County reviews downtown and industrial-park master-plan options for justice and law-enforcement complex

Venture Architects presented multiple master-plan options for locating a future justice center, law enforcement facilities and related county functions, showing tradeoffs between downtown infill and a greenfield site in the industrial park.

The architect, Corey (Venture Architects), said the downtown options vary by which facilities come first and how much parking to keep or remove. "Your existing parking lot is right around 40 stalls. With this option... we have 45 public stalls, and then I'll call it 9 sheriff stalls," Corey said. He showed an alternate downtown option that would convert the existing surface lot to a parking structure with "42 stalls per floor" and noted an estimator figure: "approximately $50,000 per stall." Corey added, "So you're looking at over $4,000,000 for a 2 story parking structure."

Corey described layouts that would preserve a secure connection between law enforcement, the jail and existing courtrooms, and that allow a justice center or law enforcement center to be built first in different sequences. He emphasized flexibility: several options would permit later infill or vertical expansion so a justice center could be added above a law-enforcement facility in the future.

On the industrial-park (greenfield) site, Corey said the parcel "does fit pretty well on this site," but noted mapped wetlands and areas of low elevation. He flagged potential design responses: "We do have enough space for that to accommodate that. I'm not showing all the parking, but, yeah, definitely, we can have, like, the sheriff's parking... We can get a little bit more detailed into that option as well." He also said a fleet garage and separated staff parking areas were possible on that site.

Southwest Regional Planning Commissioner Troy Nagy, who spoke during the discussion of the industrial-parcel option, raised two concerns drawn from regional constructability work: the green area Corey had shown included the mapped 500-year floodplain, and "the rivers, they don't care about the floodplains," he said. Nagy said that in the Viola area the water has exceeded mapped limits during extreme events and that floodplain mapping can understate actual risk. He also told the committee the parcel's records show "2 archeological sites, Native American archaeological sites on that parcel," and that State Historic Preservation Office review would be required.

Board members asked about site grading, stormwater and retention ponds; Corey said runoff and on-site retention would be part of civil engineering design. Mister Manning (identified in the meeting as highway commissioner) noted flood events at an Industrial Drive intersection and asked explicitly whether elevation and runoff had been addressed. Corey said those considerations would be factored into design and that retention ponds could be used to mitigate runoff toward wetlands.

Committee members also asked whether EMS or a future fire station could be incorporated; Corey said EMS could be included in the greenfield square footage. Several members urged the team to share the presentation images outside the meeting; Corey agreed to send the files to the committee administrator, Trish.

The committee did not take a formal vote on site selection. Members discussed next steps including additional study, circulating the architect's images, and continuing evaluation of downtown infill versus the industrial-park site.

Ending: The committee directed staff to collect the presentation materials and circulate them to members; no final site decision was made and further follow-up was scheduled.