XENIA — Greene County Commissioners moved ahead with an infrastructure improvement project for the county courthouse at their regular meeting Dec. 29. Commissioners approved an approximately $127,500 contract with Palmer Conservation Consulting for the company to serve as the engineering consultant for the project.
In the project, which Greene County Services Director Carl Geisler has estimated will cost around $1.5 million, the courthouse will have its heating and air conditioning system upgraded. Geisler said the courthouse is currently served by steam radiator heat and approximately 35 residential-type air conditioning units.
“It’s all very inefficient, very old,” he said.
According to Geisler, the project will move the courthouse to a new, minimally intrusive, high efficiency system that “will save the taxpayers a significant amount of money in energy and deliver more comfort,” he said.
According to Geisler, the project is slated to begin in summer 2016 with the hope that it will be completed with the system in operation by the fall. The courthouse will stay open while the work is being done.
“The courthouse is going to remained staffed and in operation during this process, which presents its own challenges, but we feel like it’s totally feasible,” Geisler said.
The project is part of a larger, estimated $5 million effort by the county to replace the aging central steam boiler system and other old units that serve four downtown-Xenia buildings owned by the county: the courthouse, the county jail, as well as government offices housed at 61 and 69 Greene St.
Project upgrades at the other sites would also center around replacing the old systems with modern heating, ventilating and air conditioning units. While funding and project plans have not been finalized at the other sites, the upgrades would likely follow on an annual basis, according to county officials.
