By MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
for Glasgow News 1
The local project development board overseeing the creation of a new court facility for Barren County had little business that needed to be addressed at its regular meeting Wednesday, but it did receive a couple of brief updates during the gathering that took barely more than 10 minutes.
Brian Estep, one of the architects, said the design team is still working to complete the bid documents for the actual construction of the building, and they anticipate that it will take approximately four more weeks.
He said that, at the request of Barren County Judge-Executive Jamie Bewley Byrd, who chairs the board, they are also preparing some contextual information and graphics, including possibly a three-dimensional imagery to provide a visual representation of where the justice center will be in relation to a proposed farmers market to be constructed nearby. Byrd said she has received many calls from people who are concerned about the proposed location of the market in relation to this facility, so she wants to alleviate those concerns or have them be aware of any actual issues they need to address.
Alliance Corp. is the company hired to handle construction management for the project, and its founder/CEO, Tommy Gumm, was on hand to provide an update from that perspective.
“Things are going well,” he said, with no major issues at this time other than he has been communicating with the design team and the Kentucky Administrative Office of the Courts about getting additional research on the location of a fiberoptic line belonging to South Central Rural Telecommunications Cooperative on the property so they know exactly what they are dealing with, the depth, etc.
“I think AEI is in a position to do that work as early as Friday or Monday, so that’s good,” Gumm said of American Engineers Inc. “That will avoid any further delays in the project.”
Site development has begun with earth movement and at least partial establishment of stormwater management structures.
He said that other than the SCRTC line issue, a few things were going on with some of the materials on the site, but everything’s being dealt with and there were no complaints at this time.
Dan Peffer, who works with AOC court facilities management, said that AEI would submit a proposal to do that additional location exploration work, but they couldn’t have it ready for Wednesday’s meeting, so it will be submitted to the executive committee so it can be addressed in the interim between PDB meetings.
Estep said this additional work is necessary because SCRTC would not guarantee the location of its fiber cable as exactly as the construction team needs, so it could be as much as 2 feet away from the locator flags.
“So Alliance, having the appropriate level of concern to make sure that they don’t damage that, that’s why we’re going through this process,” he said.
Peffer added that this particular line serves a large portion of the population as well as facilities such as the 911 dispatch center and the hospital, “so we’re taking extra precaution to make sure that there’s no impact to that line.”
The next regular meeting would be at 2:30 p.m. Nov. 27, which is the day before Thanksgiving. With nothing that must be decided by then anticipated to be coming before the board, it was canceled, so the next regular meeting at noon Dec. 11. That one is primarily via the streaming service Zoom, but anyone wishing to attend in person may do so at the Barren County Courthouse in the circuit courtroom on Floor 2.
Comments