Commission reduces potential sites to three

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A detailed site evaluation has given the Perry County Board of Commissioners clear direction on the three “finalist” locations of a joint justice center. Mike Pollard and Annie Criddle of Dille Pollard Architects, which has been assisting the commission throughout the planning process, discussed the site evaluations at a Sept. 2 meeting.
The top three locations, after listening to input from elected officials and conducting a thorough 14-point ranking process, include:
• Site B - Highway 51 bypass across from the Bank of Missouri Soccer complex. This site is commonly referred to as the Rozier’s Property, as the owner, Rozier’s is willing to sell a portion of the property. Perry County Clerk Jared Kutz said the county is looking for four to six acres.
• Site E - This is the property located north of St. Joseph Street, west of Church Street and owned by St. Joe Properties and PSP Incorporated. The site is commonly referred to as the Emmendorfer property or Old St. Boniface and is approximately 6.65 acres. Additional properties on this block are for sale as well, according to Kutz.
• Site G - Highway 51 bypass across from the Elks Lodge. This is called the Pfaff property and is approximately 5.81 acres.
“I believe the sites themselves are more important than how the rendering of the building would sit on them,” Kutz said. “Once a site is selected and purchased, the commission will take into account the property and how a facility, including of our required space will fit on that property.”
Pollard and his group are preparing a PowerPoint presentation to go along with an informative handout about the findings of the specific locations for the future justice center.
“There were seven sites and after we did this survey amongst the people that are going to be housed inside, these were the top three they came up with,” said presiding commissioner Mike Sauer. “That should take a lot of question out of everybody’s mind.”

A summary sheet on all the seven of the available sites was to be prepared ahead of Thursday’s public hearing.
“Here’s everything, now we’re going to cover the top three because there were actually four that didn’t even get to that level,” Pollard said. “Feel free to pick up a hand out on the way out, where we’ve got the data for the rest of them.”
Buerck proposed having city engineer Tim Baer prepare an analysis on possible street improvement costs. Included in this analysis would be access and infrastructure costs.
Eliminated from consideration at the Sept. 2 meeting were sites A, C, D and F.
Toward the end of the discussion, the topic of notifying the top three location owners came up. The owners of other locations were to be notified they were out of consideration.
Perryville Mayor Ken Baer didn’t think an appraisal for all three locations would be needed at this time. No negotiation with any of the owners of the three finalists has started, though that could be coming soon.
“If we’re doing our job, we should go to all three sites and get a bottom dollar price, so we can plug it in as we look at this,” said Perryville city administrator Brent Buerck. “What is going to take to get this property? You’re one of three, what’s your number?”
Buerck likes how site E has “access literally from every side,” which he added gives both the architect and designer “a lot of flexibility in how you keep everybody safe.”
“Location, location, location, that’s the most important thing,” Ken Baer said.