Courthouse project close to done

Jan 11, 2024

The meeting room of the Faribault County Commissioners received an upgrade during the courthouse renovation project recently.

Visitors to the Faribault County Courthouse might find it difficult to see many of the improvements which have been made to the historic structure since work began on the HVAC project last summer.

"The majority of the improvements are where the general public cannot see them," Buildings and Grounds director Saxon Warmka says. "Many of the changes are behind walls or in the ceiling and are not visible."

One thing which should be visible is the change in lighting.

"It is definitely brighter in many of the areas," Warmka notes.

Another noticeable change is the removal of a bulkhead on the ceiling of the Faribault County Commissioners room which raised the overall height of the ceiling.

"The lighting in the Commissioners’ room has been greatly improved," Warmka adds.

Another change is the relocation of the Central Services office from the basement to the main floor in what used to be the probation officer's office.

"The probation office has been moved to the old jail building," Warmka comments.

Pam Krill, the Central Services director, had only been on the job for one month when construction began.

"Our office was relocated to the Human Services building during construction," Krill explains. "It is nice to be back in the main building."

Now Krill, and her assistant, Sara Van Moer, have offices with more natural light than their previous location in the basement.

Not only is it more convenient to have the Central Services office on the main floor, it also became necessary because a large air handling unit now sits in what used to be Krill's basement office.

Van Moer's former office had a wall removed that adjoined the former law library and that room will probably be a conference room.

"We haven't officially named it as a conference room yet," county coordinator/auditor/treasurer Darren Esser says. "The need for the law library is not there anymore since everything is stored digitally now. That opened up a nice space."

Also located downstairs is a room with three 500,000 BTU boilers and another larger air handling unit.

"It really looks nice in here now compared to the old setup," Warmka comments. "It looks like it was built in here specifically to do the job. It doesn't look like a pieced-together system anymore."

And that, Esser notes, was one of the main reasons the upgrades to the HVAC system were necessary.

"The condition of the pipes got so bad that workers could not find a place to cut into a pipe to make a repair," Esser explains. "We were collecting 55 gallons of fluid per day from a leak and feeding it back into the system. We were actually fortunate that the upgrade plans had already been put in motion before things got any worse."

The county bonded for the project in the spring of 2021 and work began in August of 2022.

"Heat was provided during the winter months by temporary furnaces," Esser notes. "They had to be set up on each floor."

Workers are already noticing the improvement in air quality.

"We used to have to run dehumidifiers all of the time and papers would curl because it was so damp inside the building," Esser says. "We never really had any way to bring fresh air into the building before."

The original price of the project was projected to be $6.1 million. Esser shares it looks like the final price tag for the improvements will be closer to $5.6 million.

"There are two main reasons for the savings," he explains. "First, the project is getting completed about one and a half months earlier than projected. Second, originally the project was going to be done in six phases but the number of phases was reduced to two, which helped lower the contractor's cost."

Warmka had one last stop to make on the tour of improvements.

Hiking up to the courthouse attic, Warmka opened a door to reveal another large air handling unit.

"This attic used to be empty space," he says. "The floor of the attic where everything sits had to be strengthened before the equipment could be installed and a larger roof hatch had to be installed so the equipment could be moved into the attic. Most of the equipment was moved to the roof by a crane."

Again, the improvements are noticeable to those who work in the courthouse everyday.

"The air quality is much better," Esser comments. "It has made a big improvement in the working conditions."