Buena Vista County awards $125,000 courthouse restoration contract
Supervisors approved a $125,000 McGill Restoration contract to redo aging courthouse mortar joints, with fall work aimed at preserving Storm Lake's main county building.
Buena Vista County supervisors voted Tuesday, July 1, to award a $125,000 courthouse restoration contract to McGill Restoration of Omaha, setting in motion a fall project to repair aging masonry.
Buildings and Grounds Superintendent Joe Keller told the board he has been working on the project since last September. The biggest cost driver is the courthouse mortar joints, which Keller said are more than five decades old and need full restoration rather than a patch job. McGill’s first estimate came in at $113,500, then climbed to $146,000 after the company clarified the scope of the work. The final bid settled at $125,000, a figure Keller said was workable even though it remained above his original target of about $110,000.
The county plans to pay the difference with remaining money from the 2026 capital projects loan. Keller said other contractors were contacted, but the field narrowed before any competing bids materialized, leaving McGill as the practical choice. McGill specializes in concrete and masonry repair, historical building restoration and waterproofing, and was founded in 1985.
The courthouse is where Board of Supervisors meetings are held and where other county services operate. A tree landed on the courthouse during an April 18 storm.
Court was held in houses and storerooms through 1869, before the first courthouse was built in Sioux Rapids in 1870 for $4,945. That building burned in 1877, and Storm Lake became the county seat the next year. Another courthouse followed in 1888 at a cost of $25,000, and the present courthouse was completed in 1972 at an estimated cost of $1.2 million. The building includes a round courtroom 30 feet in diameter.
The current courthouse is at 215 East 5th Street in Storm Lake and was built from 1969 to 1972, designed by Frevert-Ramsey and constructed by Mervin R Petersen Construction.
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