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City, county approve firm for joint facility design

By Kate Hayden | khayden@charlescitypress.com

The Charles City Council and Floyd County Supervisors approved hiring architectural firm Prochaska and Associates on Wednesday to investigate building a joint law enforcement facility for the sheriff’s office and city police force.

The joint facility subcommittee recommended Prochaska after interviews with four potential firms, City Administrator Steve Diers told county and city officials during a special session. Competing firms included FEH Design, which led last summer’s joint facility research survey with Charles City, Floyd County, the Charles City Community School District and the Charles City YMCA.

Out of Prochaska’s two-phase proposal, city and county officials approved beginning phase one. Prochaska will investigate individual needs of the police department and sheriff’s office, and how those can be binded together into one facility.

“It’s everything up until design,” Diers told media after the meeting. “It’s data collection from city staff, elected officials on building layout…to see how that would fit on a footprint.”

The study will include assessing how a joint facility would fit on the current Floyd County Courthouse property, including the former Davico lot across the street which the county recently purchased.

Although council members and supervisors discussed investigating a unified law enforcement force –– one force overseeing both Floyd County and Charles City –– officials agreed to focus on a shared jail/law enforcement center rather than a force, with the understanding that city and county officials can revisit a unified law enforcement force in the future when a facility has been established.

“Hopefully we can still move forward, and we can keep some of those doors open,” Floyd County Supervisor Roy Schwickerath said. “But the key in my mind tonight, is keeping it in a positive direction to get everybody under one roof.”

Phase one of Prochaska’s proposal is estimated at $15,000, which the city and county informally agreed could be split. Phase two, the design process of the building, is also estimated at $15,000.

Costs for phase one could be adjusted after subcommittee members have their first meeting with firm associates to narrow down what study needs are.

“They put an allotment in there for looking at various sites, and there hasn’t been any interest to date from the city or the county in looking at other sites (besides the courthouse),” Diers said. “When we sit down with the firm to discuss the scope, that’s the narrative we’re going to look at. Maybe we can cut some of the costs down by not looking at various sites. That area was kind of narrowed down last summer when we did the FEH study.”

Research for the initial phase could take between four to six months, depending on the scope agreed by officials and firm associates, Diers said.

“Now that we’ve found a firm that we’re going to go with, I think it will move a little bit quicker,” he added.

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