Johnson County hosting open house at new secondary roads facility

IOWA CITY - More than two years after a fire gutted the Johnson County Secondary Roads facility, the replacement building is in the final stages of construction.

Staff have been working out of the building at 4810 Melrose Ave. for a few weeks now, and on Tuesday, from 4-6 p.m., Johnson County officials will host an open house of the new building.

Michael Kennedy, the county's construction manager, said staff began moving into the building back earlier this year, and other than a few tweaks to the lighting controls and computer systems, the building is complete.

Landscaping and demolition of a former secondary roads building are being finished and plans to add solar panels also are in the works.

The new facility houses the county's fleet of vehicles, offices for the Secondary Roads and SEATS paratransit departments, and space for vehicle maintenance.

The former secondary roads facility was damaged by a March 2013 fire, and construction on the new building began about one year later.

Kennedy noted the connection between the month of March and the secondary roads building.

'One year to the day after the fire is when we started digging and two years is when they got into the building,” he said.