Highway and State Department facilities fall into disrepair

KEWAUNEE COUNTY – The April 8 Kewaunee County Board meeting began with a report from Highway Commissioner Marty Treml.

“I’d like to draw attention to National Workzone Safety Week, April 21-25, and why it matters in a small county like ours,” Treml said. “Between 2020 and 2024, we had 13 related accidents and three that sustained serious injuries. It’s spring season and we’re getting into road construction, so I’d like to remind everyone to slow down in work zones.”

Treml then moved into a brief of the renovation project for the Highway and State Department buildings, listing some of the many problems that require attention.

Barrientos Design and Consulting has conducted multiple assessments of the properties, and found several concerns, both in design and structural integrity.

“They noted roof leaks, flooring cracks… The roof is one of the primary concerns for me,” Treml said. “It’s six different pieces which have been combined together and we have no record of repairs being done, which means the roof may not have been updated since before we moved to an online system.”

Barrientos also noted problems with the bathrooms and HVAC systems, and existing square footage versus recommended.

“[Barrientos] came up with four different options, one of which included building on a new site completely — the others are hybrid renovations on the current site. You’ll notice the price tag is $25 million on the high end and $22 million on the low end,” he said. “We realize $25 million is a huge cost for this county so we’re focused on cost savings processes: Necessary enhancements versus upgrades that would be nice.”

Unfortunately, Treml said there are additional costs not addressed by Barrientos.

“There are some things lacking from the Barrientos plan, like our water system. The water system in the building shuts off when we’re producing brine because our well capacity does not keep up with our water flow supply.”
Treml also mentioned issues with the WPS facility.

“Generator condition is another concern,” Treml said. “We had that storm in Kewaunee and several other power outages throughout the year and the generator has failed almost every time.”

While the $22 million price tag is intimidating on its own, it only covers upgrades to the building.

“I want to capture the full cost of the project because we have not included equipment that we are going to need for these new facilities in the initial plan. We were going to be left with a brand new building and nothing to go back inside that building,” Treml said.

There are many aspects of the department buildings which are not up to code, like hazmat storage, a lack of ventilation in the welding area and undersized cranes for the weight they must lift. All these issues would need to be addressed to ensure the facilities are in compliance with ordinance codes.

“Stangelville’s is really the worst,” Treml said. “They’re just block walls with no insulation… We’re paying fortunes in heating bills and have issues with just about every window. The Stangelville shop actually has several windows boarded up completely because the wall is rotted through around the window.”

Treml emphasized that the proposed renovations and upgrades are not superficial.

“The purpose of this project is to do what needs to be done in order to catch up with deferred maintenance; update the facilities for modern operations and equipment and reset the clock on useful life for these facilities,” Treml said. “If we don’t make some kind of investment in these facilities right now, we are going to start losing them. It’s not very much longer before that water coming through the roof in the main building starts infiltrating the walls and some of the other areas and causes greater damage. You can see from the Berrientos plan that building new is will probably cost a lot of money. A renovation makes sense because it builds on some infrastructure and gets it so that the investment that the county has made into these facilities can last for a lot longer down the road.”

One attendee asked why maintenance has been deferred for so long, letting the facilities fall into such disrepair.

“That’s a good question,” Treml responded. “I can speak to what I know. When I arrived here in July and took over this position, the facility was not great. I would blame some of that on a lack of budget and prioritizing work on the highways over the care of the buildings. If you have a highway budget and you’re taking money out of the highway budget in order to cover buildings, facilities and roads, Highway is always going to defer to buying new equipment and doing work on the roads. They’re never going to invest in the buildings themselves.”

Treml finished by stating that a significant investment in the facilities now could provide another 50-100 years of functionality without needing to build anew.