March 28, 2024

Tuckpointing project planned for county courthouse

A masonry repair project for the Jasper County Courthouse will address some of the aging and cracking the historic building has been showing. A $21,250 professional services agreement with Shive-Hattery engineering firm was approved by the board of supervisors Tuesday.

“This has been on the to-do list for many years,” county maintenance director Adam Sparks said. “In July, we had a couple of people from Shive-Hattery come out and do an overall assessment of the courthouse from top to bottom.”

Shive-Hattery will be charged with everything from preparing design documents to providing on-site construction services. The county only needs to identify a project representative, which will be Sparks, approve a bid and provide the firm any available drawing or documents on the building.

The courthouse was last tuckpointed in 1985, Sparks said. While a typical tuckpointing is thought to last 30 to 40 years, he said the courthouse is more than ready to be addressed again.

“We found a piece of the masonry on the roof that came from the dome area. This is the damage that is going on with the building,” Sparks said. “It started out a corner piece, there is a crack on both sides, we get towards winter, we get a little water moisture that doesn’t evaporate and all of sudden it starts to freeze and pops it loose. Not only are we causing damage to the building everywhere, when things like this fall it punctured a large hole in the roof that we had to pay to be patched.”

Additional damage to the building includes mortar joints that are missing and absorbing moisture and issues in the clock tower where the exposed red bricks have started to deteriorate due to water coming in through the ceiling.

An estimated cost for the project is $250,000, but Sparks said it should keep the building protected for another 30 to 40 years.

“It is a major undertaking but it is something we have to do,” Sparks said. “If you don’t do it, it is ruining the outside upon everything that is coming in. It is just time.”

Contact Jamee A. Pierson at 641-792-3121 ext. 6534 or jpierson@newtondailynews.com