Could land sale get new Kane County morgue built?

There are two competing visions for the future of the Kane County morgue.

One vision sees the existing morgue as a flawed building that embarrasses the county every time a member of the public must go there to identify a loved one. The facility is too small, especially in light of the rising death toll from drug overdoses every year.

It's prone to infrastructure failures. Malfunctioning freezers, a black mold scare and the stench of decomposing bodies leaching out to the broader county campus plagued the former laundry-turned-morgue in recent years.

This is the vision driving Coroner Rob Russell and some county board members, like Drew Frasz, to call for the opening of a new morgue within the next 18 to 24 months.

"It's a pretty black-and-white issue," Frasz told fellow board members this week. "This county needs to recognize that we have, if not an emergency issue with the coroner's office, at least a very serious issue."

Addressing that involves selling 28 acres of dormant county land along Fabyan Parkway near Geneva. The hope is a sale would provide a chunk of the cash needed for a new morgue, which would be built somewhere on the existing main judicial center campus outside St. Charles.

The day that morgue opens would mark the fulfillment of the No. 1 priority on Russell's list when he ran for re-election in 2016.

The competing vision also is to improve operations at the morgue. But getting to that improved facility would take a different route, in part because the vision views the existing facility as only part of the problem.

Just before Frasz stated his case, county board Chairman Chris Lauzen provided numbers showing about $163,000 in building improvements made to the morgue since 2014. Russell refers to those upgrades as "expensive Band-Aids." There's also the $350,000 increase in annual operating expenses in the coroner's office since Russell, a political rival of Lauzen's, took over in 2013.

"The board has fulfilled 100 percent of his requests, in fact funding even about 10 percent more than he's requested," Lauzen said.

For someone who ran for office on a pledge to keep the county's property tax level frozen, like Lauzen, such cost increases are hard to swallow. That's especially true in the face of Lauzen's unsuccessful support of candidates who've tried to unseat Russell in recent years, and Russell's propensity to take jabs at the chairman.

Yet, this week, Lauzen did support at least considering the sale of the Fabyan Parkway land. He did so in support of a "comprehensive approach" to address some of the county's overall facilities problems.

"If it's an unproductive asset, why are we hanging on to it?" Lauzen said of the land. "Before we build something, should we not consider all the options we have?"

Lauzen's back-of-the-napkin estimate suggests the county may reap about $1 million from the land sale. That may not be enough to build a new morgue, which is why some sort of shared facility with other counties should be explored, he suggested.

"Where is the rest of that money going to come from?" Lauzen asked.

Board member John Martin, who works in land development deals as an attorney, said it may be 30 months before the county sees a penny from selling the Fabyan Parkway land, even if the sale happened today.

"We're whistling in the dark until we get a live body that wants to purchase the property," Martin said.

County staff members indicated Batavia Enterprises may already have an interest. The city of Geneva may also be a player.

Some ideas for the land in the past included the construction of some form of a hotel where attendees of Kane County Cougar games, concerts and future cross-country meets could stay.

The forest preserve district may also play a role. The site sits next to existing forest preserve land. The site in question is not on the district's current wish list of future land acquisitions.

All that, including the competing visions, awaits at least two new pieces of information. The first will be a land appraisal and include some exploration of potential future uses. The second piece is a vote to measure if board members want to sell the land. Those pushing an expedited process will push for that vote in the next couple of months.