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WALKER - Cass County Board members decided Tuesday to begin replacing county highway garage buildings in four cities.

Two more garages still would be replaced 10 to 15 years from now.

The county had been on a program to repair and upgrade existing highway garages to try to buy 10 years before replacement would be needed. Repairs now appear to make sense only for the two newest garages - the one at Hackensack and the one at Pillager.

While existing buildings would have been repaired and better insulated, County Engineer David Enblom said most still would have been too small.

Trucks and equipment have gotten much larger since the early 1970s when most of the county garages were built, he said.

The new garages will be 60-foot by 80-foot metal buildings. The existing buildings will be retained as cold or slightly heated storage buildings.

The board approved hiring Lucachick Architects of Bemidji, the lower of two quotes obtained, for a price not to exceed $10,915 for the initial building design. Another $4,500 would be paid to adapt the design to each new site.

The commissioners also voted to hire Mark Beard to act as the county's construction manager for an estimated amount not to exceed $4,000 based on a rate of $50 per hour.

Commissioners Bob Kangas and Jeff Peterson will work with the highway department to develop each project up to the award of construction bids. The full board will select the firm(s) to do the construction.

Enblom estimated the new buildings should last 50 years.

The current capital plan balance of $735,842 should be sufficient to construct a new building at Cass Lake and to repair and upgrade the Hackensack and Pillager garages in 2015 to buy 10 to 15 years before those would have to be replaced, he said.

Though funding is not yet identified for subsequent years, Enblom proposes to construct a new garage at Pine River in 2016, at Remer in 2017 and at Longville in 2019. For 2020, he proposes to build salt storage structures at Cass Lake, Pine River, Longville and possibly Remer.

Under this plan, the Hackensack garage would not be replaced until 2024 or the Pillager garage until 2029.

Enblom will seek to connect all new buildings to the closest municipal sewer system in each city. Because the Pillager garage is located in a rural area, a new on-site system would be considered instead of piping to Pillager's municipal system.

Currently, the county collects runoff from washing equipment in a holding tank. Then it has to be pumped and hauled to Grand Rapids, Enblom said.

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