ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, July 27, 1996 TAG: 9607290007
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
Montgomery County's much delayed new health and human services building - approved by voters in 1993 - is set to be ready by Sept. 1.
That's the word the county Board of Supervisors got this week, when engineer Gerald Mabry asked for $15,180 to be awarded to buy a filing system for the county Department of Social Services.
The building, located on Pepper Street in Christiansburg, will also house the county Health Department.
Originally scheduled for a March 1996 completion, the project has been pushed back several times - first because of wet weather last summer, then because of a roof collapse that led the county to fire the Salem architectural firm that designed the building.
Dan Farris, director of social services, said the Health Department will likely move in first if the building is ready the first week of September.
"We're looking at the second week of the month because the first week is our busiest with food-stamp issuance," Farris said.
Whenever the move is made, he said his office would likely close on a Friday to make the move over a long weekend and reopen on a Tuesday.
Kinsey-Shane & Associates was fired last December by the Board of Supervisors after an Oct. 28 collapse of wooden roof trussing over the centerpiece portion of the building.
After the collapse - initially attributed to high winds - then-County Engineer Martin O'Toole began checking into other areas of the structure and had some concerns.
Mabry took over county engineer responsibilities after O'Toole died in May.
The supervisors hired a Virginia Beach firm, The Design Collaborative, to pick up where Kinsey-Shane left off. Breakell Inc. General Contractors of Roanoke is the builder.
The total project cost is now at $3.42 million, about 18 percent more than the $2.9 million in voter-approved general obligation bonds. The difference will mostly be covered by $64,250 from Blacksburg and $293,700 from selling one or more county office buildings that will become surplus after the new headquarters is opened.
Mabry told the supervisors the project has gone from $46,000 in the hole to $32,000 below budget. Money that was originally taken away from furniture and equipment budgets to help get the building constructed is now being added back to those budgets, County Finance Director Carol Edmonds said.
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