Two county buildings will be demolished and the courthouse will get a face-lift, county officials decided Thursday.
The Johnson County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to approve proposed plans, including an estimated total cost for demolition of the former Iowa National Guard armory, 925 S. Dubuque St., and the Fisher Building, 800 S. Dubuque St.
After being inundated by floodwaters in 2008, the former armory was not suitable for any use, supervisors said at their meeting on Thursday.
“The old armory sustained a lot of flood damage,” said Supervisor Rod Sullivan.
The Fisher Building, which had been used for storage, was “pretty run down when the county bought it” around 10 years ago, he said, and now is “just dilapidated.”
The demolition project is expected to cost $761,198.
A grant from I-JOBS, a statewide $875 million program to create jobs and improve Iowa’s infrastructure, will be used to fund the project.
After demolition, the county plans to use the location of the former armory as green space, said Supervisor Pat Harney, where employees could “go have a lunch.”
Eventually, the space may also be used as a location for a geothermal loop field to heat and cool the adjacent Johnson County Administration Building, Harney said. The building currently uses a boiler system, and county officials don’t plan to replace it in the immediate future, he noted.
The supervisors also unanimously approved the proposed plans of entrance renovation and stone tuckpointing at the Johnson County Courthouse. The total project is expected to cost $800,487, but a contingency budget for unexpected costs raises the total to $965,084.
Harney said the entryway has settled in some areas and the floor is cracking, making a renovation project necessary.
Tuckpointing is a masonry procedure that will repair chipped and aging mortar on the courthouse’s central tower. Plans are to tuckpoint the entire building in phases.
“When you’re working with a 105-plus-year-old building you never know what you’re going to run in to,” said David Kempf, the county facilities manager.
Kempf said he has set aside around $600,000 from the facilities budget over the last four years in anticipation of the project.