Service complex work continues

The city of Lorain’s Public Property Department plans a tentative moving date next month.

The department, with staff to maintain and repair city streets, parks and cemeteries, will leave a decrepit headquarters at 114 E. 35th St.

The week of July 20, the city service staff members aim to move to the new complex at 2130 W. Park Drive.

Regency Construction Services of Brook Park is serving as lead contractor on the job.

Project Manager Jason Van Wagnen, a Lorain native, said the builders had some weather delays in the spring but construction was going well as of June 25.

The complex sits at the intersection of West Park Drive and West 21st Street. Heading in from West 21st Street, a new fueling station sits north of a white salt dome built with a tank for staff to make brine that will help clear streets in winter. The salt depot is 6,132 square feet in size.

East of the salt dome is the “cold storage” space, which will provide covered storage space for seasonal trucks and implements. It is not a giant refrigerator, but the builders call it that because it is not set up for heating or air conditioning, Van Wagnen said.

Inside it likely will be at least a few degrees warmer than the outside temperature in the winter, he said. The building is 15,916 square feet in size.

To the south sits the maintenance building, the largest structure there at 56,789 square feet.

It will have a wash bay, offices, heated garage, street sign print shop, traffic light lab, worker locker rooms and restrooms, a training and meeting room.

On June 25, crews were installing the building’s fire sprinkler system.

The maintenance and cold storage buildings are sealed, although a few open doors might yet let in the worst blowing rain. The concrete floors are set and the interiors still look like construction sites, although it’s clear the project is closer to the end than the beginning. The dirt trails between the buildings will be covered with asphalt paving that could begin as early as June 29. Herk Excavating of Vermilion was completing some fine grading work on the east side of the complex on June 25, Vanwagnen said.

Although the winter was relatively mild, the cold, wet conditions in spring caused some delays for pouring concrete building floors, Vanwagnen said.

Daytime temperatures were warm enough to work, but workers would not put fresh concrete on foundations still frozen from cold temperatures the night before, he said.

“We were fighting weather conditions pretty much till the end of April,” he said.

The site had about 35 workers present on June 25, although that number sometimes topped 50 workers a day, depending on which contractor was present for the various steps needed to erect the buildings, city officials said.

RICHARD PAYERCHIN — THE MORNING JOURNAL Project Manager Jason Van Wagnen of Regency Construction Services watches as a forklift removes ladders from the wash bay area of the city of Lorain’s new municipal service complex.

Lorain Public Property Department offices join the maintenance garage and heated vehicle storage spaces at the new city service center, which remained under construction on June 25. The city has a tentative move-in time starting the week of July 20.

The new service complex includes a heated storage space for city trucks and implements.

PHOTOS BY RICHARD PAYERCHIN — THE MORNING JOURNAL A salt storage depot is part of the service complex under construction for the Lorain Public Property Department. On June 25, the dome did not have road salt in it.

The service complex will include a fueling station for municipal cars and trucks.