law, others are required to be kept in environmentally-controlled conditions, according to county officials.
There were a large number of documents being held in the old Elk’s Club at 507 Third St. that had served as the former court services building. When the city took ownership of that property and the block surrounded by Second, Franklin, Third and Lafayette streets in November 2022 as part of plans for what was going to be a future hotel and conference center, some of those documents were transferred to the former county highway garage at 2452 State St.
Now that the county has sold the former county highway garage to the Columbus Redevelopment Commission, commissioners said they need a secure, environmentally-controlled storage facility relatively close to downtown to store the material. The county has documents stored in various building including the Bartholomew County Courthouse, Purdue Extension Building, Bartholomew County Health Department and the Bartholomew County Youth Services Center.
