Jerry Wray, Ohio DOT director; Ross Laukhuf, Paulding County ODOT Manager; Kirk Slusher, ODOT D1 Deputy Director.
Paulding’s new massive facility for storage of vehicles and maintaining trucks through all season.
After a year of construction Ohio Department of Transportation had their open House on Tuesday, June, 27 at both Paulding and Hicksville’s brand new facilities. Paulding’s new operations include a 21000+ square foot operations center and vehicle maintenance facility. This new building cost $8.2 million for Paulding County. The former buildings were constructed between 1948 and 1966 with the main garage structure constructed in 1978.
Just weeks ago the Paulding ODOT moved into the new station after spending last winter in temporary quarters with the previous structure bring replaced.
Hicksville’s facility came in just over $3 million. Both of the operation centers for defiance and Hicksville came in less than estimated. “Over $42 million has been invested in ODOT facilities in the last 6 years;” stated Antwerp native and ODOT Deputy Director Kirk Slusher. During Governor John Kasich’s term, over $14 billion has been used to maintain and build roads and has worked well to keep the infrastructure ahead of other states. By the time Kasich’s term is finished, $16 billion is intended to be used for upkeep and new roads.
“It’s very important to that we have the best to maintain the infrastructure that we have;” Jerry Wray, ODOT Director continues, “Our roads and highways are the most valuable man made asset Ohio has.”
Ross Laukhuf, ODOT Paulding County Manager, said they visited different facilities around the area, including Indiana and Michigan, to see what the best way would be to integrate the necessities for road maintenance and truck maintenance possible. It seems this was a success. The trucks in Ohio are on a 12 year replacement cycle vs a 20 year cycle of other states meaning less issues as the trucks move towards their end of life cycle.
The building is very large, as mentioned above, fumes and poisonous gasses could build up when working on that many vehicles moving in and out. To work with potentially hazardous fumes they have a new ventilation installed and can completely replace the air in 8 minutes. They can also make 8x the amount of winter de-icing in the same amount of time that they could previously. The new salt dome also has 25% more storage capacity than the previous structure.
The grounds and the new facility should easily accommodate Paulding for years to come and will be a good investment in keeping up with the roads of the county.
