Unanswered questions dog proposed county building
Staff writer
An engineer from BG Consultants showed county commissioners ideas Tuesday for a building north of Peabody to house an ambulance station and road and bridge shop, but commissioners decided too many questions didn’t yet have answers.
Clint Hibbs showed commissioners two options, one with four bay doors and two walk-through doors and the other with two bay doors and three walk-through doors. Both were pre-engineered metal buildings.
The estimated cost would be $1.85 million, Hibbs said.
Commissioner Kent Becker said the projected cost would go up if commissioners waited. He also said he thought the projected 6% financing rate might be off.
Commissioners decided they didn’t know enough to make any decision.
“I appreciated all this, but without the pictures, it’s hard to have a conversation,” commission chairman Jonah Gehring told Hibbs.
The road and bridge department has a leased building in Peabody, commissioner Clarke Dirks said, but the landowner has told them to move out before the end of the year.
“The next thing is, we need to figure out how we can pay for it and if we want to hire an architect to design it,” Dirks said.
Dirks said a shop was needed in Peabody because it serves as the hub for road and bridge work across the southern portion of the county.
Two graders are kept there. Having equipment for the southern half of the county housed in Marion would mean grader operators would spend two hours driving to and from job sites, Dirks said.