Demolition bid approved for Courthouse Square office building

Detailed plans for Washington County’s new public safety building were revealed Thursday as the city’s planning commission got its first look at the project.

John Campbell of AE Works and Sean Donnelly of Gateway Engineers unveiled architectural renderings and schematic plans during Washington’s planning commission meeting for an initial pre-development update as the project gets closer to beginning.

“There is a lot of public interaction (with those county services) and they want the building to express that,” Campbell said of the new county public safety building that will replace the Courthouse Square offices.

The three-story building’s facade will mimic the exterior of the neighboring Crossroads Center county office building across West Beau Street. The public safety building will house the 911 dispatch center, sheriff’s office, booking center and have other various office space for county government, along with some areas for civic institutions to gather for meetings.

The building is designed with large windows and will have easy pathways to the neighboring Family Court Center, although there is no enclosed connector planned over to the Crossroads building.

“We’re trying to make it much more transparent and open to the public,” Campbell said of the public safety building’s design.

Members of the city’s planning commission seemed intrigued by the designs that were presented, although the presenters admitted it’s still in the beginning stages and they’ll have to return with a formal land development application – basically a site plan – that will need final approval from the city.

“You talk about a smaller footprint,” planning commission member Jason Kilgore said. “How much room is there for growth and expansion with this building?”

Campbell said one area of the building that was labeled “shell” will remain undeveloped to allow for government operations enough room to expand as the county’s population grows.

“I think that’s what the intention is for the ‘shell’ space,” Campbell said.

Some information was still not available during Thursday’s meeting, including the estimated cost of the building and the construction timeline.

“On paper, it looks good,” planning commission member Angelo Musto said. “We’ll just have to see when it’s built.”

As the designs were being discussed at the city building, the Washington County commissioners were meeting at the Crossroads Center building a few blocks away and approving plans to demolish the Courthouse Square office building to make way for the public safety building. The commissioners unanimously approved a $1.555 million bid from Adamo Demolition Co. of Detroit to bring down the building and parking garage that sits behind the Washington County Courthouse.

The current 911 operations center partially connected to Courthouse Square that faces South Franklin Street will remain standing while the tower and parking garage are demolished so dispatch teams can continue operations. That department will be moved over to the public safety building after it’s constructed.

Campbell said the Courthouse Square building is no longer suitable because the bottom level of the three-story parking garage is heaving upward because the slab was built on poor soil.

“Things are kind of deteriorating over there,” Campbell said.

The new building will have a small parking garage for some employees and the courthouse’s seven judges, but there will not be enough parking for all of the county’s workers. Campbell noted that the Crossroads Parking Garage operated by the Washington Parking Authority has ample space for county workers to park their cars, which they have already been doing for months with the closure of the Courthouse Square parking garage.

“We’re still going through the design and need to answer some questions, including with parking,” Donnelly said.

The county offered $4 million to purchase that garage from the parking authority last year, but that price was considered too low. The garage is owned by the city, Washington School District and county – the city and school district would receive the lion’s share of the sale revenue – and members of each government entity sit on the parking authority.

The parking authority rebuffed the $4 million offer and instead voted to perform its own appraisal hoping for a higher figure. However, the county walked away from the sale at that point and negotiations have been at a standstill since. It’s not known whether the county might re-engage the parking authority to purchase the garage at a higher price or continue to lease the available parking spots on behalf of county workers.