Plans continue to move forward with moving the Marshall County Health Department into the Community Resource Center.
During Tuesday’s Marshall County Commissioner meeting Brent Martin and Jeff Kumfer from SRKM Architecture of Warsaw presented the bids they received to build out the 2,380 square foot suite in the CRC for the Health Department.
Six contractors sought copies of the plans with four submitting proposals. The apparent low bidder was DT Construction Services from Silver Lake with a base bid of $152,627. DT offered an alternate bid of $3,105 to install conduit from Jefferson Street into the CRC for the installation of the Metronet in a later project and $13,994 for the installation of an emergency generator which may be shared by others in the building.
The bids came in a bit higher than anticipated but that is because the square footage was nearly 400 feet more than expected. Martin explained the addition of square footage was for a flex office in the plans and a large storage room consolidating storage into one location.
Commissioner Deb Griewank asked if there was any reason why the project couldn’t be scaled back to 2,000 square feet. She said, “I just have a problem because this is so much higher than what we had initially thought.” She was okay with the storage but the flex office was her main concern because the rent is based on square footage.
Martin agreed to talk to the apparent low bidder for additional cost savings while Commissioner Kevin Overmyer said having the flex office may allow them to expand when the need arises.
Martin said the suite includes 2 exam rooms, a toilet room, a lab for the Health Department, flex officer, nurse’s office, the department head, sanitarian, a large space for clerical, storage and a larger lobby.
The relocation became necessary and the Marshall County Prosecutor’s Officer is bursting at the seams and actually uses rental area for storage of files along with storage in other locations in the County Building.
The commissioners approved the bid by a 2 to 1 vote with Commissioner Griewank voting against because the increased cost. The County Council will have to appropriate the money, hopefully next Monday for the project to keep moving forward.
A note: The Umbaugh Comprehensive Financial Report presented in April indicated the Health Fund had up to $520,000 for a one-time capital purchase or improvement project.
