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LAURIUM - On a cool, drizzly Monday afternoon, dozens of people gathered inside the new Department of Public Works (DPW) building in Laurium to watch the ribbon cutting ceremony. Ian Lewis, Village Manager for Laurium, started the ceremonies off.
"First, I want to say a thank you to everyone that came out for the ribbon cutting ceremony for the new public works garage," he said. "We couldn't have done this without the community and all the community support. When February 5th happened, it hit our community really hard and our guys had to work through some really tough times last year."
Lewis was referring to a fire that engulfed the prior DPW building early in the morning of Feb. 5, 2025. Firefighters fought the blaze throughout the day, but the building and most of the equipment inside was lost.
"Originally we had a settlement offer at $1.7 million," Lewis said. He and the village council thought the offer was too low and Laurium would not be able to build the facilities they wanted with that amount of money. Moyle Construction gave the village council of Laurium an offer too good to pass up which included helping discuss the offer with the insurance company.
"After working with Moyle," Lewis continued, "and working with council support, we got [the offer] up to $3.63 million. So, we increased the original settlement offer by $1.9 million which allowed this building to be built for our community and for generations to come."
The new facility, built by the George Gipp Memorial Recreation Area, is a significantly larger footprint than their previous building. Three different bays can accommodate large vehicles, with two high-capacity cranes adorning one of them. Ample storage space is located on the second floor of one bay along with several offices, restrooms, showers, laundry, and a small kitchen on the first floor.
Lewis said, "This building was unique and came under emergency situations," which allowed the village and Moyle to work at an accelerated pace to complete the new space. Andrew Kemper, who works in Engineering and Project Management with Moyle, said, "Sometimes when a disaster like that happens, it is a blessing in disguise."
With the fire happening in the middle of winter, Laurium's DPW had to scramble and find other ways to take care of snow removal after the loss of so much of their equipment. Other communities stepped up to help, but the winter of 2025-2026 brought nearly record-breaking amounts of snow and stressed the capabilities of Laurium's DPW, working with only temporary facilities.
Kemper said, "We built [this] with local labor and local talent, and we performed all the engineering and architecture that was necessary to get this facility up and functioning in a very short order," adding wryly, "so they can get this thing in order before the snow starts falling next week."
"We [at Moyle] want to thank the village for trusting us and having confidence in our team," Kemper added. He said projects like this are important to him and everyone he works with. "It's a project that someday I'll be able to take my kids to and tell them the story about what happened here."
He continued, "That's really one of the best things that we do at Moyle and what makes our job so special, is being able to come out into our communities and see the projects that our organization has built with the help of everyone on our team. Something that is going to last [Laurium] for generations here, and hopefully the community benefits from it and is proud of it."
Laurium, and the Upper Peninsula at large, lost a piece of local history when the DPW building burned down. The facility was originally constructed in 1933 - 34 as a Works Project Administration project and was a hangar for the Laurium airport.
The "blessing in disguise" Kemper mentioned is the proud new DPW building which rose nearly as quickly as a phoenix from the ashes. Whatever the next winter has in store for Laurium, their DPW stands ready to tackle it from their new building.