The Starke County Courthouse elevator project has hit a snag.
The demolition of the old elevator is done, but a subcontractor to build the new elevator has not been on site for at least two or three weeks.
On Wednesday afternoon, Starke County Commissioner Kathy Norem met with officials from Gibson-Lewis, LLC, Circuit Court Judge Kim Hall, Court Administrator Rachel Meadows, Clerk Bernadette Welter-Manuel, John Kirk from DLZ, Shawn Cain from K-IRPC, and Auditor Rachel Oesterreich to discuss the elevator project. Norem told WKVI News that there are only two companies that install elevators and Otis Elevator is the sub-contractor working on this portion of the project. Their schedule hasn’t opened up to get to the courthouse to complete work so it’s going to push out the project several weeks.
The county received a $500,000 grant for the project and it’s time-sensitive. Norem said the project was supposed to be complete by May 1 as outlined in the grant paperwork, but another extension will be requested in order to complete the project and still receive the grant funds. The timeline of that extension won’t be known until Monday, April 22 when a company supervisor will be at the courthouse to assess the situation.
Norem noted that officials are not pleased about the delay and realize the inconvenience of the project to those who work and visit the courthouse to conduct business.
More information about the timeline of the project will be released next week.
