Columbia County moves ahead on 11 Warren Street renovation; staff to pre-purchase building items to use ILS funding

Columbia County supervisors on the floor heard an update from county facilities staff and approved a measure to purchase materials and services tied to the interior renovation of the county office building at 11 Warren Street.

At a board meeting, staff member Ray Joukowsky told supervisors the project’s 75% construction documents were under review and that an outside cost-estimating firm, Tropiclent, concluded the construction work remains “within budget,” which the project documents list as $5,100,000. Joukowsky said the county has received just over $780,000 in funding through ILS to support renovations tied to the public defender and conflict defender offices and that ILS set timing requirements for obligating and using those funds. “The appropriation as far as the expenditures need to be obligated by March 31 of this year of 2025, and they need to be going down by June 29,” Joukowsky said.

To avoid losing that funding, Joukowsky said staff identified building-wide items that can be pre-purchased outside of the general contractor bid—products such as cubicles, ceiling tile, carpet tile, baseboard, and bathroom accessories—and sought ILS approval to obligate those purchases. “They agreed to those items, and they went a little bit further identifying that they are willing to pay for…building wide expenditures such as the architectural fees, security cameras, fire alarm systems,” Joukowsky said. He added that some systems (for example, fire alarms and key fobs) will remain contract work rather than county-install items.

Joukowsky outlined a schedule his office and the design team are following: receive 95% construction documents on April 7, allow roughly 10 days for internal review, meet with consultants around April 20, finalize documents by May 12 and put the project out to bid, obtain bids by June 27, present resolutions to the full board on July 9, and begin construction on Sept. 8. “The goal is to then obtain bids by June 27,” he said. The proposed construction start date is September 8, which staff said was chosen to reduce potential conflicts with summer work and to avoid weather impacts on concrete and other exterior work.

Chairman Matt Morrell responded to questions about committee involvement and the project’s planning. Morrell said the space-utilization work reflected direction given earlier by the board and that architects and department heads had developed layouts under that direction; he added the board will reconvene the space-utilization committee to discuss backfilling the vacated building once moves are complete. “We instructed Ray and the department heads to all work together with the design consultants to design what they wanted,” Morrell said.

The board approved a resolution authorizing the purchase of materials and services associated with renovations at 11 Warren Street (Resolution 117 of 2025). The resolution was presented in the special public works/finance packet and adopted by voice vote during the meeting.

Officials said pre-purchasing standardized materials and using state bid/approved vendors should help ensure consistent spare parts and compatibility across county facilities. Joukowsky said procurement has included state-bid pricing and quotations from private vendors, worked through central services, and that the pre-purchase approach is intended to preserve the ILS funding allocation for the county’s renovation work.

The update also noted that the county engaged a third-party estimator as part of the architect selection and contract documents to get a contractor-style budget estimate early in the design process; Joukowsky said that approach reflected lessons learned from the county’s recent 911 center renovation.

Next steps for the project include finishing the 95% documents review, circulating final bid documents in mid-May, conducting a pre-bid walk-through, and returning to the full board with contract award resolutions in July. The board’s resolution to purchase materials tonight authorizes staff to proceed with the pre-purchases that staff said are necessary to meet the ILS timing requirements.