Miller County buildings slated to receive energy efficiency upgrades

TEXARKANA, Ark.— Four of Miller County’s main buildings should be more energy efficient by the end of this year -provided the county can hire a financing company during the next few weeks.

The county’s Quorum Court recently authorized Miller County Judge Cathy Harrison to enter into an Arkansas Energy Office Performance Contract with the McKinstry energy efficiency consulting firm’s Little Rock-based office.

Presently, two finance companies are bidding on the contract to finance improvements in lighting, heating and cooling operations for the four buildings. The buildings include Miller County courthouse, inmate detention center, the health unit and Lantz Lurry Juvenile Detention Center.

Such improvements would include replacing an aged boiler in the courthouse as well as installing a new central air conditioning system, which would replace the building’s aged individual window air conditioning units, said Miller County Budget and Finance Committee Chairman Ernest Pender.

The 1939 courthouse turned 80 years old, last year, while the county’s health unit use to be the old Michael Meagher Memorial Hospital building, originally built in 1916. Even though the county’s adult criminal detention center only goes back to 2002, Pender said that heating, cooling and lighting technology is continuously changing and improving.

Whichever finance company is hired to cover the new energy efficiency improvements, it will be reimbursed completely by money the county saves owing to the new energy efficiency improvement installations, said McKinstry Representative Skip Woessner. He added that the financial savings realized as a result of the efficiency upgrades could amount to as much as $1.7 million over a five to 10-year period.

McKinstry, which started its energy efficiency study of the county’s four buildings in the fall of 2019, recently completed its findings. Energy efficiency improvements on the four buildings, could reach substantial completion by the end of this year, Pender said.