HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The five-member Board of County Commissioners will have its final member, John Whitesel, sworn in on Tuesday morning and then the board will get right to work, with the biggest piece of business being figuring out what to do about the bid for the interior courthouse renovations.
The original estimate from GLMV Architects for the project was around $1.2 million. The lone bidder on the project, Ward Davis Builders, bid $2.126 million.
This is a large project. According to agenda documents, here is what would be done, broken down by floor.
Fifth Floor - Take space on the 5th floor currently used for storage in an area that was the courthouse's original jail area and renovate for office space and a conference room to allow for all of the DA's staff to be on the same floor for convenience.
Fourth/Fifth Floor - Create a stairway between the two floors as a second means of escape in case of a fire.
Third Floor - Modify a room for court to allow for an additional witness/jury room.
Second Floor/Mezzanine - Move the current Kansas Legal Services personnel to the fourth floor in the area being vacated by the DA's staff. Then modify the office area on the 2nd floor to allow for an office and conference room. A large expense of this renovation project is the proposed walkway to be built between the current Kansas Legal Services area to the mezzanine on the north side of the courthouse that will meet ADA requirements and the use of an elevator to access the mezzanine. Make small changes to the mezzanine area for new flooring and outlets that will allow for work stations to be placed on the mezzanine.
First Floor - Add additional office spaces on the north side of the building where Human Resources and Administration are located that will better utilize the space available. The additional offices would allow for the work stations in the middle of the first floor to be in an office area for privacy and to allow for other uses in the common space. The county counselor and his staff would move to the north side of the building to work in conjunction with the administration office and allow for the Reno Conference Room to return as a conference room.
Reno County has created a capital reserve fund that can handle this bid, but staff recommends discussing the project to see if there are cost saving measures.
Harlen Depew met with the contractor and the architect to discuss the bid to get a more thorough explanation of the costs.
The majority of the cost for renovations are focused on the 5th floor addition, along with the stairway to the 4th floor, and the small jury room modification on the 3rd floor.
Items that might be pulled from the project or done following the results of the space study with SJCF, include the first-floor modifications and the walkway that would connect the Mezzanine area to elevator access.
The meeting of the Board of County Commissioners will begin Tuesday at 9 a.m. at the Reno County Annex.
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