Liberty County commissioners are set to cut the ribbon on a new east end EMS station Friday and have given the goahead to a new public works building.

Commissioners approved a $6.3 million contract from Pope Construction to build the new public works building, which will go up at the site of the current facility.

“We’ve been waiting a while,” public works director Clenton Wells told commissioners. “We think it is going to serve us well.”

The cost covers demolition of much of the current structure. The new public works building also will be home to mosquito control and vehicle maintenance.

Plans call for a separate outbuilding so mosquito control chemicals can be stored. There will be 12 service bays for vehicles, including some for larger vehicles.

The current concrete pad will be left once demolition is finished and it will be turned into a wash down area for vehicles, County Administrator Joey Brown said. There also will be paved parking for public works staff.

The building, which will be 20,000 square feet, will be able to withstand winds of 100 mph. It also will have on site a water storage tank for fire and a fire pump, along with a new 250 kW generator.

“It is built for the future,” said Rob Sharp of Pope Construction. “It is designed to last as long as it can last. Public works facilities take some abuse. It is designed very well. It is designed not to last five or 10 years, it is designed to last a long time.”

The county’s public facilities authority will issue a little more than $6 million in bonds to finance construction. Some money is left over from special purpose local option sales tax VI, and proceeds from SPLOST VII will be used to back the bonds. The bond rate is expected to be just under 4%.

Engineering of the building could take 10-12 weeks, and construction is expected to take about 14 months.