$180K added for Carbon project County adds addendum for new office building

The bill for the prep work for Carbon County’s proposed new office building in Jim Thorpe is increasing nearly $200,000.

On Thursday, the county commissioners approved an addendum to a July 2017 contract with Form Space Design of Bethlehem, the company hired to design the new three-story building on Susquehanna Street, to increase the cost of services by $180,000, bringing the new contract to $440,000.

The addendum includes building design changes, a traffic impact study, vibration monitoring during construction and existing retaining wall investigation.

Commissioners’ Chairman Wayne Nothstein said changes happen with any building project and the area where the office building will be constructed is unique in that the historic St. Mark’s church sits directly above the construction site.

The reason for the new structure is because current space in the county courthouse is maxed out and growing court caseloads could necessitate a fourth judge in the future.

The proposed building project includes demolishing the former archives building and constructing a three-story, 66,279-square-foot building and parking garage next to the current 76 Susquehanna St. offices. Last month, Kevin Marmas, senior project engineer for McCarthy Engineering of Boyertown, told the Carbon County Planning Commission that the project will be built on the current parking lot on Susquehanna Street and connect into the 76 Susquehanna building.

It will also include a two-level parking garage with approximately 110 parking spaces, and a third level office space that will house county offices, as well as a fourth courtroom.

Nothstein said Thursday that the cost for the project is still being determined.

Carbon County has been working on building additional office space since 2016 when commissioners refinanced its bonds to free up $7.7 million for capital projects, including constructing a maintenance building at the upper end of the county parking lot, relocating the archives office to the east side of Jim Thorpe and matching grant requirements for the proposed multiuse fire training facility in Nesquehoning.

On Tuesday, the Susquehanna Street project went before the Jim Thorpe Planning Commission.

Nothstein said that the meeting turned into more of an informational session and hopes to resubmit the plans for the commission’s next meeting with the answers to the questions the borough had.

In June, the Carbon County Planning Commission reviewed the project and said that there was more work needed on the plans before ground could be broken.