Former Buffalo District Supervisor C.R. “Bob” Timmons Jr. has continued to serve as chair of the Prince Edward County Board of Supervisors’ Properties Committee, and in that role, he delivered a positive update on the county’s three capital projects during the board’s meeting June 11.

“First of all, I’m happy to report to the board that the former STEPS building, now the YakAttack building, is within about a week of being finished, our part, to turn over,” Timmons said.

In terms of the lease on the property, he noted the county is set to start collecting revenue effective July 1.

“The building is clean inside,” he said. “The floor has been polished. It’s been painted inside. The industrial hygienist has gone through the duct work and all the air samples, and they’ve all cleaned up and they’re looking good. YakAttack is happy. They’re building out their offices, and they will start next week … bringing their tooling over to start moving in and getting set up. So that project went well.”

The next capital project he spoke about is right next door to the YakAttack building.

“The second project out there on the same property is the new Social Services building, and they had a lot of rain and bad weather when they first kicked off out there, and they slipped behind on the schedule,” he said, referring to Blair Construction.

But he noted that much has changed for the better in a short period of time since then.

“As of today, they’ve made up that time, and I’m of the opinion that they’re about a week ahead of their schedule that they’ve just published,” he said. “I’ve gone through that in great detail today and Sunday afternoon, and if you haven’t been by there, I encourage you to stop by to take a look. All the interior walls for the Social Services are in. The studs are up, and they’re in.”

He added that Blair Construction made some minor modifications that were requested as well.

“By Friday, they’ll have all of the studs up for the steps, and interior studs are done,” he said. “Exterior studs are done. By Friday, they’ll have the exterior siding, preliminary sheeting up and the Tyvek wrap on it. Next week, they’ll start with the roofing, the permanent roof, the metal roofing and the flat roofing, as well as the exterior siding components.”

In summary, he stated that the Social Services building project is moving along well.

“So the target date is the end of August to move the Social Services out of (the courthouse) building, and I think that right now, given no unforeseen issues, that will occur.”

Lastly, Timmons shared details on the Prince Edward County Courthouse renovations, which are underway.

“If ya’ll remember, there’s about eight different phases that we have to go through to build this thing,” he said to the board. “First of all, get Social Services out, and then we decided to change the schedule around back in January and allow the circuit court, Judge (Donald) Blessing’s courtroom, to go first and then do the atrium and then do the sally port and the new entrance and then, at the same time, take care of Judge (Marvin) Dunkum’s office and his new courtroom also.”

A “sally port” is defined by Merriam-Webster as “a secure entryway (as at a prison) that consists of a series of doors or gates.”

With the sally port being built at the courthouse, law enforcement will be able to “pull in, they close the doors, and then they get the prisoners out, and they can’t go anywhere but there …,” Timmons said. “Anyway, it makes it a lot safer environment for both the prisoner and the deputies.”

He said the whole courthouse renovation process began Monday, June 10.

“That project’s going good,” he added. “The requirement of the contractor is to have the (juvenile) courtroom ready for court by the end of this year. That includes moving in and getting set up and all of the computer ties in and all that stuff done is still on the target. Right now the contractor is committed by his schedule and committed by a contract to have his portion of that work complete by Nov. 30.”

In an effort to avoid panic among courthouse employees via misunderstanding, Timmons briefly addressed an important factor related to a construction method set to be used.

“I’ve talked with the sheriff about some activities that are going to be happening that are going to be sort of strange,” he said, noting construction workers are “going to be using — I shared this with the committee — powder-actuated tools. … Basically, they use a .22 blank cartridge and then drive a nail into the concrete or a nail into the steel, whatever they need to do. However, that makes a sound of a weapon going off, so we make sure that everybody in the courthouse knows what’s going on.”

In an interview conducted Wednesday, Timmons gave a further update on this issue.

“I’ve already talked with the contractor about that,” he said. “What we’re going to do is they’ll give a notice of, like, two days before they plan on using it, and then we’ll be able to circulate a memo to the courthouse so everybody understands what’s happening.”