Work continues on the new Charles Mix Electric building on the south end of Lake Andes. Kevin Feldhaus of Howard is the construction manager on the project. He works for the general contractor, WS Construction of Sioux Falls and drives to Lake Andes every day to be on-site throughout the project and will see it through completion.

All of the foundations were poured by mid-February by Midwest Concrete and Shad’s Electric of O’Neill, Nebraska placed all of the preliminary piping underground for the electric system.

Puetz Construction crew arrived March 2 with their crane and began erecting the concrete wall panels on Wednesday, March 3. The panels were poured by Precast Concrete Solutions near Clark. With the weather cooperating, all 82 concrete panels were set in place by Friday, March 11. Another crew from Puetz Construction arrived on Tuesday, March 16 with another crane and they immediately went to work setting steel I-beams in the warehouse and are now making great progress working on the roof girders on the warehouse.

The recent rain and snow was a bit unwelcome as the job site is very muddy but the project remains on schedule with an October 1 completion date.

The new facilities will include an 18,000 square foot precast concrete warehouse with a wash bay, truck and equipment storage and a 1600 square foot mezzanine. The new 9600 square foot office area will provide office space, conference rooms, A.D.A. restrooms and a Community Room. Most important of spaces, will be the ever elusive lineman’s room which was the genesis of the entire project.

The building will sport geothermal heating and cooling, provisions for electric vehicle charging and possible a distributed generation project in the future. The site will also include a 205,000 square foot pole and material storage yard along with available lots for residential expansion should the opportunity arise.

*Information obtained from the Charles Mix Electric website at http://cme.coop/content/cme-headquarters-building-project where an on-line live feed camera can be found.