The Portage County Space and Properties Committee received an update on ongoing courthouse and law enforcement center projects and a preview of a public project website during a committee meeting. Chris Schulz, the county procurement director, and Maria Davis, the county clerk overseeing the website effort, outlined schedules, early design status and near-term procurement needs.

The update matters because the projects encompass major county facilities — the courthouse and the law enforcement center — and involve contracts, utility upgrades and safety work that will affect construction timelines and future operations.

Committee members were told the facilities renovation work is advancing through schematic design, with a large design team that includes the district court administrator, Department of Corrections representatives and outside consultants. "We're still early in the design," said Chris Schulz, procurement director. He described frequent coordination between design and operations teams to align space needs, staffing requirements and technical standards.

The facilities director (name not specified) reported progress on the building fit-out: "It's really starting to look like an office building," the director said, and gave delivery dates for furniture and fit-out milestones. Lower-level furniture was scheduled to be completed on June 13; an upper-level shipment is expected July 7 with anticipated completion by Aug. 4. The director also said lower-level ceilings and painting work are complete and that startup of boilers is awaiting a gas-service upgrade: "WPS needs to upgrade the gas service to [14] inches water column," the director said.

Officials flagged several near-term projects and constraints. The committee was told a safety upgrade for courthouse elevators is planned as soon as possible after staff discovered a snapped bolt at a lower elevator component; annex chiller replacement work and temporary courthouse replacements are scheduled for 2026. Schulz said the jail site will require geotechnical work and soil borings and warned that the associated contract could exceed $25,000, requiring procurement action.

Schulz described the scale of the professional team involved — architects, engineers and specialty consultants including Dewberry — and said the county has engaged criminal-justice stakeholders such as the Department of Corrections and the district court. He said the schematic design phase is currently focused on space needs rather than detailed programming and that staffing analyses are being considered together with design choices so the county can balance operational costs and building function.

Maria Davis presented a draft project website designed to centralize project information and periodic executive reports. She said the site is "in its draft phase" and will break content into three building categories (Ruth Guilfri Center, Portage County Courthouse and the law enforcement center) with living updates during construction. County staff said executive summaries will be published approximately every two weeks during active construction and that the website should go live within a few weeks so the public can access timelines, frequently asked questions and documents.

Committee members asked about flexibility for future expansion, value-engineering considerations and energy-efficiency measures. Schulz said modularity and classifications that affect bed counts are being considered with input from corrections experts, and that value engineering is a later-stage activity once design development clarifies priorities. Energy-efficiency and feasibility/payback for sustainable systems are being reviewed as part of design decisions.

For transparency and process, the committee noted the meetings will continue frequently during the projects' active phases and that some contracts may require two committee meetings (one to clarify scope and a second to approve a contract). The committee approved the Space and Properties minutes from May 6, 2025, on a motion by Anglston; the minutes motion passed by voice vote. The committee tentatively set its next meeting for July 1, 2025, while retaining flexibility to meet earlier or later for time-sensitive contracts.

No formal policy decisions or construction contracts were approved at the meeting; the discussion focused on design progress, site investigations and public-information steps.