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Architect: Should be easy to built new jail out of floodplain

The latest proposal for a new Floyd County Jail and Sheriff's Department. Prochaska & Associates drawing
The latest proposal for a new Floyd County Jail and Sheriff’s Office that could be built west of and attached to the courthouse. Prochaska & Associates drawing
By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com 

A new Floyd County jail and law enforcement center should be able to be raised out of the 500-year floodplain if the facility is approved by county residents to be built next to the courthouse, according to people involved with the project.

The 500-year floodplain — the elevation that has a 0.2 percent chance in any year to experience a flood — is at 1,004.2 feet above sea level along the Cedar River, according to Jeff Scherman, Floyd County environmental health administrator and sanitarian.

Steve Busse, a surveyor who owns Busse Surveying Inc. in Allison, said he measured the elevations of several spots around the courthouse last week using Charles City elevation benchmarks.

On the lower side of the courthouse facing the Cedar River, he found an elevation of 1,004.3 feet at the courthouse entrance.

The top of a curb in the entrance to the lower parking lot on the west side of the courthouse was at 1,004.2 feet, right at the flood level, and another spot in the parking lot was 1,004.0 feet, Busse said.

Scherman said Iowa requires all state-owned building construction to be at least a foot above the 500-year floodplain, and the state Department of Natural Resources requires a permit for critical infrastructure that’s less than a foot above that level.

Curt Field, an architect and project manager with Prochaska & Associates, the Omaha consulting firm working with the county on the jail project, said it shouldn’t be a problem to raise the level of the law enforcement building and still connect with the existing courthouse.

“We can fairly easily work in ramps that get you to that level in the addition,” he said by phone during the supervisor’s meeting Monday morning.

“If we need to raise the addition nine-tenths of a foot, that’s a fairly easy ramp in order to be accessible. In some cases it could be a step or two, but where the code requires ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) accessibility those ramps would be fairly simple.”

The county has been seriously looking since last summer at designs for a new law enforcement center to replace the county jail currently on the top floor of the courthouse.

A citizens committee had decided in November on a preliminary floor plan design that it was ready to present to the county Board of Supervisors for approval and to begin presenting to the public to win support for a $12 million to $13 million bond referendum to pay for construction.

The process, was slowed, however, when Supervisor Mark Kuhn raised the question of the floodplain and its impact on the designs.

Building above the 500-year floodplain may not be a state legal requirement for critical infrastructure such as a jail and law enforcement center, Kuhn said, “but it will be my requirement to get my support.”

A majority of the three-person board of supervisors will need to approve setting a bond referendum for vote.

Linda Tjaden, the current chairwoman of the board, has been leading the citizens committee looking at potential designs. Supervisor Doug Kamm has said on several occasions that the issue could be solved fairly simply by grading the site to raise the elevation.

Field said, “I’m confident we can solve this and I’m confident you wouldn’t see much effect on the construction.’’

Tjaden said, “This does a lot to convince me that we’re doing everything we need to do to stay out of the 500-year floodplain.”

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