County construction well underway

Flathead County is in the midst of one of its busiest building years ever, with $11 million in facilities projects scheduled for completion by mid-2016.

A $4 million renovation and expansion of the county’s historic old jail building adjacent to the main Courthouse should be finished by April, while the county’s new $7 million South Campus Building just a block away is expected to open by mid-August 2016.

The old jail complex is “pretty much on schedule,” Flathead County Administrator Mike Pence said. “The contractors are so busy right now; getting them on the job is a challenge because they have so many projects.”

Pence said the county had hoped to get all of the outdoor concrete work around the building done this year, but that finishing work will have to wait until next spring.

Plans for restoring the 1903 old jail — constructed as a companion building to the Courthouse — began about three years as the county started looking at options to provide more space for the County Attorney offices.

The old jail hadn’t housed prisoners for decades and was used largely for storage. Initially, county officials estimated the building could be renovated for $1.5 million, but the project headed in a different direction when the attic and much of the basement couldn’t be converted to office use.

Pence said the roof angles in the attic, plus the required structural alterations of installing an elevator and stairway to the top of the building, made that plan unworkable. In the basement, portions of the floor are at different elevations, making renovation not feasible. Some basement space may be used for storage and other secondary space needs.

What emerged to solve the space challenge at the old jail was a three-story “twin” addition on the east side.

Martel Construction of Bigfork is the general contractor. The county is using federal money from a long-running payment-in-lieu-of-taxes appropriation that compensates local governments for nontaxable federal land to pay for the old jail project.

At the South Campus Building site on First Avenue West, the building is framed and concrete floors have been poured on the second floor and on the roof.

“Roofing material has been applied over the concrete, so eventually when a third floor is built the floor is already in place,” Pence said. “They’ll be working through the whole winter. They’ll have it closed in pretty tight over the next two weeks.”

The South Campus Building will look much like the county’s Earl Bennett Building just to the north on First Avenue West.

The project is about six to eight weeks behind schedule because a batch of defective concrete used in the foundation had to be removed and replaced earlier this year at the contractor’s expense.

The county broke ground in March on the $7 million two-story building that will house the Agency on Aging and Kalispell Senior Center on the first floor. The county Planning Office and Health Department services will occupy the second floor.

Swank Enterprises is the general contractor for the project.

Pence said there was also a slight delay in waiting for construction materials, namely steel beams, to arrive.

“Right now they’re on a pretty good roll,” Pence said.

The South Campus Building also will be paid for with the county’s payment-in-lieu-of-taxes appropriations from the federal government.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.