After several months of planning and designing the modifications required by Wasatch County, we finally have a set of approved plans, and bids are in, from several General Contractors and Sub-Contractors. Construction is now ready to commence on our new vehicle storage and maintenance building.

On June 5th Ole Smith, the Board member assigned to supervise our construction, paid the building permit fees and picked up the signed, approved building permit from the County. The plans had already been out to bid for about 3 weeks so the next day, June 6th, bids were received from all the contractors. Over that weekend of June 6-9 the bids were painstakingly analyzed and the winning bidder, Double P Construction, was selected. Double P will also be working with us to find additional ways to reduce our costs, including allowing us to self-perform some work, possibly use some local Timberlakes subcontractors who have offered us great pricing for their trade, and work with us on some value-engineering efforts.

Double P plans to start construction the week of June 16-20 and be finished approximately120 days later, in mid-October.

There is, however, one last hurdle we still need to clear. When we first started the proposal of building last year, the County, while still checking our building plans for code compliance, moved forward and approved our Conditional Use Permit. In very simplified terms, a Conditional Use Permit is the approval to place something other than a residential building on a lot and, when approved, the building must be placed exactly where it is shown on the submittal, plus the owner must agree to follow any other “conditions” that are given by the County Commission. On the other hand a Building Permit is approved when the plans submitted by an owner meet all the building codes and requirement for safe and proper construction. In our case the approved Conditional Use Permit showed all the big bay doors facing north (right where all the snow falls and ice freezes and never melts off… because it receives no winter sun.) When the mistake was discovered we needed to go back and ask the County for a Revised Conditional Use Permit to allow us to rotate the building orientation to a west-south-west direction…thus receiving some winter sun. This request is scheduled for a County hearing on June 12th. We tentatively expect approval of this request but it is not a sure thing until approved. Check the website regularly and we’ll tell you how it went.

You can check out our building progress by watching for regular construction photos which will be posted on the website as soon as we begin. Click on Maintenance Building Progress and watch it rise.

If you have any questions feel free to email me, Ole Smith, at MaintBuilding@timberlakesusa.com.