The Athens County Engineer's Office could finalize the purchase of land for a new workplace as early as Jan. 31 pending the sale of its current East State Street location.
The Athens County Commissioners signed an agreement Dec. 29 to purchase 40 acres of land in Canaanville for $265,000, said Mike Canterbury, deputy engineer of operations for Athens County, but the agreement is contingent on the sale of the engineer's current office.
That office and 4.5 acres of land surrounding it will be auctioned off Jan. 31 for a minimum bid of $2.1 million, Canterbury said. The money from that sale will pay for the purchase of the new land.
Everything is contingent on the sale of the property
Canterbury said.
Athens County Commissioner Mark Sullivan said if it were possible to trade in a 1954 building for a new, state-of-the-art building at no additional cost, it would be a no-brainer.
Canterbury said he expects a big turnout for the auction because of its valuable location. He said he has received calls from interested people in the restaurant, retail and medical industries and from people who live as far away as South Carolina.
The engineer's office has also been authorized to begin negotiations with Panich + Noel Architects, an Athens architectural firm. Architect Mike Noel said the new engineer's office will be 20,000 square feet - 5,000 for the office and 15,000 for storage. He said the engineer wants to portray a design that reflects the kind of services the engineer provides - for example, architects might use tresses in the building similar to bridge tresses.
Architects are evaluating the design space-by-space with representatives of the engineer's office to see what they want to do with the space, Noel said. The firm will write down the ideas from those conversations and start designing the building.
The firm is going to spend time examining how to make the building energy efficient, he said. The firm will use natural and artificial light.
The schedule of the project will depend partly on the engineer's selling its existing facilities, Noel said. He said he hopes the building will be designed sometime this summer.
Canterbury said he hopes to have the office moved to the new location by the end of 2006 and have everything completed by the end of 2007. 17
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