On Monday, Butler County commissioners approved going out for requests for qualifications to find architectural firms to design the first two projects, consolidating Coroner Dr. Lisa Mannix’s operations — she has offices in the GSC and leases space for the morgue — and expanding the sheriff’s 911 dispatch center.
The RFQ for the sheriff’s dispatch center notes the project is for an “expanded/modified or newly constructed” facility. A rough estimate from 2014 for the coroner’s combined operation was almost $3 million — which is unrealistic in today’s economy — for a 10,000 square-foot building. There never has really been a price tag — officials estimated it would cost $1.85 million renovate — to expand the dispatch center.
Commissioner Don Dixon told the Journal-News the cost for the two facilities will likely consume about half the capital reserve fund.
“My guess is the two combined is going to be $7 million and some change,” Dixon said. “If we put them both out at the same time, and get the same contractor, he doesn’t have to mobilize twice, and he’s already there, just moves the crews back and forth, we might get a pretty decent price.”
The county has been leasing warehouse space since 2003 for the morgue — at a total cost of $1.1 million —and almost since Mannix was elected in 2012, she has been seeking space that could house both the morgue and the coroner’s administrative offices.
The morgue is located on Fairgrove Avenue in Hamilton and the coroner’s administrative offices are on the sixth floor of the Government Services Center — about a mile and a half away. She told the Journal-News she is glad the time has finally come and this will be good for taxpayers.
“Having disjointed administrative and morgue functions is not efficient,” she said. “So from a taxpayers’ standpoint we’ve got duplicates. The investigators have offices here and they have an office at the morgue, so we can consolidate those.”
The need for morgue space
Mannix’s caseloads have also been growing, the RFQ referenced numbers from 2021 when they had 772 calls and 409 total cases. Last year they had 1,322 total calls and 449 total accepted cases.
The last time Mannix discussed the combined facilities with the commissioners, the pandemic was in full force — and it became evident the coroner’s facilities were inadequate for that type of crisis. The county morgue can hold 14 bodies, but the county as whole, including hospitals and funeral homes, only has 50 appropriate spaces.
In a mass-casualty emergency, the county coroner is responsible for finding storage space for bodies before they can be buried.
“The new facility will allow us to accommodate the caseload that we have, the increasing caseload,” Mannix said. “And looking at what the future, what our need is going to be, we spoke about the pandemic and the need for cold storage in Butler County, so that will benefit the citizens for the coroner’s office to be prepared for future mass casualties, whether it be a pandemic or a single incident.”
She said she is hoping for a 10,000 to 15,000 square-foot stand-alone facility. She said some of her specialized equipment could probably be moved to the new facility but at this early juncture she doesn’t know her exact needs.
The new coroner’s building is slated to go near the sheriff’s 911 dispatch center at the entrance to the Princeton Road complex that houses the Board of Elections, vacant Care Facility, Animal Friends Society and Development Disabilities.
According to the RFQ the sheriff’s dispatchers answer emergency police, fire and EMS calls and dispatch to and for nine law enforcement agencies and 17 fire/EMS agencies in Butler County, among other duties. They receive nearly 103,000 emergency 911 calls annually with an additional 147,515 incoming and 71,360 outgoing.
Chief Deputy Anthony Dwyer told the Journal-News they need to be cognizant of all the dispatch wiring and equipment, so it will be up to whomever is selected through the RFQ process to recommend the best course of action.
“It was talked about that you might just build off the end, or you might build around the building and expand it, or you might go vertical,” Dwyer said, and explained why both expansion and building new are options in the RFQ. “So we’ve had a wide variety, I would imagine they’ve written it just to be able to keep all their options open and let the experts decide what’s the best and most economical way to deal with it.”
He said they don’t have any plans to add staff at the moment but “anytime you’re doing a project like this you should design it with the thought of the next 10 to 20 years for expansion and growth.”
Next in the right-sizing process
The RFQs are due at the end of this month, and County Administrator Judi Boyko said the projects could be finished by the end of next year at the earliest.
“The commissioners have not yet defined additional phases to implementation of the real property inventory and space utilization study,” Boyko said. “I am having conversations and awaiting direction from the commissioners. I appreciate one of the objectives of the commissioners well before I arrived was consideration of the Administration Building.”
The commissioners have long discussed the need to co-locate the auditor, recorder and treasurer because people often need all three services. The treasurer is housed in the Government Service Center and the other two are at the Administration Building down the street.
The CBRE study includes a number of “scenarios” the company ranked according to cost, level of disruption and benefit. The study didn’t give cost estimates for any of the scenarios but gave some basic cost-per-square-foot figures. The company conducted interviews and focus groups with other office holders, departments and agencies as part of the fact finding mission.
The biggest potential moves in the study are building a new criminal justice complex — something no one seems to favor at least not in the foreseeable future — co-locating all of the social services agencies under Job and Family Services and emptying — and selling — the Administration Building.
About the Author