Montgomery County, TN – Approximately 130 people attended the Montgomery County Highway Department’s groundbreaking event on May 20th, 2024, to celebrate the official construction of the new administrative and maintenance buildings at 1213 Highway Drive. They are expected to be complete by late spring 2025.
Leading the ceremony was County Highway Supervisor Jeff Bryant who recognized the state delegates, elected officials, Highway Department employees, retirees, and all who came out to be a part of the occasion.
“This is a huge day for this department, it’s the beginning of something new and something to move forward in the future with. We have a big job maintaining and repairing all county-owned roads and bridges encompassing over 750 miles of road and almost 150 bridges. The new facilities will help us better take care of our equipment, not just for our department but for the County as we maintain a county-wide fleet program,” said Bryant.
“It’s been a journey getting to this day and it started with a conversation with former Mayor Jim Durrett. He was on board and I quickly reached out to Daniel Binkley with Rufus Johnson & Associates,” he added.
Bryant explained that it took a lot of iterations and along with the architect came to the realization it was going to take more land to accomplish their objective. Due to collaboration with the City of Clarksville and Clarksville-Montgomery County School System leadership, the Highway Department obtained more land, providing a better layout and flow.
Bryant thanked Montgomery County Mayor Wes Golden and the County Commissioners for their continued support.
Mayor Golden spoke next, recognizing Senator Bill Powers and Representative Jeff Burkhart for attending and thanking all the local state delegates for the funding support of County Highway projects.
“If anyone has ever toured that building it’s easy to understand why this is needed. We are going to try to bring these folks out of 1960 and put them in a present-day environment. It’s not just about the building, we are asking more out of the Highway Department than ever before. We’re growing at a fast rate and we’re trying our best to keep up. I appreciate our Highway Department employees,” said Mayor Golden
County Commissioner Ricky Ray who is also part of the Highway Committee said, “I can speak for a lot of the commissioners. When this came up we felt it was time and that something needed to be done. A lot of people don’t realize how much you (Highway Department employees) do on the roads. We’re thankful for you and we’re going to make this happen.
The group walked to the groundbreaking site where they took the ceremonial shovels and moved the dirt as a symbol of the project getting underway.
The design team is led by Daniel Binkley, an architect with Rufus Johnson & Associates, and Alex Henry with TTL on civil design. Rock City is the general contractor out of Franklin, led by Mike Morgan.
For more information about the Montgomery County Highway Department, visit www.mcgtn.org/highway and keep up with the latest news by connecting with them at www.facebook.com/mcgtn.net. To see the video of the Highway Department groundbreaking visit www.facebook.com/mcgtn/.
