MANSFIELD — Less expensive. And faster.
Those were the thoughts Thursday when the Richland County Board of Commissioners awarded two courthouse remodeling contracts totaling $2,149,865 to Imhoff Construction Services Inc. from Orrville.
One project is to construct a fourth Common Pleas Courtroom and the other is a multiple-floor renovation of the Richland County Courthouse, including a new Land Bank office on the first floor of the five-story building.
The projects had been estimated at $3.5 million combined by designers with a construction schedule that could total 13 months if done one after another.
But with Imhoff, which had the lowest bids for both projects, now handling both, it means both can be done simultaneously. With work likely beginning in December or January, the work could be complete by the end of next summer, officials said.
Brad Maurer of the Maurer Architectural Design Studio and Craig Christie with Karpinski Engineering designed both projects. They reviewed bids for both projects opened in the last couple of weeks and recommended both go to Imhoff.
“We did some of our typical kind of research into the company and checked his references. We called a couple of architects Imhoff had worked with previously. They had great things to say about Imhoff. We can’t see a reason not to recommend them to be a successful contractor for these two projects,” Maurer said.
All but about $6,000 of the construction costs will be funded by the county’s remaining share of its American Rescue Plan Act funds. Commissioners had initially believed it could require $1.5 to $2 million would be needed from its capital funds.
But the lower price for the work means almost all of the projects will be funded by ARPA.
Competition among contractors helped to hold prices down, according to Maurer.
“We had more bidders turn out for this project than the last one. I think it’s a good indoor, interior winter renovation project. So I think they sharpened their pencils a little bit and got some pretty competitive bids,” Maurer said.
“The other thing that is great is the bids were very close. We didn’t have any outliers to be concerned about,” he said.
In order to meet ARPA guidelines, money must be appropriated by the end of 2024 and all work completed by the end of 2026.
The larger of the two projects was awarded for $1,5982,492. It will renovate the first floor, i.e. “L1,” to create new offices for the Richland County Land Bank, a new employee break room and an employee workout room.
It will also renovate the common areas on four of the five floors and nine of the building’s 10 bathrooms. One of the 10 bathrooms was already redone when the second floor, i.e. “L2,” was renovated earlier this year as part of the project to create new offices for the county Clerk of Courts office.
“It’s going to be a fun 2025 in this building,” Commissioner Tony Vero said with a laugh.
The new clerk’s office is supposed to open later this month, months later than anticipated due to a delay in an air handler needed to complete the project.
The fourth courtroom project had a price tag of $551,373. It was requested by General Division Judges Brent Robinson and Phil Naumoff in 2021, citing an increased pace of hearings and trials.
The judges asked the space currently used by the Clerk of Courts be transferred to the general division for use as an additional courtroom and two conference rooms.
The judges said the division has three magistrates using a single hearing room, presiding over bench trials, miscellaneous civil hearings, criminal arraignments, bond hearings, stalking hearings and other events.
In addition the judges said the administration building was “not built to accommodate the number of jurors required for the court’s large caseload.
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