Commissioners approve $300K repairs for historic Hillsdale County Courthouse

The historic Hillsdale County Courthouse’s roof will be under repair for most of this summer and fall.

The Hillsdale County Board of Commissioners has approved a $307,500 bid to Renaissance Historic Exteriors who will begin the tedious task of removing the courthouse’s tile roof and making repairs to the sub roof before replacing the tiles.

Commissioner Doug Ingles, who chairs the county Board of Commissioner’s facilities committee, said the contractor believes 80-percent of the tiles are in great condition and they will be placed back on the roof. The 20-percent of the tiles that are in bad shape will be replaced with new tiles.

The roof over the elevator, which is a relatively new addition to the historic Hillsdale County Courthouse will be shingled.

Ingles said work should begin within the next month and county residents having business at the courthouse will see scaffolding and lifts throughout much of the year while the contractor completes the repairs in phases so as not to disrupt normal business if possible.

Renaissance Historic Exteriors will also be consulting with the county on other exterior repairs that may be needed to the historic courthouse, Ingles said.

The roof project should be completed by November.

The repairs are necessary because in 2021 during a series of summer storms widespread leaks were discovered in the attic of the courthouse.

The commissioners discussed the roof project in detail during their Oct. 26, 2021, meeting when the county’s facility director, Randy Finley, and his staff proposed their plan to make the roof replacement happen.

“They would have to strip the old clay tile roof off first then replace it,” Ingles said when asked if contractors could just lay a new roof down over the current roof. “That stuff is very heavy.”

The facilities department asked the commissioners for permission to send the project out to bid in January with hopes of finding a suitable contractor to replace the roof in the spring.

The commissioners agreed they want work to be “historically accurate” and plan to revisit the discussion at their first business meeting this month.

The courthouse has been under renovations for a few years now, modernizing office spaces, replacing aging HVAC systems and shifting work spaces to potentially make way for the 2B District Court to relocate from the courthouse annex across the street.

The former Hillsdale County Board of Commissioners had a clear vision when the former Hillsdale Daily news building on McCollum Street was purchased and remodeled before most of the county’s non-court related offices moved out of the historic main courthouse and the courthouse annex building.

The former board’s plan was to eventually one day move the 2B District Court from the courthouse annex building into the historic county courthouse and sell the aging annex building.

However, after an architectural review in the summer of 2021, a plan to remove a load bearing wall in the courthouse to make way for a new courtroom and accommodate space needs, the current board of commissioners, who took office in January 2021 with four of the five commissioners being new, took a step back to re-evaluate options.

In the beginning of October 2021 Ingles said the same architect who designed the layout of an addition that included an ADA compliant elevator to the historic courthouse is now evaluating options that would see the 2B District Court merger happen. But there is a possibility the 2B District Court may stay in the annex building as well, Ingles said.

The second floor offices at the courthouse annex building have all been vacated except for the Michigan Department of Corrections Parole Office, meaning if the commissioners decide to keep the annex building, they could look at the possibility of renting vacant office spaces.

Ingles said that while a decision one way or another is still pending, the commissioners will wait on the architectural recommendation before making a final decision.

Renovations to the county courthouse have already exceeded the former board’s initial budget, but the current board of commissioners is unsure of where those numbers actually came from.

Replacing the roof—which was not included in the initial scope of work—will add to the growing project costs.

This article originally appeared on Hillsdale Daily News: Hillsdale County Courthouse roof to get $300K worth of repairs