Highway Building is Moving Ahead

Langlade County’s highway commissioner, Brian Braun, was upbeat today about progress on the new facilities under construction at the complex on Arctic Street.

He is predicting that the storage and other facilities included in the project will be completed before the hard realities of winter move into the region.

The floor of the building is being poured this week and the top sidewalls and the roof need to be erected, but the basic building is pretty well done, with Braun predicting it will be completed at the end of November.

A concrete pump poured the floor at the new structure at the Langlade County Highway Department complex. It is expected to be completed for winter use.

According to Nate Heuss, the county’s facilities director, the project includes a new truck building, with a fire sprinkler system in the existing facility, and make some much-needed renovations and alterations to the current patrol truck storage building.

Project cost is estimated at $1.37 million.

“Efficiency is a big part of the project,” Braun said “We need to protect our equipment.”

The centerpiece of the work is construction of a 11,760 square foot pre-engineered steel building to store the highway trucks and related equipment.

Work would include insulation, concrete, a fire sprinkler system, heating and ventilation, plumbing, electrical, masonry, painting and earthwork.

Heuss and Braun explained that the existing garages and shop areas are now filled to overflowing with trucks, and that creates problems. The heavy duty equipment benefits from inside storage, especially during the winter months, but it makes it almost impossible to move around, much less work on equipment.

“The building is not big enough for all of the trucks with the plows attached, so highway workers had to remove them to bring them inside and then put them back on to get out after a storm,” Heuss said. “It’s a waste of man hours on an ongoing basis.”

The new truck building will have six stalls, each capable of holding two trucks, along with a double wash bay and electrical upgrades.

The addition of the fire sprinkler system is also a needed upgrade, Heuss and Braun said, to protect the county’s investment in equipment and buildings. It will include related electrical work.

Source: Antigo Daily Journal