Demolishing the Okaloosa County Courthouse and constructing a new one are just two parts of the project. Before work begins, multiple county offices must be temporarily relocated — and that's just one reason why the project's price will increase.
CRESTVIEW — The current, $21 million or less estimate to raze the 1950s Oklaoosa County Courthouse and build a new one on the same site excludes shuffling offices around, Clerk of Court J.D. Peacock said.
As courthouse occupants prepare to move into temporary digs for the next two years, Public Works crews are preparing county-owned facilities to receive them.
“It’s going to be a big challenge,” county Facilities and Maintenance director James Puckett said. “We’ve made several plans about just who’s going where and then we keep changing them. I told everybody, ‘Don’t write anything in pen anymore.’”
It will cost more than $100,000 to move Peacock’s department into the former Okaloosa Memorial Hospital across the street. The office’s temporary home for the next two years needs fiber optic cables relocated, and IT equipment moved, set up and networked.
The location’s previous occupants — the county personnel, purchasing and risk management departments — had to move to former county extension offices on Old Bethel Road.
“The judges are going to move, except for one who’ll be in the new courthouse,” county public information officer Kathy Newby said. “The rest are going to be on the fourth floor of Water and Sewer (the county's Fort Walton Beach building). Those that require security are going to have to go to the south-end courthouse.”
“Effectively, court operations will stop at the Crestview courthouse the last week of March,” Peacock said.
“Hazardous material remediation, salvaging efforts and utility disconnections will commence immediately,” Newby said.
Shuffling all these departments around, along with designing and constructing the new courthouse, could push the project's cost to $24 or $25 million, Peacock said.
“The last presentation to the (board of county commissioners) had hard costs estimated under $21 million,” Newby said, citing Public Works data. “There is a substantial amount of design effort remaining that will bring clarity to that value, and the final cost is still yet to be precisely determined."
Once the current building is vacated, reusable materials, such as wall marble, are salvaged, and utilities are disconnected, the estimated demolition-reconstruction timeline is 15 to 18 months, Newby said.
“Then we’ll turn around (two years later) and move everybody back,” Puckett said with a chuckle.
WHO’S GOING WHERE?
While demolishing the 1950s courthouse and building its replacement, multiple county services will temporarily relocate. Here’s who’s going where:
Board of County Commissioners: North Okaloosa County meetings will move to Crestview City Hall
Clerk of Court: Services will move across U.S. Highway 90 to the former county hospital building
Human Resources, Purchasing, Risk Management: Moved from the former hospital to the former county extension office on Old Bethel Road
Judges and courts: One judge will move to the Fort Walton Beach courthouse. The other three will be in the Water and Sewer building
Contracts and grants: Moves to the Brackin Building on Wilson Street
Information Technology: Moves from the Brackin Building to the former county hospital
WHAT WILL IT COST?
$100,000: The cost to move Clerk of Court J.D. Peacock's department from the current courthouse to temporary offices in the former county hospital, Peacock said. A major expense is adding three-phase power to the small brick IT building beside the former hospital to run the clerk of court’s computer systems.
$400,000 to $450,000: Estimated costs to renovate the hospital space, former county extension offices on Old Bethel Road, the south county courthouse third floor and the Water and Sewer building's fourth floor in Fort Walton Beach, and to move various departments around, county Buildings and Facilities Director James Puckett said. “Once it’s there, it’s still going be utilized, so it’s not throwing money out the window,” Puckett said. “What we’re doing now is going to be permanent for other purposes and other departments.”
MOVING COSTS
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: New Crestview courthouse may cost $25 million