Several Loveland city employees toured the construction site for the expansion of the Loveland Police and Courts Building Friday afternoon.
The Larimer County commissioners had been scheduled to tour the expansion, but were unable to attend. Loveland’s Chief Information Officer Dan Coldiron, City Manager Steve Adams and Library Director Diane Lapierre toured the site.
The $5.3 million expansion has been in the works for several years, but broke ground in August after being approved by the county commissioners in May. The expansion will bring the county’s juvenile and adult probation services together and add space for some other criminal justice services.
The expansion is expected to be complete in April and will add 9,500 square feet to the 97,000-square-foot building, said Ken Cooper, Larimer County’s facilities manager. This is the first major construction change to the building, which opened in 2002. About 40 to 50 employees will be working in the new office space, Cooper said.
The county shares the Police and Courts Building with the city of Loveland. The expansion will increase the percentage of the building operated by the county, Cooper said.
The project is being financed entirely by the county. The county received a $500,000 grant through the Colorado Department of Local Affairs for the expansion, the rest will be paid for with existing funds, Cooper said. The city of Loveland will be responsible for maintaining the building and will be reimbursed by the county.
Construction is being handled by Haselden Construction, which also constructed the new Larimer County Loveland Campus at 200 Peridot Ave. Cooper said that the firm has been excellent to work with, and was selected in a competitive bid for each project.
Along with expanding the building the project is also putting in an eight-space secured parking area for District Attorney’s office employees and judges. The parking area will have a rollup gate activated by a key fob. For employees parked in unsecured parking, there will be a camera to view the lot from inside the building.
The expansion should look “pretty seamless” to the rest of the building, Cooper said.
Haselden superintendent Robert Rigg said that the crew has received few complaints regarding the project, and has worked to keep employees and nearby homeowners updated about every step of the project. Rigg has an open meeting every morning at 7:45 a.m. in the building lobby where anyone can come and ask questions about the project.
The crew will start doing structural steel framing next week, and plans to be doing masonry work around Thanksgiving, Rigg said. The goal is to have the roof completed by the time that winter weather sets in, he said. So far, construction has not had any weather delays, and the crew was able to keep working through last week’s snowstorm.
