A Nice News Story and Why I Take Issue With It

From the Associated Press:

“CORINTH, Miss. – A design is in hand for a proposed vegetable shed at the Farmers Market on Fulton Drive.

The Daily Corinthian reports Cook Coggin Engineers submitted the design to the Alcorn County Board of Supervisors. Construction bids are being taken through Monday.

Board President Lowell Hinton said the supervisors will decide whether to go ahead with construction after all bids are in.

The design is for a 40-by-100-foot pole barn built on property owned by the city of Corinth.

The open-air design would allow water to flow through in the event of flooding.

Corinth officials had input on the plans.

Market supporters believe the shed would be a plus by getting growers and customers out of direct sunlight during hot summer months.”

From their website: “Cook Coggin Engineers, Inc., is a general civil engineering firm established in 1946 that continues to serve state and county governments, municipalities, rural communities, and industry. Headquartered in Tupelo, our regional offices are in Booneville, Corinth, New Albany and Ripley.

Cook Coggin serves as County Engineer for many Mississippi counties providing a vast array of services. Additionally, Cook Coggin provides services to numerous municipalities, rural water associations, sewer, water, and gas utility districts, and other governmental and private entities.”

I have absolutely no doubt of Cook Coggin being a fine and outstanding engineering firm, however nowhere on their website can I find one of their specialties being pole and post frame buildings. My educated guess is, the design provided by them, was probably not done for free.

In my humble opinion, municipalities (such as Alcorn County) and their constituents would be far better served, by taking advantage of the pole barn design services offered by companies such as Hansen Pole Buildings.

In our particular case, for any public works post frame building, which must be let out for bid, we will provide, at no charge to the municipality or agency, a complete set of structural drawings – in advance.

Besides the tremendous reduction in upfront costs for engineering, it also guarantees to the municipality a building which can actually be constructed in the real world. All too often, we have been requested to bid on projects, which were designed by well-meaning architects or engineers, which had either impractical or impossible to construct pole barn designs.  They had no concept as to what a pole building really is, or how it is to be designed.  I have no issue with other type of designs, however trying to use “stick-built” or stud wall concepts, and call it a pole building, sort of defeats the whole purpose of strong yet simplistic pole barn design.  Pole buildings are very affordable, as long as the engineers designing them, really have their “feet wet” in a long enough history of post frame construction.