Work crews climb up scaffolding on the south side of the Johnson County Courthouse on Thursday in Franklin. Repairs are set to be made to areas of the clock tower damaged by straight-line winds earlier this year.
Noah Crenshaw | Daily Journal
Scaffolding has gone up around the Johnson County Courthouse as crews prepare to fix damage caused by straight-line winds five months ago.
High winds from severe storms on March 31 caused significant damage to the 141-year-old courthouse’s tower. Portions of the tower’s brick facade on the south side of the courthouse were blown off, spreading debris on the surrounding streets in Franklin. Windows on both the west and south sides were also blown out.
Over the last week or so, work crews have begun erecting scaffolding on the south side of the courthouse. Full repair work is expected to start in the next few days, Brian Baird, county commissioner, said Wednesday.
The project was put out to bid earlier this summer and the commissioners accepted a $419,000 bid from Advanced Restoration Contractors for the repairs on July 24. The repairs are covered under the county’s insurance policy, Baird said.
Repairs could not be started right away after the storms as officials had to wait for the county’s insurance company to come through. Additionally, the damage wasn’t an emergent situation, as crews were able to clean up debris and board up the damaged windows.
“We did get it closed to where it wasn’t causing an issue in the building,” Baird said. “So it wasn’t something that was a dire necessity.”
Because of the historic nature of the building, officials had to make sure they looked at all of the historic preservation aspects and get the specifications correct before putting the repair project out to bid, he said.
“That process just takes a while. Government moves slow. We know that’s a normal process,” Baird said.
There is not currently a time frame for when the repairs will be done. A lot of the material that will be used to fix the damaged tower will need to be fabricated due to the historic nature of the building. So it will all depend on how long it takes to get the materials fabricated and then installed, he said.
“I can’t really give you a time frame because we don’t really know,” Baird said. “Of course, a lot of that depends on weather since they’re up so high, things like that. But probably the biggest delay will be the fabrication of the pieces that go around for the trim and the fascia.”
The repairs to the tower are just a few of the projects the courthouse has seen over the last few months.
Crews poured new sidewalks and walkways outside the courthouse, and added new railings at some entrances. New exterior lights also have been installed as a part of a project pushed by a Franklin resident to have the courthouse lit up at night.
Another major project has been the courthouse fountain, which is running water for the first time in 25 years. Crews this summer were able to make repairs underground to get the water flowing again.
“They told me that couldn’t be done. They told me we couldn’t fix that,” Baird said. “Don’t tell me we can’t do something because we will make it work. So I’m really pleased that we got that working again, that’s something that should have been maintained and working years ago.”
When Baird joined the Board of Commissioners nearly 11 years ago, one of the biggest issues he found was the lack of maintenance of county property, he said.
“Coming from the construction industry that I came from, I looked at this and realized how important was that we get this stuff maintained. Otherwise, it’s going to cost the taxpayers a fortune, he said.
The recent projects at the courthouse are products of this effort, along with work done for the prosecutor’s office, the sheriff’s office and the sheriff’s office’s training center. All of the projects have been done to bring the county forward, Baird said.
Next on the list of projects is replacing the courthouse’s windows and some of the courthouse’s doors.
The plan is for the new windows to look like the historic windows that they are replacing, so the courthouse looks like it did in the early 1900s, Baird said.
“I know it doesn’t mean a whole lot to a lot of people, but there’s historic value in everything that we’re doing over there,” he said. “I think that the citizens need to know we’re not just throwing money away. We’re making things right. What we’re doing is we’re setting the county up for 25 to 30 years from now, instead of two years from now.”
Right now, officials are going through the architectural portion of this process and are getting ready to bid the project out. The project will be paid for with funds already available in the county’s 2022 general obligation bond, he said.
Baird expects the project to begin later this year.
