Mower County Public Works could soon have a new home away from home.

The county board voted 4-0 Tuesday, with Commissioner Polly Glynn absent, for the public works department to move ahead with negotiations to purchase a 6-acre site in Adams to add a new outshop, which could cost about $180,000.

If finalized, the outshop will help public works be more efficient. The main public works site is at 1105 Eighth Ave. NE in Austin, but Austin is on the far eastern border of the county, meaning much of public works’ winter sanding and plowing and summer roadwork takes place far from Austin. An Adams site would save the workers from having to return to Austin or other sites for materials.

“It’s located in a place where the nearest shop is far enough away where it costs quite a bit in fuel to get back and forth to the other shops to reload materials,” Public Works Director Mike Hanson said of the Adams site.

The site has two roughly 5,000-square-foot buildings that could be used for equipment storage, and the county plans to store some salt and sand at the site. The lawn is big enough, according to Hanson, that it could be used as a staging area during the summer to store piping and other materials for road projects.

“It’s big enough where we can stockpile things,” Hanson said.

The county will now negotiate with the property owners and conduct environmental assessments on the site.

Though the vote was unanimous, Commissioner Jerry Reinartz questioned the likely $180,000 price tag to buy the old buildings and asked if it’d be more cost-efficient to purchase a site and build similar storage buildings. Hanson and County Coordinator Craig Oscarson said it wouldn’t be.

The county has outshops in Dexter, Grand Meadow, LeRoy and Rose Creek.