Courthouse parking lot to be resurfaced

ANTIGO — At a public property committee meeting Wednesday morning, county officials discussed plans to resurface the parking lot of the Langlade County Courthouse later this summer.

The lot, which is located on the west side of the courthouse and undergoes relatively heavy vehicle traffic each day, has a suboptimal drain, according to Langlade County Director of Facilities Management Kevin Bouche.

“That drain in the middle is falling apart,” Bouche said. “Water settles in there. So we said, ‘Rather than investing that money into stripping and resurfacing that, why don’t we just look at replacing that parking lot and getting it done right the first time.’ So that’s where we’re transferring that money over into redoing the parking lot instead. So that’s where we’re at. We said, ‘Let’s start there,’ because that’s the most-used item in the county.”

Bouche said the lot and its drain have had issues for years.

“That’s been an issue for sure since I’ve been here — three years it was an issue. Every year we would always patch it, patch it. The highway department would come and do some patches on it and this year, again, it’s the same problem,” he said.

Bouche’s department has received bids from both Northeast Asphalt and Musson Brothers for roughly $100,000 to complete the project.

Langlade County Administrator Jason Hilger concurred with the plan to resurface the entire lot.

“The blacktop is deteriorating — there’s potholes and cracks. I’m guessing the ground around that drain settled so it doesn’t effectively empty. So it’s in need of major repair,” he said.

Hilger said he expected the resurfacing to be completed before the Fall. He estimated the project — between stripping the old asphalt, pouring the new material, and re-engineering the drain — would last four days.