Location: Walker, MI

Architect: Hobbs + Black

Contractor: Owen, Ames, & Kimball

Square Footage: 185,000

Construction Cost: $50,000,000

The Kent County Road Commission Main Central Complex project provides a new home for Michigan’s second largest road commission department. The department that serves 635,000 residents had outgrown their old site-constrained facilities, which were almost 100 years old. The new $50-million complex sits on a 29-acre site in Walker and consists of: a 135,000 square-foot vehicle parking and maintenance garage; a two-story 25,000 square-foot administration/office building; an 18,500 square-foot storage building; a 6,000-ton salt barn; and a vehicle wash building. Design work was done in two phases, to speed the start of construction.
The multi-building project features numerous construction materials and structural systems, including: a two-story steel-framed office building; a conventional steel-framed industrial-style vehicle garage and maintenance building with a 30-feet clear-height; a pre-engineered metal building storage facility; a vehicle wash building constructed with precast concrete, selected for its durability and resistance to corrosion from deicing salts/chemicals; and, a salt storage barn built with 17-feet-high free-standing concrete walls which support a wood-framed cap-wall and wood roof trusses with an 80-feet clear span.