Design consultant tours existing facilities

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Representatives from Navigate Building Solutions, the recently-hired design criteria consultant, toured the Perry County Sheriff’s Department and Jail, both dispatch centers, the city of Perryville police department, the courthouse late last week.
Presiding commissioner Mike Sauer said it was a similar exercise to the assessment completed by Dille Pollard earlier in the year. It was an opportunity to “gather input from all of these groups, just to get up to speed, so they understand exactly what everybody’s needs, wants and have to haves are.”
On Oct. 7, individuals from the Navigate team explained to the commissioners how they are envisioning the process of assisting and guiding the county with this upcoming project, according to Sauer.
The tours of the existing facilities will serve as providing the consultant data to further inform the commissioners as they move toward making a final decision on a location and begin discussions about what the facility will eventually look like.
“They’re working on trying to gather on that information now and then they’re going to come back in a week or so with some recommendation and different things and we’ll go from there,” Sauer said.
Another factor to consider, Sauer noted, was determining what it would cost to put everything in the structure that is needed. The assessment of existing facilities provides Navigate officials with a clearer picture of what the present conditions are now and what they need to get to for the future facility.
“They came in and explained how they do business and how they’re going to handle all of this and go on from there,” Sauer said.
Sauer isn’t certain when the representatives from Navigate will be back to meet with the board. However, he is confident they’ll be giving the commissioners a direct plan of action.
“I’m sure when they come back they’re going to give us a recommendation on a site,” Sauer said.
The idea is to do core sampling on the final site, not on all three final locations in the running for the future justice center, Sauer noted.
One of the takeaways, Sauer said, is that the Navigate staff was impressed that the police department and sheriff’s department have already been in talks about ways to improve efficiencies and collaborate on cost sharing measures, such as sharing training areas and other spaces.
Part of the determining factor of choosing a site includes how shovel ready is it, how much dirt work needs done and is there any sewer, water and gas close, and if so is it enough to meet the facility’s need.
Other areas of discussion include entrances and overall cost.
With limited entry points to potential locations, this could drive up the acquisition cost, Sauer noted.

An optional traffic light to accommodate emergency vehicles - one scenario suggested at a public meeting earlier in the fall - could come with a large price tag, Sauer said.
“That’s another huge, huge expense, so we’ve got to get all these expense lined up and see what’s the most feasible,” he said. “If we have to spend half a million to a million dollars on entrances and stop lights and stuff like that, sewer, water and gas, then that’s half a million to a million that’s going to come out of the building.”
The more put into an entrance or infrastructure, then that cost would likely come out of the facility’s price, Sauer noted.
“We don’t want to downsize the building so small that we do the same thing the commission did last time and just build what they need for tomorrow. We want to build this thing for 25, 30 years down the line,” he said. “We’re looking at all t these sites trying to figure out how we can (accomplish that). Navigate is helping us shrink some of the stuff in that building so we don’t have a ton of wasted space. We want extra space but we don’t want wasted space
The Navigate team is seeking more usable options for space after seeing an initial site plan designed by DillePollard.
“They’ve got a calculation for jail cells they’re going to use to determine with the growth how many jail cells we’re going to need in the future, 20 years from now,” Sauer said. “They’re better at all of that than we are, we’re just trying to take a guess on what we need. They’ve got an actual calculation for that.”
Sauer thought the tours with the existing departments was a very worthwhile venture.
“They were asking all the different groups what they had to have, what their absolute needs are, what they feel they need in the next 10 to 20 years and what their wish list is,” he noted. “It’s a lot of processing to do and they’ve go the right people to handle that.
Perry County Clerk Jared Kutz further described the process with the design criteria consultant.
Upon securing their services, Todd Sweeney and the Navigate Building Solutions team went to work preparing our team for the Joint Justice Center project.
“Last week Navigate held multiple meetings over two full days, first educating our Construction Advisory Group on the design build process, taking tours of existing facilities and the holding space programming meetings with leadership and representatives of the Court System, County Sheriff Department, City Police Department, Prosecuting Attorney’s office, Emergency Management and 911 Dispatch,” Kutz noted. “The developing space programming allows for critical input from all offices and departments who will call the new facility home. Our ultimate goal is for those departments to take advantage of shared space and resources yet maintain their autonomy and operations in their individual departmental capacities.”
Kutz said Navigate’s architect and design build team will help the county’s long-term planning for the joint justice center.
“The process, from learning and application standpoints, while intense and complex, has been thorough and thought provoking,” Kutz said. “The team of architects and design build experts Navigate has assembled, specifically for this project, is impressive and ultimately will result in a facility that will serve our community for generations to come.”
The three locations still being considered include acreage on St. Joseph Street commonly referred to site E (old St. Boniface school), Highway 51 across from the Bank of Missouri Soccer Complex (site B) as well as property on Highway 51 directly across from the Elks Lodge. All three were graded on a more than a dozen development factors related to the project.