County highway dept. moves into Loyal facility
By Valorie Brecht After much planning and a multi-phase construction process, the Clark County Highway Department’s new Loyal facility is being used and is nearly complete.
“We are slightly under budget right now,” said Clark County Highway Commissioner Brian Duell.
The county budgeted $8,256,390 for upgrades to the Loyal, Neillsville and Owen highway department facilities. The Owen upgrades, including a truck storage shed and wash bay, will make up about $1.3 million of that total; Neillsville upgrades, which included a fuel island and salt storage shed, made up about $500,000; and the rest went to the Loyal facility, with some expenses shared between all three locations. Back in October 2021, the county took out an $8 million loan to pay for the project and was able to procure a low interest rate. The remaining approximately $300,000 came out of the highway department budget.
The only things at Loyal that remained to be done when I spoke with Duell last Thursday were the fuel island, which was being finished that day; installing the generator, which has been back-ordered for about six months; and paving the the rest of the driveway and parking lot, which the county plans to have done “as soon as possible this year,” said Duell. After the paving is complete, the county plans to hold an open house, perhaps in June.
Work began at Loyal in the fall of 2022, with site work to bring it up to level. In February 2023, the county bid out the project. Footings and foundations were put in in June 2023.
The administrative staff moved into the new building on Jan. 17 of this year. The trucks were moved into truck storage in March and the shop got up and running on April 1. The county had a completion goal of March 1.
Project manager Nick Anderson of Boson Company was happy the project was able to stay largely on schedule despite a few setbacks.
“We had some site work difficulties initially. Part of that was due to soil conditions,” he said. “We also had some challenges with when the contractors were available versus when the weather cooperated. We’re still on schedule with everything but the asphalt. We were hoping to do that last fall, but we didn’t get to with the weather and the contractors.”
The main purposes for this project were to centralize highway department operations to make things more efficient, and to replace aging facilities that no longer adequately served the needs of the department. Fourteen employees now work at the Loyal facility. Six moved from working in Neillsville to working in Loyal, and one from Owen came to Loyal.
“It’s centralized our core operations. We’re already seeing a the benefits to having management staff and operations under one roof. We can quickly resolve any
Please see Highway department, page 24
Shown is a view of the shop portion of the new Clark County Highway Department building at 511 W. South St, Loyal. The vehicle maintentance/repair shop is in the middle of the building, with the truck storage area on the east end and the office area on the west end. More pictures are on page 24.
VALORIE BRECHT/STAFF PHOTO
from p. 1 issues that come up and the communication is way better now,” said Duell.
He did point out that snow plow truck drivers still deploy from all three county facilities. Nine drivers deploy from Owen, six deploy from Neillsville and five deploy from Loyal. There was only one change to a plow route from the move.
He also gave an update on what has been done to improve highway facilities in Neillsville, by the corner of Clay and Eighth streets. The underground tanks were transitioned to above-ground tanks. A new salt shed was built.
“Our goal is to get out of the fairgrounds completely so they can have their own space,” said Duell.
The old brick garage in Loyal was the only building removed during this process, which has been as much about reconfiguring the existing buildings to more effectively use the space as it has been about building new facilities, said Duell. In Neillsville, day-to-day operations were taking place in the 1940 building but were moved to the 1968 building. The round roof building in Loyal built in the 1960s or 70s is now being used to store construction equipment.
“We want to centralize our emergency equipment too, so when an accident occurs, we can get stuff out faster,” said Duell.
He said given that Clark County is such a long county from north to south, it was important to have things centrally located.
He also said the new garage made it a lot more convenient for getting trucks out easily.
“Our old garage, we had one door and all the trucks were herringbone parked in there, accordion style. So you had to take five trucks out before you could get to the last truck,” he said. “Right now the way it is, the worst case scenario is you might have to move one truck out to get another truck out.”
The county also planned to eventually extend Pope Street south to connect to the highway garage’s parking lot, to provide another access point from Highway 98. That way there would be two entrances to the facility, one for trucks and one for visitors.
“It’s not part of the whole project budget, but it was designed for it and it was planned for it, so that’s why we got the city approval, because it was in the design,” said Duell.
He said he didn’t have a time frame on if and when the county would pursue that.
VALORIE BRECHT/STAFF PHOTOS
Above left, these four mobile column lifts were purchased as part of the overall roughly $8.3 million project. Clark County Highway Commissioner Brian Duell said highway department staff appreciate the flexibility of being able to move these lifts wherever needed. Above right is the truck storage area in the new highway garage, which typically houses six work trucks, an end loader, the foreman’s truck and the patch truck.
