County construction projects delayed
While some Columbia County construction projects, funded with bonds sold last year, are underway, others are taking longer to get started than initially reported.
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The county sold $38 million in bonds last year to spur the construction of a dorm at the Columbia County Detention Center, new Health Department and Animals Services facilities, two new fire stations and an addition for another, additions for Fleet Services and Building C of the Evans Government Center, the Evans Town Center Park and other buildings or additions.
Construction has started on the detention center dorm and the fire stations, and commissioners approved a $2.3 million bid last week on the Building C expansion, but other projects are still in the design phase.
When the county sold the bonds in February 2009, officials projected that building on those other projects would get underway this spring, but most have not yet gone out to bid.
"Animal Services and the Health Department will go out as one bid, and that will go out in (May or June)," said county Facility Services Manager Paul Scarbary in April.
Both of those facilities, budgeted at about $6.3 million, would be built on Chamblin Road.
Scarbary said construction should start in the summer.
Also likely to get started this summer is the construction of a $2.2 million fleet facility addition and the about $2 million first phase of the park.
"We're in the final stages of design for Town Center Park," Scarbary said. "It should go out to bid in six to eight weeks. It's the same for the fleet facility."
Though construction has started on the about $4 million dorm at the jail, it likely will take longer than expected for it to finish.
"Originally, we had scheduled (the dorm to finish in) the latter part of November or early December," Scarbary said. "But with this project, we had a lot of rain days, so it pushed us back."
Building an addition to the Sugar Creek fire station will not start for at least a month, but work is underway on new fire stations in Leah and near Euchee Creek.
Construction on those had also been delayed because of the weather.