Newly-renovated Highway Department garage now in operation

Nov. 10—It's an understatement to say that the Howard County Highway Department garage was in need of an upgrade.

The building, originally built in 1947 for a price tag of $139,165, according to Tribune archives ($2.3 million in today's dollars), has since received very few upgrades.

Until now.

Flush with an unprecedented $16 million of federal money from the American Rescue Plan, the Howard County Commissioners allocated around $1.5 million of that money to extensively renovate the county's highway garage, located at 623 S. Berkeley Road.

Construction work began this past spring and, except for a few odds and ends, is complete.

The Highway Department held an open house late last month for the new building, and use of the structure will soon be in full swing as winter approaches.

While the foundation and core beams of the original building are still intact — the county opted to renovate instead of spending up to $5 million to build a completely new building — that's about all that's not new.

The renovations are huge as far as quality of life improvements for employees and the department's vehicles and equipment.

Gone is the building's historic but now pointless boiler room. That space has been transformed and is now a heated bay area where small repairs can be made to vehicles or be utilized for storage.

The new building now also has a formal break room for employees and a kitchenette, both things the old one did not have. Other quality of life improvements include updated office space for the mechanics and foreman, newly renovated bathrooms and a dedicated women's restroom.

But the most important upgrade to the building is the installation of insulation in the walls and ceiling of the building, new electrical upgrades and a few small upgrades to the building's radiant heating system.

The old building did not have any insulation, leaving the department's equipment, vehicles and employees largely exposed to the outside elements in the summer and winter months.

Making repairs to the department's vehicles during the winter, even inside the old garage with the heaters, was difficult as the lack of insulation led to mechanics' hands becoming cold. Repairing cold vehicle parts with cold hands is difficult, causing the mechanics to have to take breaks to warm up.

Amber Toole, highway superintendent, is hoping the newly installed insulation will make a huge difference in warming up the department's vehicles when they come back from plowing, keeping the mechanics as warm as possible and lowering the building's energy usage.

"We try to keep everything warm for them, but when your building is completely uninsulated and basically a breezeway, it's hard to do," Toole said.

Tyler Juranovich can be reached at 765-454-8577, by email at tyler.juranovich@kokomotribune.com or on Twitter at @tylerjuranovich.