News

5/23/2007

Office, warehouse expansion

The earthmovers and heavy equipment have arrived and work has begun on Midwest Electric, Inc.'s $1.86 million headquarters facility expansion. This project includes a new garage and warehouse and remodeled office complex.

After several years of planning and conceptualizing, your cooperative board of trustees approved moving forward with this much-needed modernization project.

This larger, updated headquarters is long overdue. Our existing facility was built in 1963 and has served us well. But now, we've outgrown our facility and can no longer accommodate additional employees, vehicles or materials. When completed, the expansion and remodeling project will put Midwest Electric in a position where we'll be well-served for years to come.

The focal point of the project is the addition of 28,000 square feet of garage and warehouse space. Today's line construction and maintenance trucks are much larger and heavier than the ones your cooperative used back in the 60s and 70s. We also have more equipment since our system has grown with over 1,550 miles of line and nearly 11,000 member-consumers served in a seven county area.

With the escalating price of steel, hardware and other materials used to build and maintain your electric distribution system, warehouse space is especially critical as we often purchase ahead to save on costs and to assure availability when we need it.

The plan will also entail the converting of our existing garage and storage area into office, meeting and storage space. To accomplish this, the floor in the existing garage will be raised to a level even with the loading dock and main office.

When completed, we plan to move our operations control and dispatch center into the remodeled area along with our linemen's room, meter testing room, hotline equipment room, a multi-purpose training and meeting room, office space for current and future employees as well as storage space.

Other details of the building / remodeling project:

- The existing operations control and dispatch center will be converted into multiple office space.

- The pole yard will expand north to the property line, and west

- The garage and warehouse addition will be attached to the north end of the existing facility

- The expanded and renovated areas will feature geothermal heating and cooling with geothermal radiant floor heating in the garage and warehouse. Geothermal also heats and cools the cooperative's main office area.

- Hume Supply, Inc., Lima, is the general contractor.

During the construction period, all materials and vehicles will be temporarily housed at an annex in Wapakoneta, where our operations employees will report to daily. All other Midwest Electric employees will continue to work out of the cooperative's main office. You the member should see no change in the level of services your cooperative provides during this building project.

We anticipate the project to be completed in December. So please excuse our mess as we build for the future of your electric cooperative.

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