Carbon County is moving forward with its nearly $4 million building renovation project along Susquehanna Street with a few changes to the contracts.

On Thursday, the board of commissioners in 2-0 votes approved six contracts for the 44 and 76 Susquehanna St. renovation project. Commissioners’ Chairman Wayne Nothstein was absent.

Before awarding the contracts, Commissioner Chris Lukasevich spoke about his feelings for the past renovation project proposal for the buildings, as well as what the new board did to save a significant amount of money with the new renovation plans.

“We worked extremely close together, Rocky (Ahner), Wayne and I, with Boyle Construction and Form Space (Design) to develop a good plan that was fiscally response and met the needs of the county,” he said. “We focused emphatically on financial savings, not disruptive to Jim Thorpe or county tourism. … We brought in the late Ben Walbert, an historical architect, to help us with the design.

“There is no doubt that we have come a long way from the 76 Susquehanna St. project,” he said, noting that the former plan would not have met the spacing needs of the county and would have put a church with historical significance at risk of irreparable damage.

But he also pointed out that there were other options in Jim Thorpe that could have been acquired to help with the spacing issue in the county offices; and noted that the award of this project is inevitable and he doesn’t want to cost the county any more money on delaying the vote.

The board then voted to approve the following contracts:

• General Construction: Uhrig Construction Inc. of Reading, $2,395,000.

• Plumbing: JBM Mechanical Inc. of Nazareth, $333,000.

• Mechanical Construction: Leibold Inc. of Pottsville, $499,500.

• Electrical Construction: Orlando Diefenderfer Electrical Contractors Inc. of Allentown, the second lowest responsible bidder, which bid $537,000. This motion was approved after first rejecting the lowest bid from North End Electric of Scranton, which bid $526,790. It was noted that a certain level of experience was required for the scope of this project and North End failed to meet the minimum requirement of experience.

• Fire protection construction: Anchor Fire Protection Co. Inc. of Perkiomenville, $63,600.

• Elevator construction: CMG of Easton Inc. of Easton, $95,000.

Commissioner Rocky Ahner said that project, which had been estimated at $4.5 million, came in under projections, and the contracts that were approved represent a cost of $3,923,100.

“This is a significant savings from the original project,” he said, noting that the original project was estimated to cost nearly four times that amount.

The next step for the project is moving the offices of planning and development, juvenile probation and the workforce office from 76 Susquehanna St. to their temporary locations beginning next Friday.

Planning and development, as well as the workforce office will relocate to the Jim Thorpe Area School District administration building at 410 Center Ave., while juvenile probation will move to the courthouse.

Work on site prep is then expected to begin the week of Oct. 26.

The elections office will remain in 76 Susquehanna St. until after the presidential election on Nov. 3. Once the election is completed, that office will also relocate to the Jim Thorpe administration building.

All phone numbers for the relocated offices will remain the same during the move.

The anticipated completion for the renovations to both 44 and 76 Susquehanna St. buildings is August 2021.

Ahner said after the project is complete, the next phase would include putting a plan together to renovate the courthouse area where adult probation currently is located.