If you’ve driven east of Cordell on Highway 152 in the past few weeks, you may have noticed a large new concrete entrance, tons of earth moving, a new fence being built, and the beginnings of a new corporate sign in the front yard. All the work will eventually culminate in the opening of CKenergy’s new Cordell area campus.
The cooperative will be moving out of town, but only a couple of miles and remains committed to supporting the town of Cordell and the surrounding communities as always.
“The new facility will enable us to move all activities and services to one site and under one roof,” says CEO Clint Pack. “There are many reasons for the move to the new location. The equipment needed to service all our lines continues to get bigger. We’re beginning to have difficulty maneuvering in and out of the current truck building and warehouse that are on separate blocks across from the existing office building. The existing pole yard is inadequate as we need to store more poles for quicker local pole replacement during storm outages plus, we need a place to bring old poles before eventual disposal and in case local folks want to come get a used pole.”
Pack continues, “As everyone knows from recent storms, a lot of outage and repairs happen during the night. Without intention, we make a lot of noise coming and going in the middle of night, loading, and unloading poles and materials. This disturbs everyone in a multiple block area of town that is trying to sleep before work the next day. And the pungent smell of the treated poles sitting in the yard 24/7, might get a bit nauseating for some. Lastly the current office building is nice but is an old layout and does not have room or access for a drive through. The new building will have a drive through with plenty of space to enter, pull through, and exit.”
All existing employees at Cordell will have a place in the new facility. Local CKenergy board president, Jack Sawatzky stated, “We are very excited about the future of the Co-op and that we can accomplish this new facility out of cash on hand and will incur no debt for the construction of the west campus. Our plan is to assist the town of Cordell in filling our old campus buildings with new occupants in an effort to help the community grow once again.” Plans are to make the move in mid-2024 and be operating completely from the new location by the end of the 2024 calendar year. Clint Pack said, “We look forward to seeing our members and Cordell community friends at the open house next year, after we get settled of course!”