Shawano County supervisors were warned about sticker shock when it came time to discuss costs of constructing new county buildings.
They were presented with three options. Two included building a new jail, sheriff’s department, justice center, government offices and a library, while the third was to renovate the existing courthouse only.
Building everything new would cost $308 million, said Kurt Berner, of The Samuels Group, when he addressed the public property committee Oct. 16.
The first option is the total replacement of the jail, sheriff’s department, justice center, government offices and library.
“This one here is a replacement of all of your facilities that are on this campus and flip them to the west with the appropriate sizing,” Berner said.
This also includes building a new library east of the existing library, razing the existing library and making it into a parking lot.
The project would have five phases, and each will be broken down with a projected cost, hopefully next month.
“Option B is where we would go out by the work release center, and we would create the justice center out there,” Berner said.
The justice center is going to deal with the jail, the sheriff’s office, the courts and its support offices, and the work release center.
The next phase of that would be to build the balance of county government offices to the west of the courthouse.
There is also a possibility of building the government offices adjacent to the human services building on Anderson Avenue.
Another alternative with this option would be to place the new library next to the government offices if they are built west of the courthouse.
A final option would be to only renovate the current courthouse.
“When I say renovate the building, it would be renovating this courthouse,” Berner said. “This option here does not address anything to do with the jail; it’s just what do we do with the current courthouse.”
He said staff is still in the data gathering mode regarding constructing a juvenile facility.
The latest presentation included box diagrams of buildings. Once a final plan is chosen, Venture Architects staff will have more detailed layouts including floor plans.
Berner said that when more detailed floor plans are devised, the size of the buildings will likely decrease 10%, thereby saving millions without losing anything in the process.
A 15% contingency number is built in to allow for inflation by the time buildings begins.
“If you were to give us the green light today … we’re not building it until sometime next year,” Berner said.
To be determined yet would be a phasing of the work and how it would affect taxpayers, with the goal to keep the tax rate steady.
“If we’re going to wait on things, what aren’t we addressing and when can we pull the trigger on that,” Berner said. “Historically, that’s an eight- to 10-year period, but at least it gives you a road map.
“(Prior to 2020), we’ve seen construction inflation at about 6%,” he continued. “What happened from 2021-24 is that went to 31% when we’re talking about this sort of a building.”
Numbers have not yet been presented to the county’s bond counsel to determine a borrowing strategy and the impact on taxpayers.
Those numbers are expected in November.
kpasson@newmedia-wi.com
