Township borrows $3M for garage

New maintenance facility to be built off Route 100

NORTH COVENTRY » Township supervisors voted unanimously to borrow nearly $3 million to help pay for a new highway maintenance garage on property off Route 100.

Township Manager Kevin Hennessey said the new highway garage is to be located on 12 acres between Route 100 and South Hanover Street, which is part of the 22 acres the township obtained when the Town Center shopping center was developed.

The vote Monday was for a short-term “construction loan” of $2,968,000.

Once the project is completed, it will be rolled over to a 35-year, low-interest loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture from a program designed to help pay for infrastructure in rural areas, he said.

That loan — which will pay for the construction of a

12,000-square-foot steel frame building and salt shed — will have a fixed interest rate of 3.25 percent, he said.

Currently, the township’s highway department is located on space leased from the WestMont Christian Academy, behind the township building on South Hanover Street.

That area is “woefully inadequate,” said Hennessey, noting that expensive heavy equipment, like the front-end loader, have to be stored outside.

The new facility will be large enough for that equipment to be kept indoors, prolonging its life, as well as sport a new road salt shed that will increase the township’s storage capacity to 125 tons, he said.

Hennessey said he hopes the new facility will be built by this time next year, but said there are too many uncertainties to make an accurate prediction given that the project has yet to go out to bid.

The parcel on which the garage is planned is also large enough, Hennessey said, for a new township building and police station to be built, but he said he does not expect that occur for quite some time.

In the meantime, the township has obtained grant money to convert the remaining property into park land, with a loop trail, he said.