Construction and architectural consultants will meet with Shawano County department heads this month as they begin to create floor plans for the potential new courthouse, justice center and sheriff’s department buildings.
Kurt Berner, of The Samuels Group, said current plans show colored boxes where the buildings would be created, and Venture Architect staff members will soon develop floor plans for the departments in those buildings, as well as common areas.
“We’ll take these boxes and start to develop floor plans,” Berner told members of the Shawano County Public Property Committee on Dec. 11. “What that means is they’re going to take all of those programming spaces that they had, and they’re going to put them in a floor plan narrative, and then they’ll start to have feedback about adjacency between departments.”
A government center, justice center, a 150-bed housing pod for the jail and a building for new jail auxiliary services would be built on the two blocks directly west of the current courthouse and jail. Parts of West Third Street and North Washington Street would be vacated to accommodate the complex.
The sheriff’s department auxiliary building would include a sally port, booking area, kitchen and laundry facilities. It would be built between the existing sheriff’s department and the new housing pod.
“One of the biggest things is the connection from the existing jail over to the courts,” Berner said. “They’ve got to be able to get a secure corridor over to the courts. So what they’re going to do is develop floor plans for each department and then start to blend them together so we can have that finalized floor plan and elevations to give you some refined costs.”
He said the building dimensions could see changes based on needed flow space and common areas once designed.
He expected to have those floor plans for the committee’s January meeting.
Home purchases
Shawano County already owns most of the properties on the two blocks west of the courthouse and sheriff’s department. However, there are four properties that are still privately owned.
Berner said he doesn’t want those homes to hinder the layout of the new county buildings.
“We don’t want those limitations to change the design if it affects the flow and the efficiency of the building,” he said.
Committee members directed Nick Hesse, facilities management director, to make contact with owners of the homes at 217 W. Third St. and 211 W. Fourth St. regarding the potential purchase of the properties by the county.
According to Shawano County online tax records, Amber Hetzer owns the Third Street property, which has an assessed value of $82,400 and an estimated fair market value of $96,700. The Fourth Street property is owned by Meshan Latender and Pedro Guerrero Jr. It has an assessed value of $67,300 and an estimated fair market value of $79,000.
The other two privately owned properties are: 221 W. Third St., owned by Leonard Howell, $153,100 assessed value, $179,800 estimated fair market value; and 418 N. Franklin St., owned by Charles and Audrey Frangenberg, $141,700 assessed value, $166,400 estimated fair market value.
Berner said the latter two properties would most likely be needed down the road as well.
Library options
Berner said the consultants also met with the library board Dec. 8 to discuss library options in the master plan.
“Two of those options would be looking at the two churches that are for sale, and are those viable options,” he said.
As of Jan. 1, First Presbyterian Church and Peace United Church of Christ will join under the new name Fellowship Church of Shawano. A new site will be used for the church, as both buildings are now for sale.
Peace United Church of Christ has an asking price of $785,000. The church was built in 1957 and encompasses 13,424 square feet.
First Presbyterian Church has an asking price of $750,000. The building includes 14,841 square feet of space, and the site is 1.2 acres.
“We asked for their input,” Berner said of the library board. “They felt that Peace was a better option than Presbyterian, but we’re going to look at both of them.”
Tours of the two churches will be planned.
“The sizes of those buildings are around 14,000 square feet, and the program space for the library was over 30,000, so there would have to be a renovation and addition component to each one of them to match what that program space would be,” he said.
kpasson@newmedia-wi.com
