12/21/06 - County plans new health building

(As published in Cortland Standard, Corey Preston reporting)

The $5.5 million facility would be constructed on the lot of the former Moose Lodge on south Main Street.

The county announced plans Wednesday to build a $5.5 million public health facility on south Main Street, the latest in a series of public and private projects aimed at revitalizing the area.

Image by Barton and Loguidice P.C.
A street-level rendering of south Main Street shows the proposed two-story public health facility.

The 15,300-square-foot building, which would be on the lot currently occupied by the vacant Moose Lodge at 159 Main St., would house both the county’s public health department and its mental health department, County Administrator Scott Schrader said. The Legislature will vote tonight on acquiring 2.46-acres, spread across nine different parcels owned by six different people, needed for the project. The property acquisition, if approved by the Legislature, will cost the county $894,000.
The county can use $3 million in tobacco settlement bonds it has been holding to pay for a portion of the project, Schrader said, but will need to bond for the remainder over a 30-year period.
The county currently leases space for the Mental Health Department in the former Masonic Temple on Clayton Avenue at a cost of approximately $100,000 per year.
Schrader suggested the cost of repaying the bond over a 30-year period would be less than maintaining that lease agreement.
“I can’t imagine having to put any more money into the budget to pay for this project,” he said. County Mental Health Administrator Michael Kilmer agreed with Schrader, saying his department would save money with the new building.
“It’s like throwing money into the wind,” Kilmer said of the department’s current situation. “We’re really excited about this because we’ll finally be able to offer the services the community needs, and it’ll all be in one building, our building.”
Many county and city officials on hand at a news conference Wednesday lauded the proposal as a way to continue to develop and promote downtown Cortland.
Legislator Ron Van Dee (D-5th Ward), who represents that area of the city, said the project would be a welcomed improvement. “That’s an area that really needs cleaning up and I think this fits right in with what they’re trying to do down there,” Van Dee said.
Linda Hartsock, executive director of the Business Development Corporation, said the city’s $6 million south Main Street rehabilitation project has helped draw investment to the area, and suggested the county’s project would do the same.
“I think we sometimes undervalue the role the public sector plays as a priming pump for private sector investment,” Hartsock said. Mayor Tom Gallagher agreed. “I think it can be a real positive for that area,” Gallagher said. “The possibility of new businesses looking to locate there from the medical field is great for downtown, and I think it fits in nicely with all the visions we’ve had for the South End.”
Schrader said the county had been committed to locating the facility in the city.
Approximately 200 county employees would wind up working at the proposed facility, Schrader said, and roughly another 200 patients would frequent the facility daily.
Parking was a primary concern for the initial conceptual designs, according to John Donohue, vice president of Barton and Loguidice P.C., the engineers who developed the designs. “The county needed around 200 total spaces, so we had to really look at how we could do that with limited space,” Donohue said. The preliminary plans call for 166 on-site parking spaces, with another 38 available on the street, within the required 300 feet of the building.
Schrader said the county had been as anonymous as possible in bidding for the properties, and was pleased with the $894,000 price tag, although the properties have an assessed value of $646,000. “I don’t think the cost is very far out of whack, I think we got fair market value,” Schrader said. “If somebody is selling a property, you have some leeway to negotiate the cost down, but if they’re not actively selling and you’re approaching them to buy the property, you’re going to have to pay for it.”
Beyond the nine parcels named Wednesday, a handful of other property owners were approached with potential purchase offers, Schrader said, but they were either asking for too much or didn’t respond to the county’s inquiries.
Because the parking area behind the proposed facility could benefit from acquiring those properties, Schrader said he would bring any potential offers from those property owners to the Legislature as the project progresses.
The county’s potential purchase of the properties would represent an approximately $10,800 loss in tax dollars to the city, said Andy Damiano, director of administration and finance for the city.
For a home assessed at $80,000, the loss of the properties from the tax rolls would mean an annual increase in city taxes of about $2.50, Damiano said. “The impact is very minimal, but the potential positive impact is worth consideration,” Damiano said. “If it helps development along that corridor, we can more than make up the $10,000.”
Should the Legislature approve the purchase of the properties, Schrader said that initial demolition work on the project could begin this spring, with a final completion date of December 2008, which is when the Mental Health Department’s lease runs out for the property on Clayton Avenue.