Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
The Sweet Home Ranger District has completed construction on the exterior of its new office building and will begin work on the interior in the next couple of weeks, officials say.
“The exterior of the admin building is complete,” District Ranger Mike Rassbach said. “We should be close to awarding the contract for the interior work. We expect to begin in the next week or two.”
Rassbach hopes the building will be finished by fall or winter, he said. “There’s still quite a bit of work that needs to be done on the site.”
The interior of the building, the district’s old work station east of the office on Highway 20, is mostly an unfinished shell at this point, and the district needs to add some security fencing and fix and expand public and employee parking areas.
The Ranger District’s current office includes 12,000 square feet of office space at a cost of about $240,000 per year, Rassbach said. The district began using the office in 1985 and had about 80 permanent employees.
The district now employs about 30 persons, Rassbach said. It also shares several employees with other districts, primarily Detroit Ranger District.
The district still expects the South Santiam Watershed Council to move with it to the new building, Rassbach said.
The district owns the work station, Rassbach said, so the Forest Service will save money. The district will still continue to pay for utilities, but the move will provide a significant savings.
The Sweet Home Ranger District costs about $2 million per year to operate.
The new building, about 7,000 square feet, will cost about $1.25 million for renovations by the time it is complete, Rassbach said. The building sits on only 1.5 acres compared to 11.5 acres at the existing office.
As a result, the district will store its larger materials, like concrete pieces, culverts and timbers, on property in Cascadia after moving to the new office building, Rassbach said. The smaller property size has created on of the Forest Service’s biggest challenges, figuring out a good arrangement for public parking, ingress and egress, with the remodel.
The renovations and construction are generally funded under a pilot program that allows the Willamette National Forest to sell off houses and use the money for projects. The forest has sold four houses at Mill City and has three on auction in Sweet Home. They include 19 Osage St., 940 Third Ave. and 175 Hawthorne St.
Prices on the houses are contributing to the uncertainty over moving the district office, Rassbach said. The homes are being shown by Sweet Home Realty and information on bid packages is available on the forest Web site, http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/willamette under “excess facilities.”
The homes were once used as temporary residences for new district employees, Rassbach said. Employees moving into the district, often from out of state, would need time to find a permanent place to live.
The Internet makes finding a place to live easier for new employees now, Rassbach said, so the homes are no longer needed by the Forest Service.
The Forest Service will receive sealed bids through the end of the month then hold an oral auction on May 5 at the Federal Building, 211 East Seventh St., Eugene. Sealed bids will be opened on May 4, and the high bidder will be recognized as high bidder to open the oral auction.