Construction of Will County’s new public safety complex is “slightly ahead of schedule,” officials said this week, as structural steel begins to define the shape of the new facility at Laraway Road and Route 52 in Joliet.
It is the first of three major construction projects county officials are juggling this year.
The new $32 million complex, which will house the offices of the Will County sheriff and the Emergency Telephone System Board, and include a new consolidated 911 dispatch for 31 police and fire agencies, is expected to be substantially completed by the end of 2017.
Meanwhile, the planning team will “nail down the final design” of the new courthouse by Feb. 3, said architect Jason Dwyer, of Wight and Company, at a recent meeting of the county board’s capital improvements committee.
Officials will then provide cost estimates to make sure “it is a building we can afford,” said David Tkac, deputy chief of staff for County Executive Larry Walsh, who is overseeing the construction projects.
The county board set a price of $195 million for the new courthouse, which could go out for bid in September, with construction beginning as soon as the public safety complex is completed.
Some sheriff’s department employees are temporarily housed in the former First Midwest Bank building, now owned by the county. That will be torn down to create space for the new courthouse on the southwest corner of Ottawa and Jefferson in downtown Joliet.
For its third project, the county is now seeking architects and engineers to design a new facility for the health department and has requested that qualifications be submitted by the end of January.
Tkac said they will ask consultants to consider the current location, near Richards Street and Mills Road in Joliet, and explore other sites as well.
Officials also must consider what services the health department should continue to offer.
The future of the existing courthouse building was also a topic of discussion, as committee members will weigh the cost of demolition verse repurposing the 50-year-old, four-story structure.
The county has been consolidating its offices, and eliminating rented spaces with a goal of creating a “urban county campus,” said committee chair Ragan Freitag, R-Wilmington.
The county’s administrative offices were initially housed in the courthouse, before moving to a former department store at 302 N. Chicago St. Freitag suggested that they might move back to the courthouse site.
The courthouse could be used to house specialty courts, such as child advocacy, drug, and mental health cases, which are growing, said Nick Palmer, Walsh’s chief of staff, adding that it could also house the offices of the public defender and probation.
Wight and Company will explore future uses for the courthouse, but Dwyer noted that the building does have maintenance issues.
