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Armory plans on track for 2022 opening

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Architects release renderings for 47,902-square-foot industrial park facility
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By
Mavis Fodness

Architects admit it’s taking a long time to plan for the new Minnesota National Guard Luverne Readiness Center, but the $16.5 million project will open as scheduled in 2022.
Jay Wiederholt is architecture division manager with TKDA in St. Paul, the design and engineering firm for the new Luverne armory.
“The project has been moving along at a snail’s pace,” he said Monday. “But the review of plans has still been tracking forward.”
Renderings for the 47,902-square-foot facility are at the 60-percent completion stage, and drawings were released last week at the 12-week design development stage.
The facility features recruiting offices, classrooms and assembly hall for monthly guard assemblies. When not in use by guard members, the building, including two full-sized basketball courts, will be available for use by the public.
Once state and federal National Guard officials approve plans thus far, the project will enter a 22-week construction document preparation stage.
Bid letting will be early in 2021, according to Col. Sol Sukut of the Minnesota National Guard Construction and Management Office.
Since the group met in Luverne in September 2019, Sukut said two additional costs were identified and added to the project.
“The recent soil testings found a large amount of clay under the site,” Sukut said.
The cost of soil remediation prior to stationing the foundation at the 15-acre site in Luverne’s Industrial Park is estimated at $200,000.
The second added expense involves up to $1 million for a second 4,500-square-foot basketball court at the armory.
The K.A.H.R. Foundation has agreed to an additional $1.2 million to cover those additional costs.
Construction is expected to take 18 months and is scheduled for completion by November 2022.
The armory will house guard units of Luverne and Pipestone and represents a unique blend of state, federal and private funding sources.
The K.A.H.R. Foundation is the philanthropic organization of Jeannine Rivet and Warren G. Herreid II.
Herreid, a retired brevet colonel with the Minnesota National Guard, pledged $5 million toward the new armory in Luverne in October 2017 in addition to state and federal dollars.

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