Rendering of the proposed salt barn at the City of Columbus’s new department of public works facility. Rendering provided by the City of Columbus and Force Design
The Columbus Redevelopment Commission approved construction of a new salt barn at the future home for the city’s department of public works on Monday.
The proposed salt barn is expected cost about $3.25 million— Director of Redevelopment Heather Pope said they expect to authorize a resolution for the funding during their meeting next month. If approved by redevelopment, it would still need consent from council.
City officials say its addition at the new site will greatly enhance efficiency compared to the department’s current set up at 2250 Kreutzer Drive.
Councilors in September backed redevelopment’s expenditure of about $8.7 million to buy the property at 1350 Arcadia Drive and renovate the building for the new use. The agreement for the property itself, which was previously a data center, was for $2.6 million. The cost to retrofit it was estimated by Force Design to cost about $6.1 million.
The salt barn had not been included in the initial design as a cost-saving measure, with the idea being that public works would continue using the out-of-date dome-shaped salt barn at the current facility. Council members indicated they thought it would be more prudent for the new facility to have one, making operations more seamless while also allowing the city to potentially offload 2250 Kreutzer Drive later.
“We went to the city council and city council said, think larger,” Pope said. “Let’s not just think of renovating what’s there, what about the salt barn? And (Department of Public Works Director Bryan Burton) said, well, I’ll take a new salt barn.”
Burton has discussed in city meetings how the department has significantly outgrown capacity at the current facility. He has stated they are maxed out on electrical capacity, don’t have enough parking or office space for employees and have insufficient storage.
The new location is twice the size and will include a 15,000 square-foot building addition for maintenance, a 10,000 square-foot covered storage building addition and a nearly 2,000 square-foot addition for a wash building. It’s set to have a maintenance area with 10 service bays, two underground fuel tanks and would be able to house significantly more vehicles.
Salt barns are either completely enclosed or open on one side, Force Design’s Karen Walker told the commission. A basic, three-sided salt barn would cost about $1.5 million, but Pope said that she wasn’t sure it would be approved through the city’s regulatory requirements.
What’s being proposed is an enclosed barn, with a salt storage unit, brining station and an additional wash bay for vehicles hauling salt.
Getting salt from the existing barn is a not-so-easy task, Burton has said. It had been designed to have an auger on the top, but never ended up getting installed.
“So we just have to do it manually,” according to Burton.
Public works employees have to drag the salt out using a series of ramps and then push it back in every night.
In addition, the brine system is all the way across the parking lot at the current facility.
“We have to get a load of salt or two and drag it across the parking lot to the equipment here to mix the material to make the brine.” per Burton.
The current barn holds about 2,000 tons of salt and the new one would double that capacity, according to Walker.
Sometimes when salt is shipped to Columbus it can come in large batches, so Burton said having the extra capacity will be helpful, especially as the city continues growing.
“This new facility will have everything within the same building, so it’ll be a lot more efficient and so on,” said Burton.
City officials observed the new barn will also be useful in a situation where salt may be needed on short notice.
“If we’ve got ice on the roads or snow, it’s slick— like I said it’s public safety,” Burton said. “We want to get out there as quickly as we can, so if we’re spending time every time we go get the salt, with that distance, it’s taking time away from putting the material down to prevent wrecks and save lives.”
The look of the barn will match the surrounding campus, Walker added.
“This is obviously a little bit more expensive that we expected, but I think there’s a laundry list of reasons why it makes more sense, all of which you named.” said council’s liasion to redevelopment, Councilor Grace Kestler, D-at-large.
