Courthouse renovations nearing completion with final changes

The cost of renovations of the Bartholomew County Courthouse are going up after more old wiring was discovered during the work.

The Bartholomew County Commissioners were asked to approve the final change order for the courthouse renovations at their meeting Monday at cost of just under $35 thousand dollars.

According to Tony Akles with Strand Associates, the majority of that cost is to replace more wiring that was found during the ongoing renovation work. He said that some of the wiring appears to have been the old cloth-wrapped copper wiring installed decades ago.

The final change order also included some duct work that after cleaning was found to be unusable.

Commissioner President Carl Lienhoop pointed out that the renovations began just as a replacement project for the aging heating loop system in the courthouse. But the decision was made to expand the project to include more work taking advantage of the opportunity while the building was torn open for those renovations. The project also benefited from the addition of federal COVID relief funds, lessening the burden on local tax dollars.

The original contract for the renovations by Dunlap Contractors was just under $3.3 million dollars. Akles said the project change orders have come to just over 4 percent.

Commissioners approve the change order for $34,887 yesterday.