Whitewater Valley REMC’s Field of Dreams
By: Mary Jo Thomas
On June 24, 2024, we opened our doors at our new facility at 1201 S. State Rd. 101, just south of Liberty.
This project has been a long time coming, and we had been looking for land to build on for years. In 2020, that finally came to be when we bought 20 acres in a farm field along Highway 101 just north and across the road from the Whitewater State Park entrance. There were many times that I would drive out to the park entrance and look across the road to the north to imagine a new facility there.
Our cooperative has come a long way from our original two co-ops. Wayne County REMC started in a room of the Wayne County Farm Bureau, and Fayette-Union was located above the Driggs Shoe Store in Liberty. The current red brick building was built back in the 1950s, and the Operations building was built in 1965. Then it expanded in the 1980s. The red brick building was remodeled in 1996 after the consolidation of the new cooperative, Whitewater Valley. In 2021, we acquired the property next to the red brick building in a tax sale and made some improvements. It has helped us with storage and will be an added feature to the property when we get ready to sell. We own a little over 15,000 sq ft of building space at these current properties, including six vehicle bays on 2.3 acres. We rent another building and two other open lots for storage of materials. Employees are split between the two buildings.
The new facility sits on approximately nine acres a mile and a half south of Liberty, with just over 33,000 sq. ft. under roof. It houses all employees, has a hardened storm shelter and dispatch center, a warehouse, 12 vehicle bays, and a multipurpose room that will serve as a board room, an all-employees meeting room, or can be split into two training/meeting rooms. All materials, including fuel, is on site in one location and behind secure fencing. The lot has ample room for maneuvering trucks and parking for contractors and visiting crews. Members will have a lobby or drive-thru access to conduct business. We have left an existing storage barn up for extra cold storage shelter, and we own ten more acres to the south for future expansion.
What a journey this has been. We had a groundbreaking on June 27, 2023, and dirt started moving as soon as all the formalities were in place. I have been so pleased with our partner, Cooperative Building Solutions (or CBS for short), and their project management. Our facility committee has worked many hours to ensure all is coming together as expected. CBS promised and accomplished an on-time and on-budget project. The budget amount we planned for and included in the last cost of service is the cost, which is calculated to be $3.50 per account per month.
While construction has been going on this past year, in our old facilities we cleaned and purged years’ worth of information from file cabinets, storage areas, attics, etc. Working down to what needed to be moved to our new home. Everyone chipped in, and we accomplished our move on June 21 and 22. Once we get settled, we look forward to hosting an open house later this year to show you the new facility. In the meantime, we are open for business at 1201 S. State Rd. 101.
Our dream has become reality.
