The Free Press, Mankato, MN

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January 19, 2007

Plans for new justice center to be released

Dan Linehan

MANKATO — The first of two construction packages for Blue Earth County’s estimated $38 million justice center — for site work and the pre-cast, concrete “shell” — will be published Monday.

The overall project is easily the county’s largest capital expense ever, but County Administrator Dennis McCoy said he couldn’t peg the cost of the first package because the county’s cost estimates don’t line up with the bid package.

About 60 percent of the building’s exterior calls for large concrete panels that are molded in a factory and brought to the site by semi. They’re molded and colored to resemble Kasota stone and red brick, a signature look in the river valley.

It looks real from far away, but the illusion fails closer up. Authentic stone and brick will be used for the front entrance most visible to visitors.

Spencer Kubat is the sales manager for Wells Concrete, which has been assisting the building’s designer, Paulsen Architects, on concrete issues. The company plans to make a bid for that portion of the project.

He describes the panels’ construction this way: Wooden molds, as much as 200 feet long, are layered with a rubber mold to create the desired illusion. Concrete, in this case colored, is poured in the mold and separated into four or five pieces. The slabs, which weigh up to 35,000 pounds, are tipped up on site with a crane.

“It’s gaining more popularity as far as the material of choice,” Kubat said about the pre-cast panels, which his company used to build Midwest Wireless’ corporate headquarters.

Benefits include fewer mold issues associated with more cavernous walls and the stability and predictability of factory-controlled conditions.

McCoy said he doesn’t know if one company will do all the work specified in the initial bid package or if it will be divided up into smaller units.

Josh Williams, a project manager at Web Construction, suspects that a bid package of this size, demanding more than one specialty, will draw multiple types of companies.

CAM, a Brainerd, Minn.-based construction management firm, will oversee the builders and verify that the work has been done.

Construction on the justice center begins this spring, with an expected open date in late 2008 or early the next year.

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