Morris to unveil new municipal building
Rick Shrum/Observer-Reporter
Morris Township’s spacious new municipal building sits off Route 18 near the intersection with Route 221.
Rick Shrum/Observer-Reporter
It took awhile, but township secretary-treasurer Kathy Wigman Lesnock is pleased to have a bigger office in the new Morris Township municipal building.
For the first time in more than a quarter-century, Kathy Wigman Lesnock can relax at work. Stretch her arms without smacking a wall. Exhale even.
“We were desperate for space,” said the secretary-treasurer of Morris Township, reflecting on the municipal offices along Sparta Road in Prosperity where, until a month ago, she had toiled in those dual positions since 1990.
“The tax collector and I shared the old office. We didn’t have a meeting room and used the office for meetings. If it was a big meeting, we’d go to the fire department side and take out the trucks. It would be cold in the winter and hot in the summer.”
That is no longer the case. Township officials and operations moved into a spiffy new municipal building in mid-November, at the intersection of Routes 18 and 221, little more than a mile south of the old location. It has about 6,500 square feet of space that includes a large garage for township vehicles, enhanced storage, the capability to serve as a shelter, a road crew locker room with shower and – the jewel of jewels – a meeting room with seating for 50 plus a kitchenette.
“This is a very functional building,” Lesnock said. “It’s just a much more professional, clean center.”
Actually, that meeting space may not be the main feature of the structure. “The supervisors did their due diligence,” Lesnock said. “This building is paid for.”
That facility, and the generator building constructed next door, cost a combined $1.4 million.
People are working in the new township building, and three meetings have been conducted there. Now anyone who hasn’t been inside can visit the facility at 77 Park Drive.
Supervisors David Stockdale, David Dietrich and S. Douglas Smith have scheduled an open house from 2 to 5 p.m. Wednesday. They also have invited local, Washington County and state officials to participate in a ceremonial ribbon-cutting at 2:30.
Redevelopment Authority of Washington County was overseer of the project. RSH Architects of Scott Township was the architect and Waller Corp. of North Franklin Township the general contractor.
It was a lengthy project, Lesnock said, estimating it took eight years. She said Morris got a Local Share Account grant around 2009 to explore the feasibility of paying to construct a new facility, but initially found it to be unaffordable. The township, Lesnock said, started saving money and devoted annual Act 13 funding – from Marcellus Shale drilling – for only the new garage and the generator building next door. An LSA grant of $250,000 in August 2016 enabled the project to be completed.
Morris Township still owns its former municipal building, but she said plans are underway to turn that over to the fire department.
She is, to be sure, pleased with the new digs.
“It’s been a long process from preliminary drawings to actually being in it,” said Lesnock, who is breathing more easily – literally.