6/22/2011
By CHRIS HUNTER Salina Journal

The Saline County-City Building Authority on Tuesday moved forward with a proposal to design and install a new heating and air conditioning system for the City-County Building that could cost more than $4 million.

Board members voted unanimously to have MKEC Engineering Consultants design a new system and bid out the project in phases. The new system will replace the building's original system, installed in 1966.

"The current system has been here for so long that if something happens, we would be in trouble," County Commissioner John Reynolds said after the meeting.

Jim Schroeder, City-County Building superintendent, said the project will be expensive because the airflow systems, boilers and chillers all need to be replaced. He said the majority of the equipment was installed when the building was built; replacement parts are hard to get and take a long time to be delivered.

An engineer from MKEC said the cost would be between $2 million and $4 million if it were done all at once. However, it could cost more since it's being done in phases.

Schroeder said the building authority would be able to use a portion of the money set aside for the new system -- under $1 million -- to pay for design and early portions of the project.

"The action we took to do this in a phased approach was a good action," City Commissioner Norm Jennings said after the meeting. "All in all, there isn't the budget to do the project as one (project)."

Last week, county commissioners said they would be willing to increase taxes to pay for their part, fund infrastructure improvements and cover a declining cash balance.

County commissioners said Tuesday the phased approach would ease the strain on the budget. Rita Deister, county administrator, said she wasn't sure how much it would affect the county's proposed budget.

The project has been several years in the works, but the building authority had to act Tuesday or wait until next year, as the city and county need to work the cost into their budgets. Early on, Honeywell had estimated the project would cost $1.4 million, but building authority members said the company didn't take into account the duct work. That forced the board to seek another contractor.

"I'm glad that we really are going to make some progress," Schroeder said after the meeting. "It gives us an advantage to make sure this is really where we want to go. We can fix the worst areas and hopefully make the rest of them better because of that."

MKEC said it could be a few months before design work is completed.

Ancient equipment

Schroeder said a lot of contractors have not seen equipment similar to what is being used in the building.

"It is big, old and has worked pretty well," Schroeder said after the meeting. "We have done a lot of work on the systems, but we have some areas we can't fix without new parts."

Schroeder said the building authority could be in trouble if a chiller or another part of the system went out. He said the board may have to replace the entire system at that time and install more than 100 window units if that happened.

"That happened in Dickinson County," Schroeder said. "They ended up with over 100 window units."

County Commissioner Randy Duncan said that would be "unacceptable."

Schroeder said the building's duct work will be one of the biggest costs in replacing the system.

"Through the years of remodeling, we have changed the office layout," Schroeder said after the meeting. "Almost all of the offices used to go east-west. Now, a lot of offices primarily go north-south."

Because of the change in orientation, the air isn't distributed evenly throughout the building.

Other problems include the price and availability of the refrigerant, which is being phased out, and parts.

If the building lost a 100-ton chiller, Schroeder said a new one would cost $300,000 and take at least six months to order, build and install. He said taking out and reinstalling the chiller would make the building fall out of code compliance.

"We would have to take an enormous part of the building duct work out to put it in, and I don't even know if we can put it back," Schroeder said after the meeting.

Ray Hruska, who attended the meeting as a private citizen, said he thought the City-County Building's heating and air conditioning system could be renovated for much less cost.

"Dennis Collier owns the Bank of America Building that has a 100-ton system similar to the county that was upgraded for $50,000, which made it more efficient," Hruska told the board. "The energy savings was paid back in less than three years."

County Commissioner Jerry Fowler asked Hruska if Collier had to redo all of the duct work and replace the boilers and chillers, as will have to be done in the City-County Building.

Hruska said he didn't know and would bring "facts" to the next meeting.

Differing views

As the city and county commissioners started to consider the price, county commissioners have been slightly less hesitant about approving the project. During a study session Monday, city commissioners did not indicate whether they would support the system upgrade.

Jennings said installing the system in phases will cost more in the long run, but be cheaper for the city and county short-term.

"I wasn't in favor of doing the entire project as it was presented because that would have resulted in tax increases," Jennings said after the Tuesday meeting. "I think we are doing the right thing to try and not have to raise taxes."

nReporter Chris Hunter can be reached at 822-1422 or by email at chunter@salina.com.

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