Efforts to restore the Marshall County Courthouse Tower took another step forward Monday. The county council agreed to let officials apply for a $25,000 Historic Preservation Fund grant to help pay for an engineering study.
As part of the application, the county agrees that it would match that amount, according to Commissioner Kurt Garner. “We could probably even split that out over two fiscal years, because chances are, assuming the grant’s awarded, you’ll get into the work next year,” he explained. “It has to be closed out by April of 2020, but there’s a possibility that that contract with the engineering firm would probably span 2019 and 2020. So even in that, you might have some flexibility.” Garner said the grant application is based on a preliminary cost estimate of $40,000 to $60,000 for the engineering work, but he said the actual cost may turn out to be lower.
He added that the tower restoration has been identified as a priority by the county’s maintenance staff. “A few years back, when we had Umbaugh group come in and do an assessment of our financials, we asked our department heads to supply us a list of those kind of things that are capital improvements that are going to be needing to be done over the next several years,” Garner explained. “And maintenance came back and said at some point, we’re going to have to address the courthouse tower because that portion wasn’t really included in that initial restoration or the restoration that was done back in 2006 or whenever that was.”
The grant application was approved by the county commissioners last week. The actual construction would be funded separately.
