While the renovation of the former Deer Trail Implement building near the Lyon County Fairgrounds is coming along, it’s not looking as if will be soon enough to move in its new tenants, the Lyon County Extension Office.
The extension office’s lease at 618 Commercial St. expires at the end of this month. Lyon County took on the lease with TFI Family Services after TFI purchased the downtown building from Lyon County.
The completion of the building renovation is about 30 days out, said Bill Whetzel, president of Markowitz Builders, the construction company working on the project.
Outside the building Monday afternoon, the large glass windows have been removed and replaced with plywood. The building is ready for windows and the dry wall is expected to be finished soon.
Inside the building, the skeleton of the offices, bathrooms, meeting rooms and storage rooms are taking shape. Walls are up and the building is filled with construction noise and lots of sawdust.
All the duct work and heating and cooling systems are new, Whetzel said. The ceiling will be dropped to cover the large pipes that snake throughout the building.
The floors, which are concrete, will be covered with either carpet or tile, Whetzel said. The bathrooms will be tiled as well as the large meeting room. Inside the large meeting room will be a display kitchen, Whetzel said as he pointed to the area.
“It will be a nice meeting room for people,” he added.
An exterior finish insulation system (EFIS) will be applied to the outside of the building. EFIS is a system that is referred to on the Internet as artificial stucco.
With all the progress going on at the building, it won’t be ready by the end of November. The question now is where the extension office will go. County Controller Dan Slater said Tuesday afternoon that he’s unsure of what will happen.
Slater said the Lyon County Annex ‚— the old courthouse — probably isn’t an option because two new tenants, SOS and the Kansas Children’s Service League, have contracted for space. Even if there were space, the extension office would have to undergo two moves instead of one.
“We’re trying just as hard as we can,” Slater said.
Discussion of what to do will take place during Thursday’s Lyon County Commission meeting, Marshall Miller, Lyon County Commission chairman said this morning.
“I don’t know what the situation is going to be,” Miller said in a telephone conversation. “The day their lease is up there is the 30th of November.”
Miller said the move is going to be a tight turn-around.
“I was out there Monday and there’s a lot of work to be done there yet,” Miller said. “(Commissioner Bob) Davis and I will talk about that tomorrow ... I don’t know what the situation is.”
admireed (anonymous) says...
Take Xmas, MLK, Easter...etc vacations ahead of time or set up shop in the steel bldgs for a few weeks
November 14, 2007 at 9:40 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )