Road commission opens new facility

BIG BAY — The Marquette County Road Commission held a ribbon cutting for their new maintenance facility in Big Bay.

The 2.3 million dollar improvement includes a brand–new garage, salt shed, wash bay, and maintenance pit. With all of these major improvements, efficiency for the workers will increase dramatically.

“The benefit for this building is that it provides our guys a good working environment, it’s a chance for our equipment to stay inside, and be available and functioning, and ready to go,” said Engineer Manager Jim Iwanicki, “rather than hoping it will start. It will help us with maintenance because we did add a wash bay to wash the vehicles here to help keep them clean. A cleaner vehicle will tend to last a lot longer for us.”

The importance for improving this facility was vital. The nearest other facilities are in Sawyer and Ishpeming.

“It’s going to be a tremendous asset for us here in the northern part of the county and allow us to perform our maintenance in a more efficient and effective manner for the traveling public.”

The Big Bay garage typically holds three full–time employees along with occasional temps. They cover county road 550 all the way to Marquette, a large chunk of County Road 510, along with all of Powell Township.