Aug. 18—ALBANY — For drivers in downtown Albany who were curious about the crane, the explanation is that it was there for the replacement of a cooling tower at the Dougherty County Judicial Building.
The $145,000 piece of equipment is replacing a cooling tower that had been in service at the building for nearly 30 years.
The work has not caused any inconvenience for people needing to use the courthouse building or courts, but an unrelated job of fixing a generator will cause the closing of the building an hour early on Monday at 4 p.m.
"It's much better to replace something at the end of its life cycle instead of waiting until it dies," Dougherty County Facilities Manager Heidi Minnick said of the cooling equipment. "The old one was 28 years old. We got our money's worth out of it. We're trying to be very cognizant of repairs at that building so everybody can come downtown and do what they need to do."
The replacement unit comes with a water softener, meant to extend its lifetime as the hard water in the region can cut years of service off the cooler, Minnick said. It also uses a chemical process to help eliminate pathogens from the air flowing into the building.
The purchase was funded with proceeds from the special-purpose local-option sales tax approved by county voters six years ago. The SPLOST VII initiative expires in a few months, and voters will be asked to approve the eighth 1% sales tax referendum on the November general election ballot.
"This is the community's tax dollars at work," Minnick said. "That's why it's important that we have sales tax money."
The tax helps reduce the amount of property taxes paid by county residents, and with Albany being a hub for shoppers in the region, much of the tax is paid by people who live out of town, she said.
SPLOST funds also are painting and flooring replacement projects at the South Slappey Boulevard Health Department building and Dougherty County Police Department headquarters. The tax also will pay for a new fire alarm system at the Division of Family and Children Services building on West Oglethorpe Boulevard.
"We've got a lot of different projects," Minnick said. "If you don't have something like a SPLOST, you end up with deferred payments, which results in deferred service."
The director said she expects the generator work to be completed on Monday night, and the building is expected to re-open for business on Tuesday morning. The generator is crucial because it powers the 911 Communications Center in the event of an outage of the electrical system.
"It should take no longer than four hours," she said. "That's just a repair we have to make. It's an emergency repair."
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