Construction workers are hitting their stride at the new $23 million Dallas County Law Enforcement Center (LEC) at 25979 U.S. Highway 6 in the Ortonville area of Adel.
“The project is progressing as well as can be expected with the unpredictable weather,” Rod Reicks, senior project superintendent with the Samuels Group, said Tuesday.
Reicks said about 45 or 50 construction workers are on the site daily, when the weather permits, including Neumann Brothers Inc., who are building the foundations, and L. A. Fulton and Sons, who are installing underground plumbing.
He said Van Maanen Electric will begin their underground work shortly.
McAninch Corp. is managing the site’s site utilities, Reicks said, with storm sewer work and the boring of a water main under U.S. Highway 6 to be complete this week.
The Dallas County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to suspend their contract with Bartlett and West engineering firm, whom the board hired to plan a lagoon expansion at the LEC.
The expansion is not longer needed because the city of Adel’s application to the state revolving loan fund was approved March 20 by the Iowa Finance Authority, enabling the city to pay for an extended sanitary sewer system east of the Raccoon River, including to the LEC.
Construction of the facility is estimated to take 20 months. The center will include a new county jail and jail administrative services, new sheriff’s administrative offices, with patrol, investigations and civil law offices and an initial appearance courtroom.
The current design — a 92-bed facility, expandable to 172 beds — was planned for a 25-year life cycle.
