This is the 1882 school house that has served as the Brady Township Municipal Building since the township bought it in 1963.

Brady Township supervisors received a $100,000 loan from the state to finish their new municipal building.

The township borrowed the money through the Department of Economic Development to work on the interior of its new building, which is close to completion, according to Supervisor Ken Herzog.

“They're basically done with the exception of the garage doors,” Herzog said.

Once it's finalized, the township will apply for the building's address.

The building stands about 1,000 feet from the township's current building on West Liberty Road.

The current building, constructed in 1882, first served as a schoolhouse called the Thompson School. It was used as a school until the township bought it in 1963.

The supervisors said they are now ready to move on from the older building.

Supervisor Bob McConnell said all the work until now has been debt free, but the interior design and other work inside prompted the township to take out a loan.

“It's the shell of the building. It's not the interior,” McConnell. “That part of your building is bought and paid for.”

The supervisors are in the early stages of bringing electric power to the building and voted to advertise the bidding for the septic system at Wednesday's meeting. They'll open the septic bids at their next meeting.

The supervisors voted to allow KLH Engineers to begin working on the interior design.

Supervisor Phil Riggs said he agreed to have the interior design begin, but he wanted the supervisors to be able to have the final word on any designs.

“Our names and our fingerprints are going to be attached to that building from here to eternity,” Phil Riggs said.

McConnell said the new facility will a big step for the township.

“We felt that it was time for Brady Township to move in a forward direction,” McConnell said. “The taxpayers get very little for their taxes. Our roads are our primary concern.”

The new building is designed to be more than 9,000 square feet with two-thirds of that as garage space. The remaining third will be office space, more storage and a meeting room that could accommodate 75 people.

McConnell said the schoolhouse didn't provide enough storage for the roadwork equipment.

“You can't work on the equipment if you don't have a place to do it,” McConnell said. “We're just growing too much for that one-room schoolhouse.”

But the schoolhouse will remain in the township's hands.

“Right now we don't have a whole lot of plans for it. We're hoping that the Boy Scouts would like to meet in there,” McConnell said. “We're hoping groups like that would like to be there.”

McConnell said the schoolhouse is too historic to lose, and he has already loaned some of its items, like blackboards, an old coal stove and a piano, to the Foltz Schoolhouse at the Jennings Environmental Education Center, which is being renovated as a museum by the Moraine, McConnells Mill and Jennings Commission.

As for the house itself, McConnell said the space could be used for file storage or as office space for their road crews. He said they will find a way to preserve it.

“That little schoolhouse is absolutely not going away,” McConnell said. “It is going to be maintained.”