Design contract approved for new Watertown Street Department facility (Audio)

April 4, 2022
Mike Tanner

WATERTOWN, S.D. – Last month, the Watertown City Council finalized the purchase of 27 acres of land where a new Street Department headquarters will be built, and on Monday night, they approved a nearly $400,000 contract with JLG Architects to design the facility.

This project, with an estimated cost of $6.8 million, comes at the same time Watertown is preparing to break ground on a $20 million ice arena, spending $2.5 million to develop a new downtown park, and spend potentially $5 million or more to buy and remodel the former Wells Fargo Bank building downtown into a new City Hall.

Councilman Mike Danforth (pictured) addressed all of the spending at Monday night’s city council meeting….

The JLG contract was approved unanimously.

The Street Department building will be constructed on Highway 20, at the site of the former South Dakota Livestock Auction barn, which burned down in 2015.

Still to be determined is whether this new facility will include cold storage space for equipment owned by the Codington County Highway Department.