Supervisors look at new construction near courthouse

The Plymouth County Supervisors Tuesday decided to pursue hiring an engineer to put together specifications for a proposed building to potentially be constructed at the site of the old jail in the southeast corner of the courthouse property.

Once the specifications are complete and approved by the supervisors, the project will be let for bids giving both local contractors and modular building designers the opportunity to bid.

"It could be modular, but it could also be stick built," said Supervisor Chairman Jim Henrich.

To meet the county's needs, the supervisors agreed the proposed structure would have a full basement and a pitched roof and be approximately 3,600 square feet, said Supervisor Craig Anderson.

"It's clearly proven that we are crammed in the courthouse," he said. "Some departments are worse than others and we are going to do what we can to alleviate those problems."

If a new building is constructed, the supervisors current plans include moving juvenile services there and out of its cramped quarters on the second floor of the courthouse.

"Everything they do is with juveniles and so confidential," Anderson said. "We need to get them in another environment where they have more confidentiality."

The supervisors also discussed moving the zoning, sanitarian and economic development offices currently in the lower level of the courthouse to the new building to give Darin Raymond, county attorney, more space.

"The office Darin currently uses was supposed to be a conference room. What used to be the file room is shared by two of his support staff," Anderson said. "We have two people working in a sort of a closet."

The proposed building would also have a conference room that could be used by departments remaining in the courthouse as well as those in the new building, Anderson said.

To build the structure at the site of the old jail will require a variance from the city, which Anderson and Henrich will pursue.

"I like the idea of having it on site because no matter what, those departments all work together," Henrich said.

The supervisors also considered cost to construct a new building.

They already set aside $100,000 in the current budget and $200,000 in next year's in Local Option Sales Tax money for a building project, Anderson said.

"We're going to try to do it without any kind of bond issue," Henrich said. "But that's still being decided depending on how much it costs."

Along with setting aside money for a building project, the supervisors also allocated some dollars for a scanning project. That would include scanning paper documents into electronic files.

"We hope to use part of the space that was vacated by the juvenile services for a courthouse scanning project," Anderson said. "Hopefully the scanning project will reduce the paper load and the storage load at the courthouse."

Also on Tuesday the supervisors decided to give the clerk of courts first dibs for storage space in the recently cleaned out basement of the Department of Human Services building, 19 Second Ave. N.W.

Not necessarily in favor of constructing a new building, Supervisor C. Gordon Green would have liked to see an addition to the courthouse but said it is time to move forward.

An addition was found to be cost prohibitive as the new exterior would have to match the courthouse because the building is on the National Register of Historic Places.

"We've been talking about it a long time," Green said. "It's time we do something."

Anderson said the supervisors are aware of the space problems at the courthouse and, although a new building may not be the "exact" solution, it is a start.

"This is something we can afford to do," Anderson said. "It will alleviate the situation. I think it will buy us a substantial amount of time."