JEFFERSON COUNTY, Ohio

With a little bit of muscle, the ground broke.

Now, bulldozers, backhoes and many other construction vehicles are ready to get to work on the 11.3 acres that will be home to the new ODOT maintenance facility on County Road 43 in Jefferson County.

"It definitely makes you feel real good that they went out of their way to get all this money to build this new garage," said Ed Lucas, one of the 20 or so employees that will be working at the new garage.

Even though the patch of land doesn't look like much now, ODOT District 11 Deputy Director Lloyd MacAdam said soon it will be a major upgrade from the Wintersville location.

"As the equipment continues to get bigger and bigger, we need more space to do that, and this new facility will house all of our equipment indoors, and that's obviously going to help the operations," said MacAdam.

Overall, officials say this $7.4 million project will benefit everyone, including residents, during the winter, ODOT's busiest time of the year.

"This is going to be much more efficient being very close to state Route 43 and ultimately to U.S. 22, which gets us to our centralized location of our snow routes," said MacAdam.

Lucas agrees and said he and his co-workers are looking forward to moving out of the old building and having the resources and additional space that will help them perform their jobs more effectively.

"We're real excited to have a new garage and everything. Like I said, it gives us a lot more room to move around. In Wintersville we just outgrew it," said Lucas. "So, it's definitely a real nice feeling."

ODOT officials said they should be ready to move into the new facility in September 2013, just in time for the winter season.