Aging elevators at the Marshall County Courthouse are prompting the maintenance department to recommend a fix.
The Courthouse in Plymouth has two elevators, north and south, that have been a mixture of benefits and problems for the maintenance crew. A company is contracted to help maintain the elevators, which has advised the elevators are aging past their usefulness.
Maintenance Director Doug Masterson says there may be a greater expense if the work is not done soon.
“When it goes down – which it will – the county is going to be looking at a complete remodel of it,” says Masterson. “It just simply doesn’t exist, the parts, because it is that old.”
Elevators at other county properties such as the Marshall County Museum and County Building have already been refurbished for improved operations.
The Courthouse, however, comes with the addition of creating difficulties for the court system. The thought is that one elevator would be completed at a time, reducing the headache for employees and the courts.
Cost estimates put the repairs for both elevators at $165-thousand. Masterson says there’s a cost difference between the two.
“I think maybe it’s because one is in the older part of it.,” says Masterson. “They’d have to do a little bit more because it’s just an older building. The Annex was in ’88 so, yeah, it’s not cheap. But the museum wasn’t cheap and the county building wasn’t cheap.”
The Marshall County Commissioners agreed that it would create bigger problems for the courts if both elevators were inoperable in the near future. Safety for courthouse and jail officers was also a concern.
The Commissioners recommended the upgrades to the County Council who will decide whether to fund the project. The Maintenance Department says they plan to budget the project for the next fiscal year.
