- April 26, 2024
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Construction of the planned $19 million Sheriff’s Operations Center site is now expected to end almost a year later than previously anticipated.
"I think that it is incredible that we maintained as much of a schedule as we did, with everything shutting down during COVID."
— JERRY CAMERON, Flagler County administrator
The County Commission, late last year, approved a construction timeline that was expected to end with completion in November 2021. But a new guaranteed maximum price contract approved by the County Commission at a June 21 meeting listed a completion date of October 2022.
County Administrator Jerry Cameron said COVID-19 had affected material prices and caused labor shortages.
"I think that it is incredible that we maintained as much of a schedule as we did, with everything shutting down during COVID," Cameron said at the meeting. "The great news here is that this portion of the contract is coming in exactly on budget."
Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly and his staff have been displaced since the summer of 2018, when the agency evacuated its previous Ops Center on State Road 100 due to concerns that mold or other contaminants were responsible for staff members' illnesses.
The county government is responsible for providing facilities for the sheriff, and had created the former Ops Center from the bones of an old hospital that sat empty for years before the county renovated it for the Sheriff's Office's use in 2015.
When FCSO employees began reporting bizarre illnesses, staff members pressed for an evacuation, saying the structure was a sick building. The county government conducted multiple rounds of environmental testing on the building, but ultimately decided to get rid of it and start over — leaving the law enforcement agency temporarily homeless.
As they wait for their new Operations Center, FCSO staff members have been divided between an administrative facility at the county jail and at the county courthouse, where they've been competing with Clerk of Courts staff for space.
Staly and Clerk of Courts Tom Bexley have both pressed the County Commission to act swiftly to shift the FCSO's staff to a more workable location.
Staly was present, but didn't speak, during the commission's June 21 meeting.
County Commissioner Andy Dance had noted that the projection's completion date had shifted, and asked about the reason for the delay.
Ajax Operations Manager Lon Neuman replied that design and pricing issues had delayed completion of the design, pushing back the start of construction.
The contract approved at the June 21 meeting, for $2.91 million, covers the first phase of the work: site work and utilities. Ajax will return to the county in September with another guaranteed maximum price contract for the rest of the project.
The two-story, 51,615-square-foot Operations Center will be constructed on an 8.4-acre parcel of land near the county's Government Services Building on State Road 100.
