- April 29, 2024
-
-
Loading
Loading
The planned Flagler County Sheriff’s Operations Center on an 8.4-acre parcel of land off Commerce Parkway will be two stories and 51,615 square feet, with room for an additional 30,000 square feet of expansion in the future. County commissioners voted unanimously to give the proposal their support during a Dec. 7 meeting.
"This is really a perfect location, and by angling the building we take into account the future and the current [needs] today."
— RICK STALY, Flagler County sheriff
The proposed building would be about twice the size of the FCSO’s evacuated former headquarters, and would cost an estimated $20 million.
An earlier proposal for a new Sheriff’s Office building, when the county had planned for it to be an enhanced district office on Palm Coast Parkway rather than a formal Operations Center in Bunnell, had been for $12 million to $15 million.
“The location is great, because once the future Commerce Parkway bypass is built, then deputies leaving can go north, they can go south into Bunnell — it’s near fleet maintenance, it’s near fuel, it’s near the courthouse, it’s near the EOC, it’s near the dispatch center and it’s near the county administration,” Sheriff Rick Staly said at the meeting. “So this is really a perfect location, and by angling the building we take into account the future and the current [needs] today.”
The Sheriff’s Office’s staff has been divided between multiple county buildings ever since the FCSO evacuated its previous Operations Center in the summer of 2018 due to concerns that the structure, a former hospital that had been renovated for the FCSO’s use, was a sick building that was causing employee illnesses.
“We are very spread out and decentralized, which brings its own problems,” Staly said.
The cost estimates on the proposed new building aren’t final, but the county administration estimates that paying for it will require a $20 million bond, paid over 15 years, County Administrator Jerry Cameron said.
If the building were to cost several hundred thousand more than that, he said, the county could cover the difference with reserves. The bond money would come out of sales tax money, he said. COVID-19-related labor and material fluctuations are making projections difficult.
“It’s what you don’t know that always complicates things, and when we did these original projections, they were very conservative,” Cameron said. “But nobody had ever heard of COVID at the time, and it has created an entirely different picture than we were operating off of. It appears that that will get worse before it gets better, in terms of prices and availability of materials and craftsmen, so it behooves us to move forward with it.”
The proposed building was designed by the Architects Design Group, which has designed many other law enforcement buildings in Florida.
Commissioners largely approved of the building they saw displayed in renderings during the meeting, with one exception: It lacked a secondary entrance to the secure staff parking area.
“I don’t like that,” Commissioner Greg Hansen said. “Seems to me, for safety, your guys need more than one entrance and exit.”
A secondary entrance had been a major topic of conversation in the FCSO’s Zoom meetings about the proposed building, Staly said.
“It’s really going to depend on what the budget comes in — that we have a budget limitation,” Staly said. Staly said it may be possible to leave a secondary gravel entrance that could later be converted into a paved one when the county has money for the upgrade.
“If I had to bet money today, I’d bet that by the time this building is constructed, that we would have something,” Cameron said, “even if it is a stabilized area that would represent another entry point for the deputies.”
But with the FCSO currently as cramped as it is, he added, “We can’t wait to kick this project off until all those questions are answered.”
Former County Commissioner Charlie Ericksen, speaking during the meeting’s public comment period, urged the county to move forward.
“I think we need to get into second and third gear,” Ericksen said. “The sheriff should have all his men and women in one location.”
