Operations Center Ground breaking Set Tuesday, May 6

With construction funding now assured following substantial repayment of reimbursement funds owed to the county by the State of Colorado for the All Hazards Team Program, together with interim funding now nailed down through a short-term financing agreement with Zions Bank, Hinsdale County Commissioners are now moving full steam ahead with the planned start of construction on the long-awaited County Operations Building.
A low key ground breaking ceremony with Commissioners Borchers, Hurd, and Levine, county staff, and representatives from building contractor Building by Design is scheduled on site at 1 p.m. next Tuesday, May 6.
Prior to the ground breaking, commissioners will convene a special 11 a.m. workshop for a walk-through of the building site with Thayer Sauter, Building by Design Project Manager. Also on hand for the ground breaking will be Dana Hvalac from Colorado Department of Local Affairs.
At their meeting last Wednesday, April 23, Commissioners Greg Levine and Robert Hurd unanimously approved interim construction financing through Zions Bank totaling $4-million at 4.9 percent interest for up to ten years and with no penalty for early payoff. The county will retire the loan incrementally — presumably within two years — as grant funding is received.
Principal sources of funding for the Operations Building project are $1-million from Hinsdale County, $2-million resulting from a Congressionally-Appropriated FEMA grant, and $1-million from Colorado Dept. Local Affairs.
Contractor Building by Design, based in Brush, Colorado, was awarded the $4,398,173 contract for construction earlier this year.
As previously reported, the long-planned 6,409-square foot Operations Center will contain crucial space for three areas of local Hinsdale County Government — emergency operations, together with substantial office space for a new Hinsdale County Sheriff’s Office and Hinsdale County Administration, the latter two currently occupying cramped space in the Coursey Annex Building south of Hinsdale County Courthouse.
With silver shovels and presumably hardhats, Hinsdale Commissioners next Tuesday will officially break ground at the new building site on vacant county-owned lots directly north of the courthouse and extending to the southwest corner of Henson and 4th Streets.
The site was formerly occupied by the Hinsdale County Road & Bridge yard from the mid-1950s to early 1990s and, prior to that, was the location of Hinsdale County Jail which burned in 1946.