Doors open to South Campus Building
<p><strong>Bill Foutner</strong> grabs a seat as he waits for his wife, Lee, to join him for lunch at the South Campus Building on Monday. (Brenda Ahearn photos/Daily Inter Lake)</p>
Kalispell area seniors had their first hot meal Monday in the $7 million South Campus Building that is now open to the public.
The ground floor of the two-story building accommodates the Flathead County Agency on Aging and Kalispell Senior Center. Meals through the Meals on Wheels program are now served at the new facility on First Avenue West just south of the Earl Bennett Building.
The Agency on Aging served cold meals to seniors for a few days last week as the transition was made from the agency’s former leased facility on Kelly Road to the South Campus Building.
“To move offices is one thing, but to move a major food service is another,” Pence said.
Agency on Aging Director Lisa Sheppard said the furniture is not all in place yet, but the space is nevertheless functional for the senior programs. An open house will be held in late September.
On the second floor, the county Planning Office, Environmental Health Department and Election Department are now fully moved into their new quarters and are operating in the new facility, county Administrator Mike Pence said.
Now that the Election Department has relocated to the South Campus Building, its administrative offices will be permanently located there and no longer will be temporarily housed at the county fairgrounds.
Precinct voting will continue at the fairgrounds, however, during the upcoming general election and subsequent elections, Pence said.
The South Campus Building was paid for with the county’s payment-in-lieu-of-taxes appropriations from the federal government. Its completion caps a busy construction year for the county.
A $4 million renovation and expansion of the county’s historic old jail building was finished last month and now houses the County Attorney’s Offices.