Oct. 2—The McLean County Fiscal Court approved a $1.6 million bid Thursday, Sept. 22, for the construction of the McLean County Home Place, the county's senior services center in Calhoun that burned down in December 2020. It will be built in its previous location at 875 Walnut St.

During the fiscal court meeting, Lanham Brothers, an Owensboro construction company, was chosen as the contractors for the project bid of $1,665,450.

RBS Design Group in Owensboro was hired as the architecture firm to create the new design more than a year ago, according to McLean County Judge-Executive Curtis Dame.

The facility is to be restored to its original size of 6,600 square feet with changes to the floor plan made due to the new rules for designing the facility and code requirements since the building was built in 1993. The exterior will be full brick with automatic doors and two canopies located in front and back of the building entryways.

The interior layout will feature a multipurpose space, commercial-grade kitchen, reception area, public restrooms, staff restroom, office space, mechanical room, storage space and a separate kitchen storage area.

Dame said the contract approved Thursday was a low bid contract from Lanham Brothers and does not reflect two recent addenda — which includes adding pex pipe below the foundation slab (a deduction of $4,200) and the installation of a grant-funded backup generator with gas piping for $12,650.

Clay Troutman, magistrate for the Northeast District, served on a contract review committee where he and Dame met with both RBS and Lanham Brothers in-person the week of Sept. 11 to discuss updates to the project.

"We have made some reductions in the upgrades we've had, but that is not reflected in this contract," Dame said Thursday. "So, the way the process will work ... is that we will approve this low bid ... (and) once that is done, we will enter into contract negotiations with Lanham Brothers and they will adopt the changes that we've made."

Reductions include planned flag poles and a brick sign.

"There were things in this last meeting that we omitted that we just didn't feel like that was necessary," Troutman said.

"We want to make sure we get the building built first, then we'll add all of that," Dame said.

Dame said the project is about $387,551 above the insurance coverage by Kentucky Association of Counties (KaCo) due to changing the facility's layout with adding the two canopies and raising the facility two feet due to its location being in a AE flood zone, with the latter presenting a 1% chance of flooding and a 26% chance over the life of a 30-year mortgage, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The cost is also associated with the installation of a commercial grade kitchen.

"The last (facility) didn't have it — so it's added grease traps and other code-required addition to the facility," Dame said. "That's a large portion of the reason why that figure is so high. We're essentially upgrading the facility beyond ... what we had."

Dame said KaCo will be responsible for covering $1.2 to $1.3 million of the project.

The project has been in the works for some time, which Dame called "a tedious process" and has been "by far, one of the more challenging projects that I've worked on ... because we want to do it right."

"It was a process we didn't plan for," he said. "(After) the night of the fire, the planning, the prep and discussions began the next day. ...We could have rebuilt this facility a lot quicker and just replaced what we had at the same elevation, and just did a turn-key in-kind replacement, but is that really an effective way to replace it?

"If you have the opportunity to not only replace what you have, but improve (it), to me it is logical and justified to expand the capabilities of this facility — which given the current state of the building, environment and climate with inflation and the cost of goods — it's a way that we can expand our services and, hopefully, make the best out of a bad situation."

Troutman said that while the process of getting to where they are now went well, getting to this point has been a challenge regarding delays.

".. The way things are now, everything (has) just slowed down almost to a snail crawl," he said. "It's taking longer than I really anticipated, but a project of this magnitude — I'd rather take a little while to get it correct than rush into it and say, 'We shouldn't have done this, this or this.' "

Upon approval of the contract, the project will be underway and completed within a 300-day timeframe which includes dirt work and site leveling, which Dame and Troutman look forward to finally breaking ground on.

"...It's been a long time coming. I'm very aware of citizens' concerns about why it's taken so long," Dame said, "but years from now — say five to 10 years from now — hopefully the work that we've put into planning this facility effectively will be realized in the quality and product that we can all be pleased with."

"We're just in a different environment right now, but I feel like we are on the right track right now," Troutman said. "I think once this thing really gets into gear, we're going to see it come together."