Rice County Building Construction Projects Wrapping Up

The remodeling and expansion projects for the Rice County Government Services Building and Rice County Highway Building are nearing completion.  County Commissioners approved change orders to both projects during today's meeting.

The final change order was made for the Government Services Building.  Parks and Facilities Director Matt Verdick requested commissioners approve the $27,487.13 request and said the contingency fund had $13,000 left in it.

Jake Wollensak of Wold Architects told commissioners, "We're basically at the end working on closeouts and so there's probably one more payment to Met-Con but we're waiting to make sure we have all the final operation manuals and warranty items in place before doing so."

Wollensak praised county staff saying they were easy to work with, "This is the final change order and we were able to use most of the contingency to really give a whole facelift to the entire building here.  Overall it's a great success and I think we were able to do a lot."

Rice County Highway Engineer Dennis Luebbe received approval for a $9,056.69 change order for the expansion and renovation of the highway facility across from the fairgrounds along Highway 3.

Luebbe pointed out there have been six changes to date, "Five of those are additions and one is a subtraction.  Our change order number one was a credit in the amount of $21,000 so we're still on the positive side of the original contract.  Nothing really exciting in my opinion on the change order items here.  Just some kind of incidental things that we find when we get into renovating an old building.  We find some things we have to address."