County in time crunch to fix 3 ODOT structures
Jan. 26—LIMA — The Allen County commissioners began putting plans in place Tuesday morning to renovate and rehabilitate structures on the North West Street property formerly known as the ODOT facility. The move came just one day after they visited the site to see it firsthand.
The commissioners hosted county Engineer Brian Rhodes and Superintendent Jason Patchet to get their thoughts on three buildings at the old ODOT facility. Each structure needs a new roof and other miscellaneous repairs. Patchet provided an estimate in excess of $300,000 to fix all three structures before the discussion shifted to prioritizing the three.
The swift action following the commissioners tour of the facility was taken partly due to the deterioration of the county garage, the sign shop and EMA buildings at the location and to protect the investment the county made when it moved the EMA offices into the former ODOT building.
While both concerns were great, none of them may been greater than what was perhaps the commissioners biggest call to action — the matter of $90,300 in expiring grant money the county would like to use to make improvements before it expires in June.
"The immediate reason for coming together and for asking JP (Patchet) t0 get estimates for the roofs was the original $90,300 that we'd like to spend to benefit the county operations," Seibert explained.
When Commissioner Cory Noonan asked for a best guess of how long each building would last before repairs must be made, Patchet estimated all three could probably "go another couple of years."
Patchet then cautioned given the money recently put into the EMA building when moving to its present location he wouldn't risk a weather event or something else destroying the work already done.
After verifying with finance Director Susan Wildermuth to ensure they had enough in their capital funds to add an additional $110,000 to the grant money, the commissioners approved having the sign shop reshingled for $31,500 and plan to approve repairing the EMA building's roof for around $170,000.
Patchet said he expects to receive a firm estimate in the next 10-14 days and that he believes the estimate he was given was on the higher end.
Commissioner Brian Winegardner explained the key take away from the meeting should be that all of the structures will be used at some point and need to be repaired.
"The key thing today is these projects need to be done because the building's are going to be used for something and we need to start the process right regardless of what we use the building for — if the roof is not good — the building can't be used."
Reach Joe Gilroy on twitter @TLNJoeGilroy
