Published: March 01, 2008 08:41 pm      

Condition critical at Mercer Health Center

GREEN VALLEY — Big buckets holding dank black water stand vigil under the dead heating and cooling unit up in the auditorium’s ceiling. The big room’s cold because the unit can’t heat, and in the summer the room’s hot because the unit can’t cool. It’s one of the many shortcomings the building’s occupants want to show the public on March 15.

The Mercer County Board of Health is seeking grants that will help strip its present headquarters to its bare metal bones and build a new facility around them. From what architects have been able to determine, it’s the most realistic way to address the building’s many shortcomings, said Melody Rickman, R.N. of the county health department.

“It’s an old building that was built in 1959 with an addition in 1969, so you can see how old it is,” Rickman said. “When it was built it was a state of the art building, but without insulation.”

Much of the structure has deteriorated, she said. The cost of heating are taking large bites out of the department’s budget. Personnel often kept the heat at a minimum and rely on jackets and sweaters for warmth.

“One morning we had no heat in one side of the building,” Rickman recalled. “They [service personnel] came out to fix it. Then the other unit quit.

Erratic heating affects not only the health department’s workers, but also members of the public who visit the center’s clinic for health care.

People who come in-and these are Mercer County people-need a decent place to seek services,” Rickman said.

“We’re at a point where just the utilities are eating away at my budget. Our gas bill alone was $3,726 in January,” Rickman said. “The building leaks in many places and we can’t afford a new roof. The repair needs have gotten so expensive that we can’t meet the cost of all of them.”

Rickman pointed out the auditorium’s heating and cooling unit as an example. Fixing the machine’s heating element has a $2,000 price tag, and even if that is fixed, the unit won’t cool, she said.

And if the auditorium can’t be cooled during the summer, the health department has to hold its classes for food service workers in the building’s board room, a place that is too small to accommodate large classes. The classes teach safe food handling and storage practices to new restaurant and grocery store employees, so having adequate classroom space is important, Rickman said.

Several community groups pooled funds for an architectural survey of the Green Valley building. Conducted by E.T. Boggess Architect Inc. in Princeton, the survey was designed to find the best options for improving the structure.

“It was to decide whether it was more cost effective to demolish the building or try to remodel what was here,” Rickman said. “They looked at the cost of both and it was apparent that the best course was to take this building back to its metal structure and start over.”

With the survey came the estimated cost: $3.5 million.

“We don’t have that kind of money, so we’re doing grant applications,” Rickman said. “There’s not a lot of places that fund brick and mortar projects.”

One factor that encourages foundations and government entities to award grants is a clear show of public support, so the health department is inviting the general public to visit the Green Valley building on March 15 from 3 to 6 p.m.

“Local people will provide entertainment and we’ll have tours of the building so people can see the need we have,” Rickman said. “We don’t want the community to think we’re asking for something we don’t need. We need their support.”

— Contact Greg Jordan at gjordan@bdtonline.com