The Will County Board Thursday officially turned down the offer of a free building intended to help take the pressure off cramped county offices.
“It’s strictly an economic decision,” said County Board member John Johnsen (R-Wilmington), who in June suggested to First Chicago Bank of Joliet that it donate a two-story office building and parking deck in the city’s downtown area for the tax write-off.
But Johnsen said Thursday that the idea is dead.
Based on an engineering study requested by Johnsen’s Capital Improvements Committee of the County Board, the nearly $5 million cost of renovating the 60-year-old building makes the project impractical.
After the engineering study was received two weeks ago, county officials began looking into the possibility of accepting the donation and tearing down the structure to create a site for construction of a new office building.
But that, too, has been ruled out, Johnsen said.
“Yesterday the committee met with representatives of First Chicago and the (county) executive and the consensus was that it would be impractical,” Johnsen said. “The bank asked that consideration be withdrawn.”
Johnsen said earlier that county officials had hoped that the building at 120 Scott St., two blocks from the county courthouse and about the same distance from the county office building, could be converted to county offices for about $1 million.
But the cost came in at $4.7 million to outfit the 65,000-square-foot structure and adjacent parking deck as government buildings, which must include provisions for use by the disabled.
The $4.7 million cost approaches the price tag for new construction, Johnsen said.
Initially, bank officials has sought to sell the building to the county for $1.2 million, but they did not come forward until after a survey of local landlords had been completed.
Saying it would be unfair to reopen the process, Johnsen suggested the bank donate the building in exchange for the tax write-off, which can amount to 100 percent of the market value of structures donated for government use.
