HERMANN — Gasconade County Thursday morning received only one bid to construct an elevator in the historic courthouse. A contract to do the work could be approved at tomorrow’s County Commission session.

The lone bid — offered by Franklin County Construction of New Haven — took county administrators and consulting engineers Archer-Elgin by surprise.

“This is it?” asked Presiding Commissioner Tim Schulte, R-Hermann.

“That’s it,” replied County Clerk Lesa Lietzow after returning to the Commission Chamber from her office checking on any last-minute bid submissions.

Archer-Elgin’s Cameron Schweiss said he had anticipated at least three or four bids for the substantial indoor project that will be done during the onset of winter weather. Several prospective bidders took part in a recent pre-bid conference with the engineers. However, he said, the need to do the rock removal during off-hours and on weekends might have caused some prospective bidders to pass on the job.

“I think the off-hours business was something of a concern” for them, Schweiss said.

Franklin County Construction offered to do the work for a base cost of $475,600. The bid contained an alternate item for rock removal of $22,000.

The engineers’ estimate was $487,699, without contingencies, making Franklin County Construction’s offer an attractive one to county administrators.

One key to the project, which could begin about the middle of December, will be the amount of rock that will have to be chiseled from beneath the basement floor to accommodate the pit needed to hold the elevator equipment. Not known is how much bedrock will have to be jackhammered loose to allow construction of the elevator shaft to begin. That work will be done during off-hours and weekends, officials said, to avoid disruption of courthouse operations.

Archer-Elgin staff will scrutinize the bid to ensure it meets the various specifications of the project. The engineering firm will advise the Commission of its formal recommendation by this week’s session.

“I don’t want any surprises,” said Southern District Associate Commissioner Jerry Lairmore, R-Owensville. “I want you to look it over,” he added. Lairmore said hearing from the engineers this week would enable administrators “to officially award a contract” to Franklin County Construction at tomorrow’s session and set the plan in motion to begin work in about a month by contractor Darren Pecaut.

“He would like to start before the Christmas holiday,” Schweiss told the Commission. “Hopefully, they could make some progress in the courthouse from mid-December to mid-January,” he added.

But while it will be several weeks before the contractor gets busy on site, courthouse personnel will quickly begin clearing the area in the county’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC) needed for the pit. It also means the County Clerk’s Office will begin relocating elections equipment and materials from its storage area adjacent to the Commission Chamber into the Commission meeting room. That storage area will be taken as part of the space for the elevator shaft as it reaches from the basement to the second floor.

“We need to get that back area (of the EOC) cleared out,” said Lietzow. “That’s something we need to start on.”

This could set in motion a domino effect of sorts of relocations. With the move of election equipment and supplies into the Commission Chamber, county administrators could get moved to another part of the courthouse for their sessions until the elevator project is finished.