Efforts are moving forward to expand a county-owned thrift store run by a senior citizen group of volunteers, but the process has taken a few unexpected twists and turns.
The leaders of the effort will meet with a construction company on Friday to finalize plans to install a metal building on the lot.
In preparation, they’ve been moving things around. That led to a couple of complaints about the new location of a shed, which was placed at an angle in the yard south of the current building.
Dimity Lowell and Joe Hess, volunteers representing the Senior Citizens Inc. group, met with county commissioners on Tuesday to talk about it.
The commissioners have given the group wide latitude about placement of the buildings after initially vetoing their plans to cut down a tree on the lot.
That made it difficult to figure out where to put things, Hess said.
They initially wanted the new building to sit at a 90-degree angle to the main facility, roughly centered on the south side. But that would have required removal of the tree.
Instead, they’ll push that building farther to the east, with a bit of overlap that will allow visitors to travel from the current facility straight into the entrance for the new one.
FEMA guidelines require the buildings to be set at least 5 feet apart, so that is how much space will be between the doors.
The new building is tentatively planned to be 30 feet wide by 40 feet long.
It will be placed where three storage sheds have sat. The group needed to keep two of those, which had to be moved to other spaces on the lot.
Volunteers recently moved one, which led to the complaint. Lowell said the group didn’t want to block a window on the south side, which lets in sunlight and gives volunteers a view of the fenced-in yard and the highway. That view is important, she said, particularly after someone who is homeless started using the property without permission for sleeping and electricity.
But the angle of the building’s placement is a bit unusual.
County custodian Ron Holman said he received a couple of complaints “about the way it looks going down State Street. It looks out of place.”
Commissioner Bruce Symes said he also was surprised by the placement, but didn’t ask the group to make any changes.
“It is cattywampus but it doesn’t cause me discomfort to look at it,” he said.
