Benton County is

tapping its $24 million capital projects fund to build sunlit offices for its

administrators and free up space in its crowded Kennewick courthouse.

The county planned to

hold public ground-breaking ceremonies for the $13.6 million,

40,000-square-foot office building on Feb. 17 at its Kennewick justice center

campus, 7122 W. Okanogan Place.

The building will open

in May 2021 as the new Kennewick home for the county commissioners and administration,

as well as the Kennewick offices of the county treasurer, assessor and auditor.

The county’s official

seat in Prosser is not affected by the new addition, said Matt Rasmussen,

public works administrator.

The addition will free

space in the Benton County Justice Center and the nearby Canal Street Annex for

the criminal justice system, which is out of space due to growing court

dockets. Prosecutors, public defenders and the clerk’s office all need more

room, Rasmussen said.

With administrators

out of the way, they’ll have more of it.

“It will be

exclusively criminal justice in here,” Rasmussen said.

Prosser is still

the county seat

The new office

building is not an attempt to move the county seat to Kennewick from Prosser.

But it acknowledges that some 80 percent of county business transpires in

Kennewick, the population center. The additional space should accommodate

growth for the next two decades.

It’s also not about

mindless expansion of local government, Rasmussen said.

Population growth is

driving up the number of cases heard in the superior and district courtrooms in

the justice center.

“The commissioners

have always been very big proponents of maintaining the smallest footprint,” he

said.

An 18-month facilities

study concluded a new administration building would create a more welcoming

environment for people who have business with the county while reserving costly

secured space in the justice center for the courts.

The project is funded

through the county capital projects budget, which is supported by the general

fund and payments the county receives from the federal government in lieu of

property taxes.

The budget works out a

little more than $286 per square foot, which includes finishes and furnishing

space. That is generally in line with construction trends.

The base cost to build

“prime” office space in Seattle in 2019 was $210 to $255 per square foot,

excluding finishes and furnishings, according to a year-end report by Rider

Bucknell Leavett, a construction management firm.

RBL reports on

construction cost trends in major markets such as Seattle. Tri-City data wasn’t

available.

Who goes where?

Rasmussen said the new

addition in Kennewick will make more efficient use of existing county

facilities and lower the cost to provide much needed office and courtroom space

at the Benton-Franklin Juvenile Justice Center on Canal Drive.

The treasurer, auditor

and assessor will vacate their shared 8,500-square-foot office at the Canal

Drive Annex. The offices can be renovated to serve the juvenile center, which

is on the same property.

The

252,000-square-foot Benton County Justice Center in Kennewick houses district

and superior courts, prosecutors, defenders and the jail, which is why it has

security guards and a metal detector at the entrance.

About one-fourth of

the building is devoted to the commissioners and other administrators who don’t

need that level of protection. 

They’ll move to the

new building, which Rasmussen hastens to note will have passive security built

into the design. There won’t be a screening station at the door at the outset.

Rasmussen said the

space crunch in the justice center has real implications for the courts.

The county recently

launched a new specialty court to serve veterans charged with crimes. Qualifying

veterans who get treatment and meet other conditions can get their records

expunged.

Three authorized

positions haven’t been filled because there’s nowhere to put them, Rasmussen

said.

Veterans court is

funded by the Public Safety Sales Tax, a voter-approved sales tax to combat

crime. The county’s current budget earmarks $400,000 from the public safety tax

to support seven positions in veterans court.

The building design

includes a central atrium, shared ground-floor lobby and energy efficient features.

The parking spots

nearest the building will be dedicated to short-term visitors who stop by to

register to vote, pay taxes, register vehicles and take care of other county

business.

The justice center

campus

About 750 county

employees work on the 23-acre Kennewick justice center campus. They’re posted

to the justice center and jail, the health department, the coroner’s office and

in a maintenance facility.

The 85 who now work at

the annex will add to the population, which also includes roughly 500 jail

inmates.

Parking is the main

limiting factor for additional development. Rasmussen said there’s room to

develop another 20,000 square feet of space once the office building is

complete. It would have to build a parking garage to build more.

Rasmussen said there

are no plans to add a coffee shop or other commercial activity on the property.

Past efforts to

provide food and beverages at the county property didn’t take off and the

neighborhood is packed with restaurants, fast food and other public services.

Paying for the

project

The new administration

building will bring new operating costs in terms of added utilities and

maintenance. In its six-year capital projects budget, the county noted some

costs would be offset by lowering Benton County’s share of operating costs at

the Canal Street annex.

When the annex becomes

part of the bi-county juvenile justice system, the county will split operating

costs with Franklin County.

The new building will

even eliminate one pesky expense – the $80,000 Benton County spends annually to

store archived documents off site.

The basement was added

to provide storage and speed up access to stored public documents. It will pay

for itself in 10 years, Rasmussen said.

Banlin Construction

LLC of Kennewick is the general contractor.

MMEC Architecture

& Design of Kennewick, which conducted the facilities study, is the

designer.