MOUNT VERNON — The cost of rented county facilities has been in the news lately, with some parties expressing surprise at the $11.50 per-square-foot cost of floor space on Harcourt Road rented by the county for the OSU Extension Agency.
This figure and other rates were brought into the discussion Wednesday when Knox County Commissioners Robert Wise and Allen Stockberger joined Clerk of Courts Mary Jo Hawkins and Bureau of Motor Vehicles director Sam Barone in meeting with Tim Geiger at Geiger’s facility at 1025 Harcourt Road.
Hawkins and Barone wanted to examine the space Geiger has for rent, to consider whether it might serve as a potential future home to the clerk’s office and the BMV, if they should ever relocate. Both offices have a current lease at their North Sandusky Street location. After discussing the possibilities of altering the existing space at the Harcourt Road building to fit the needs of the combined offices, it was agreed it was a potentially workable location, although several locations will be vetted before any actions are taken.
Hawkins said her office uses about 880 square feet; the BMV uses about 1,500. The Highway Patrol Exam Station, also housed in the same building, uses just over 1,100 square feet. The Harcourt Road facility offers about 3,000 square feet total, but also has the possibility of moving some records storage into elevated racks.
Wise pointed out that the going rate for the space being considered by the BMV and title office was $6 per square foot, considerably less than the $11.50 rate approved for the Extension Office, which is located on the far side of the same building. He said the Extension rate was different because it included cleaning services in that rate, building alterations and expansions, as well as scheduling authority and free usage of a 1,200-square-foot conference room.
Stockberger added that it should also be kept in mind that the previous home of the Extension Office a decade and a half ago cost $14 per square foot at that time, and that the commissioners have arranged agreements which have kept the cost well below that rate ever since.
“It simply wouldn’t be practical to move every county function into the Service Center [on High Street in Mount Vernon], even if we had the room,” Stockberger said, citing issues of disruption to current operations, parking convenience and human traffic flow-through. He did note that some discussion has been made over the years about relocating the Extension Office to the Knox County Fairgrounds, although this has never been undertaken because of reservations about access and convenience.
The $6 rate for the empty space at 1025 Harcourt Road would not include cleaning, and the tenant would be responsible for all improvements.
Stockberger and Wise said they would support the move if the Clerk of Courts, BMV and Highway Patrol, which did not have a representative present at the meeting Wednesday, elected to make a change at a comparable rate to what they currently pay. Barone said they were only in the preliminary stages of research and that no final decision was imminent.
