Pickett County Commissioners will hold a special-called meeting December 1 to award a bid to remodel the old Byrdstown Methodist Church.
The county plans to turn the facility into a new Senior Center and office space for county officials. Pickett County Executive Stephen Bilbrey said about nine to ten contractors attended the pre-bid meeting. Bilbrey said he wanted to have the bids for Monday’s commission meeting, but was advised to set the bid deadline for November 26.
“The engineers said ‘I know it’s gonna cost you some money to do a special-called meeting, but I think you will save more money that its gonna cost you in the end because if they have just a, you know, have a short window to bid, they are gonna bid a little high to make sure that they cover themselves,’” Bilbrey said.
Bilbrey said the project needs to get going soon, as the grant used to fund the project expires next October. Bilbrey said the county could still complete the project by the deadline.
“Not really ideal to start something like that in December, but that building, when you go through bad weather, most of it’s under roof, and so they can start under and they can work inside,” Bilbrey said.
Bilbrey said he is glad to see the project getting closer to starting. Bilbrey said state delays have really put the county up against a short deadline to complete the project.
“The state held us back cause we got approved for that in October, first of November of 2024, and didn’t get the letter to proceed from the state until the middle of July of this year,” Bilbrey said.”So they held us back about eight months, and if it hadn’t been for Representative Keisling and Senator Yager, I don’t know that we would still have the contract to proceed.”
The commission asked about the leaks in the roof to see if those would need to be addressed in the project. Bilbrey said the leaks have already been addressed.
“It wasn’t leaking until I think it was April or May of this year,” Bilbrey said. “Of course, I try to go out there about once a month just to walk through it and check it. And when I went in right there as you walk in, some of the sheetrock and insulation had fell. I finally got a hold of a company, Sanchez Roofing, that would go out there and do that little bit of work, and so they got it fixed, and it has not leaked since, so I am not sure exactly if they will do the roof first.”