Kane County panel advances plan to sell former jail site
A proposal to move the Kane County morgue, and possibly other facilities, to the county's judicial center campus in St. Charles, intrigues members of the county's administrative committee.
But first things first, they said Wednesday: They need to know if someone is willing to buy the 40-acre site on Fabyan Parkway that once housed the sheriff's office, and how much they would pay.
The committee directed a consultant to prepare a request-for-proposals document to advertise for buyers.
Money from a sale could help pay for a new morgue, and possibly other buildings, board member Drew Frasz said.
"I feel very strongly it is time to reinvigorate our capital development program," Frasz said.
The sheriff moved off the site 10 years ago. But some buildings remain - two store sheriff's equipment, and one houses the county's maintenance office. There is a dispatch communications antenna, a sheriff impound lot, a fuel island, and a vehicle maintenance building.
The consultant from architecture firm Cordogan Clark presented two ideas to the committee.
One would be to put larger versions of the current buildings, plus the coroner's office and the fuel island, on the 11 easternmost acres of the site. He estimated the cost at $15.15 million. The western 30 acres could then be sold.
The other moves all those operations to land the county owns on the northeast corner of Peck Road and Route 38, across from the Kane County Judicial Center. He estimated that cost at $16.79 million.
The majority of the committee likes the second option, especially since it would put the coroner's office near the sheriff's office, and the fuel station closer to its major user, the sheriff's office.
Board member T.R. Smith disagreed. Having a centralized campus is "pie in the sky," he said, and noted the county has offices scattered throughout the county. When Frasz pointed out the county has a master plan for the judicial center campus, Smith said that was "old-time thinking."
The master plan was made in 1989, and updated in 2014.
The jail site is in the Geneva city limits. City officials were part of a task force that discussed what could be done with the site and the adjacent Settler's Hill landfill, about 10 years ago.