EATON, N.Y. — Madison County has a new $16 million highway garage on Brown Road in Eaton. This facility replaces the current one in Morrisville on Cedar Street that has served the southern half of the county since 1948, Madison County said in a news release. Firms working on the project included Rochester–based LeChase Construction […]
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EATON, N.Y. — Madison County has a new $16 million highway garage on Brown Road in Eaton.
This facility replaces the current one in Morrisville on Cedar Street that has served the southern half of the county since 1948, Madison County said in a news release.
Firms working on the project included Rochester–based LeChase Construction Services, LLC, which has an office in Syracuse; C&S Companies of Salina; Beebe Construction Services of Utica; S.C. Spencer Electric of Constableville; Brosh Mechanical, Inc. of Clay; Comfort Systems USA (NYSE: FIX); LaValley Bros. Construction of Wolcott; and Johnson Controls (NYSE: JCI).
To help reduce project costs, the Madison County Highway Department handled a lot of the site work, paving, and grounds landscaping in-house.
The project includes a 51,000-square-foot highway facility, a 22,500-square-foot salt-storage building, a 12,300-square-foot cold-storage building, a fire pump house, and a fuel facility.
The main parking area can hold up to 12 fully loaded plow trucks, in addition to several pickup trucks and miscellaneous pieces of equipment. It also includes an almost-10,000-square-foot maintenance area that has heavy truck lifts and standard vehicle lifts to make servicing and maintaining vehicles easier and more efficient.
The new garage has substantial storage area to keep all the highway equipment under cover and out of the elements when they are not in use, Madison County said. The fueling station has above-ground tanks that “minimize the possibility” of leaking and contaminating the groundwater.
It also includes work and training spaces for employees, along with a place for the Madison County Sheriff’s Department to keep vehicles.
“Because Madison County pushed forward with this important project in March 2020, just a few short weeks into the COVID-19 pandemic, the county has saved hundreds of thousands of dollars for its taxpayers and kept important trades workers employed during this difficult time,” Madison County Administrator Mark Scimone said in a statement. “If we had waited and pumped the brakes on this project for several months, we would have fallen victim to the material cost increases that have rocked the construction industry over the last year. Lumber costs have skyrocketed over 500%, steel prices have gone up over 75%, and copper prices have increased over 125%, since our bid date. Delivering a successful project, well under budget, is something of which the entire County and the Construction team can be proud. And to the best of our knowledge there were zero reported positive cases of COVID-19 on the highway-facility project, start to finish.”
The Madison County Highway Department maintains 434.4 miles of road, 124 bridges, and 143 large sized culverts (spans between 5 and 20 feet).
“We are excited to be opening the doors to our new highway facility,” Madison County Board Chairman John Becker said. “For years now, we have known that a new facility was needed to serve the southern part of our county. The old garage was not adequate or safe for our equipment or for our employees. This new state of the art facility will serve our community for years to come.”
Morrisville garage
As for the Morrisville garage, Madison County is currently working on putting together a request for proposal for “responsible removal” of the buildings and environmental cleanup of the site, Samantha Field, public information officer for Madison County, tells CNYBJ in an email.
“That will take a few months to complete. Currently there are no official plans on future use of the site after that, but we are looking into several ideas,” Field says.
The facility in Morrisville had “many issues,” according to the county. Plow trucks could not be maneuvered efficiently because steel-structural columns were spaced so that trucks had to be stacked three deep in a bay. If one truck was needed, sometimes one or two others had to be moved to use that vehicle.
In addition, trucks in the 1950s were smaller than they are today, so newer vehicles don’t fit properly in the space. The mechanic’s maintenance area had no lifts and limited working space.
The building had constant heating issues, no air conditioning, a leaking roof, and plumbing problems, which were not “adequate conditions” for employees, Madison County said. Complaints from residents in the village about noise was another issue, along with the potential for salt contamination to the ground-water supply.
Project partners took all those issues into consideration during the design and development process for the new highway garage, according to Madison County. ν
