CORNELIA — The Cornelia City Commission isn't going far to find property for its future city hall.
In fact, three of the city's government buildings already are located on a portion of the site of the new planned facility.
Tuesday night, the city commission voted to purchase other parcels.
Following closed session, City Attorney Steve Campbell made public specifics of those purchases.
"So in executive session we discussed two different properties," Campbell announced near the conclusion of Tuesday night's meeting. "One is located at 937 S. Main St. There is a proposed agreement for the city to purchase the property at 937 S. Main St., for $48,785.76, plus any closing costs associated with the purchase."
Ward 3 Commissioner Don Bagwell made the motion to purchase the parcel, and Ward 1 Commissioner Wes Dodd second, with all voting in favor.
"I will point out that property is being purchased to improve drainage, and so the proceeds to purchase it will come from SPLOST funds that are designated for drainage improvements," City Manager Donald Anderson said.
Campbell then announced the other subject property, located at 964 S. Main St.
"The proposed amount of purchase is $136,214.24, plus closing costs," Campbell said. "This is the property directly across the street from the previous property."
Anderson explained the purpose of that planned purchase.
"This property is part of our municipal city hall project, and the funds for that will be SPLOST that was designated for a new city hall," Anderson said.
Ward 4 Commissioner Tony Cook made the motion to purchase the property, with Ward 2 Commissioner Janice Griggs providing the second. All voted in favor.
Following the meeting, Anderson further discussed the purchases and others that have been made by city officials and how the properties will be utilized.
"It's still very preliminary in the design phases," Anderson said. "The city has talked about a new city hall for a long time. I've been here 10 years and it was talked about before I came."
Those discussions have firmed up more in the past year or so as the city's three main administration buildings continue to age.
"Obviously now we've evolved to where this [Cornelia Municipal Building] we're sitting in is probably pushing 70 or 80 years old, which houses the fire station and courtroom," Anderson said. "City hall was built sometime in the '50s as a library, and the police station was a former health department.
"All three of the buildings have issues, whether it's physical issues or functioning issues," Anderson said. "At the police station, the roof leaks when it rains. City hall has electrical issues, because we have maxed out our electrical capacity, not to mention our entire computer network server is an old storage closet, so to ventilate that we've actually had to drill holes in the wall and put in portable air conditioner units — not to mention the ADA."
Americans with Disabilities Act compliance is not only a legal requirement, but a customer service concern for Cornelia leaders.
"We do have a wheelchair ramp here in front of the fire station, however most people that pull up to city hall to pay their water bill don't see it, and they struggle coming down the stairs," Anderson said.
"We've reached that point where we have outgrown all of these, not to mention they're starting to cause problems," Anderson said.
Initially, city officials looked outside the current area of its government buildings, but then decided that wasn't a sound idea.
"We've been working on this for quite a while and we've looked at different pieces of property and finally the lightbulb went off that if we did that then we would leave three empty buildings in downtown, so why not try to reuse what we have?" Anderson said. "So we have purchased the Cornelia Cleaners property, and now tonight we have agreed to purchase the property on the other side of Ariail Tire, [subject property] which is currently owned by Don Cantrell.
"The theory is we will go ahead and build a new fire station on the Cantrell property, which would enable us to demolish this building," Anderson said. "It's not known yet whether we would have to go ahead and relocate city hall temporarily, but the goal would be to keep city hall and the police department standing until the new city hall/police complex is built, and then tear those down for parking."
While the property purchases are falling into place, nothing is final yet as far as the design of a new facility.
"We talked with our engineers tonight and they're going to go ahead and do an RFQ (request for qualifications) for architects, and then we will take that once we have that," Anderson said.
Regardless of the final designs, Cornelia officials will find themselves building two new facilities as part of the process.
Money for the new fire structures will come from city coffers.
"I would like to say it's available through SPLOST, but unfortunately it's not, so we're looking at several different funding options," Anderson said. "The one that we discussed tonight is a USDA 40-year loan. The current interest rate would be 3.3, I believe. Another option would be to do municipal bonds, and then another option would be to work with our downtown development authority, because they have the capabilities of going and getting a traditional bank loan that the city doesn't. We're looking at all of those and whichever is the best for the citizens, but obviously the cost would be put on the citizens."
But Anderson and other city leaders don't know an approximate cost for the projects yet.
"It's very preliminary," Anderson said. "Obviously, you heard at the workshop the commissioners don't want an elaborate Taj Mahal building. All we want is something that is functional, and my biggest criteria is we want to make sure it's functional for at least the next 50 years."
While building for expansion may cost more now, Anderson said it will save money when the space is needed.
"We don't want to be sitting here in 10 years and all of a sudden we've outgrown the police station because the town has grown and we've had to add 10 more police officers. Or city hall probably 15 years ago staff consisted of five or six people; now there's 15. Technology changes and things change. You have no choice but to add staff."
The old saying "imitation is the best form of flattery" may prove true in Cornelia's case. When Habersham County built its new judicial center in Clarkesville a few years ago, it included an unfinished upper floor for future growth.
"We may imitate the concept that the county did with the new courthouse, where we build a third floor that's just a shell that could come in and be finished at a later time if the need ever arises," Anderson said.
Asked about potential configurations for departments in the planned city hall/police complex, Anderson said, "We haven't gotten that far, but we will coexist in one building."
He has one firm thought in mind.
"The only thing we know for sure is we would have one receptionist/cashier for both police and city hall," Anderson said. "It would probably be a combination of your city hall employees that interact with the public on a routine basis would obviously be very accessible on the first floor, whereas your upper management — police and city hall — might be on the second floor. But there would be conference rooms on the first floor for any meetings, or if I'm on the second floor and a citizen comes to meet with me, I would come down and meet with them."
