Ground Breaking Ceremony for New Building

The Access Energy Cooperative Board of Directors has been evaluating future needs of the cooperative for the past two years, and realizes that the existing facilities built in 1949 have served their purpose and are no longer adequate for meeting the cooperative’s needs. The current headquarters office is located on the corner of old highway 218 and 34 in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa. The location is good, but the cooperative is landlocked in the present position and unable to expand in any direction on the existing property. The existing facilities have been outgrown. Remodeling options have been evaluated, but associated costs are not easily justified. The Board has determined the most cost effective, efficient option for having a safe, workable environment is to build a new headquarters facility, bringing the office, warehouse and pole yard together in one place. Security and efficiency of the operations are a primary concern addressed by theBoard, with the pole yard being located on the east edge of town a couple miles from the rest of the facilities. Security is an important issue now and in the future, especially for energy cooperatives. Power plays a very important part in our every day lives and could be a primary target for attack. Having all of the cooperative’s facilities located on one property would provide a far more secure option. Having the pole yard located a distance away also creates production inefficiencies. As the existing facilities are short on garage space to house all of cooperative’s vehicles, some vehicles are parked at the pole yard daily, creating extra trips and extra time, which can be crucial in cases of emergency calls and storms. The new office headquarters building will be 19,800 square foot, and the warehouse will be 45,000 sq. ft. Weather permitting, the plans are to be in the new facility in the spring of 2008. Jean C. Wiley Construction of Mt. Pleasant is heading the project as General Contractor and Larrison and Associates are the architects. The new office building is designed to be an environmentally friendly building, utilizing passive solar and geothermal energy. The cooperative plans to sell the existing building and pole yard properties upon completion of the new facilities.