The new records storage building under construction between alley and West Beech Street in Hillsboro is expected to be finished by October 2024, according to Nicole Oberrecht, Highland County project coordinator.

“So, right now, we’re poised to be finished the middle of October of this year,” she said. “Some of the things they’ve been working on as of late is digging the footers, placing steel and then they’re getting ready to pour the foundation walls.”

Oberrecht said the county did a few different change orders recently that impacted the project timeline. She said first there was some weather that caused a few delays.

She also said Doug Karnes, a partner at McCarty Associates, had a follow-up conversation with the people working at the site about the issues there and that now she thinks “everybody is on the same page.”

However, she also said that for the last two or three weeks, the subcontractor has been on site every day and that it seemed to her that the site was “progressing along pretty well.” Oberrecht said she thinks the site is on schedule with what they thought. She said “a lot of things” going on behind the scenes are getting submittals for everything, such as the elevator, storm drains and building materials, among other aspects.

“I’d say we’ve made great progress with that to where we’ve got a lot of stuff either ordered or in the process,” she said.

In terms of the soil issues that contrators ran into at the site, Oberrecht said the county has done some change orders to try and fix the issue, but that increased the project cost. Because of that, she and McCarty Associates are working to find different avenues for some cost-saving measures to keep the project in line with where it started.

County commissioner Terry Britton said that once the foundation part of the site is finished, things will get a “whole lot better.” Oberrecht agreed, saying the foundation is the uncertain part and all of the other aspects are “pretty cut and dry.”

She said the site the county picked was the “most logical” because they wanted to stay in close proximity with all the county entities that will be located near the records storage building like the Highland County Recorder’s office and Highland County Clerk of Courts.

“I’m just looking forward to them being all in one safe location,” Oberrecht said. “Right now, we’ve got them scattered a little bit everywhere. They’re disorganized and maybe haven’t been maintained the best. You know, we’ve got a lot of records that are genealogical in nature. And so, when they’ve been damaged or not kept in the safest of conditions, I hate to see that. So, this building will obviously provide an avenue for that not to happen.”

Oberrecht said the county already employs Julie Wallingford to manage the records storage building. Oberrecht said Wallingford is going through the records and destroying what she can and trying to find everyone’s retention schedule.

She also said the transfer of records to the new building is expected be done by Jan. 1, 2025. She said she was reviewing documents for proposals from moving companies. She also said she was looking at the county’s current inventory and getting some cost estimates.

Reach Jacob Clary at 937-402-2570.