Washington County eyes Orchard Hill, Federation Bank for facilities

The Washington County Board of Supervisors hashed out options to relocate various county facilities at a work session Tuesday morning, eventually signaling interest in constructing new buildings on county-owned land at Orchard Hill in Washington.

“I think it’s time that we get serious about this because we all know that we need to,” board Chair Richard Young said. “We’ve been talking to an architect firm, and I think that’s what brought this conversation together today.”

The move comes as county department leaders say they need more space to do their work.

“In general, we have some real space issues,” County Auditor Dan Widmer said. “Through the years, staffs have increased in size and that’s been a part of it, and with the record storage that we have to have, it’s just resulted in some real space issues.”

Department heads brought up several issues with their current buildings’ constraints, including a lack of courthouse privacy for legal counsel, insufficient space in the auditor’s office to process absentee ballots and a capped capacity for Public Health department, among others.

The board considered buying existing buildings for office space, including the current Federation Bank, the soon-to-be-unoccupied Washington middle school and the old YMCA building.

Board member Marcus Fedler said building new facilities would be more expensive but ensure longevity beyond the aging pre-owned buildings on the table, all three of which are over 90 years old.

“I think if you’re not building new, you’re not even considering 15 years down the road,” he said. “The idea that, ‘We can’t possibly renovate this building, it’s impossible,’ but then they turn around and, ‘Hey, we want to sell it to you!’ is ridiculous.”

Orchard Hill, as county-owned land, was the natural choice for constructing new county facility buildings.

“What I think this Martin Gardner architecture firm should do is figure out how to put county services in Orchard Hill,” Fedler said. “Renovate the buildings that are there, add square footage if we need it, put everybody in one place, maybe fix the parking situation. Then you have something that’s all in one location.”

Board Chair Richard Young said funding for the move would almost certainly require explicit public approval.

“Almost anything we’re going to do is going to be a bond issue,” he said. “You’ve got a $500,000 limit, unless you do a reverse referendum.”

Young said the board would move at its next meeting to hire the architecture firm for an assessment of the Federation Bank building and Orchard Hill before picking a solution.

“I think next week we need to be ready to make a decision, at least get the ball rolling” he said. “We need to discuss hiring Martin Gardner to do that study.”

County Auditor Dan Widmer said the costs for the bank and Orchard Hill assessments would be $7,400 and $6,200, respectively.