Walls up!
Work proceeds on the new Lawrence County Health Department building located on the relatively new Missouri Drive just south of I-44 in Mt. Vernon. (Photo by Ryan Squibb)
Progress being made on new county health department building
In November last year, Lawrence County broke ground on its new health department building, to be located near the new Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office and the Lawrence County Emergency Dispatch Center, on Mt. Vernon’s south side. In the eight months since the groundbreaking, progress has been made in the building’s construction, with much of the outer work complete.
“It’s starting to get exciting now that we can see some walls,” said Janella Spencer, Lawrence County Health Department administrator.
When it is finished, the new building will have 15,000 square feet of space, more than double the current building’s 7,000 square feet. The extra space means that when the health department relocates into the new building, services for which must currently be carefully scheduled will instead be offered simultaneously.
“We (will) definitely have more room to have more opportunities to try to come up with some things,” Spencer said. “There are several rooms in our building currently now that are shared by multiples. (For example) … we have a room that we do fingerprinting in, but it’s also an exam room.”
Spencer also said that the new building will have drive-through bays, which will allow the department to offer some services to clients without them having to leave their cars.
“(We’d) like to utilize that drive-through bay for some additional drive-through vaccine clinics, flu shots, back to school, that kind of thing. And we have some other things we want to use that for; that we just need to see if we can find funding for.”
Spencer also said that the building is currently scheduled for completion in either November or December of this year.
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Lawrence County Record
312 S. Hickory St.
Mt. Vernon, MO, 65712
www.lawrencecountyrecord.com