By DEBRA HAIGHT
BCR Correspondent
ST. JOSEPH, MI – Berrien County officials are going back to square one when it comes to finding a new home for the county’s emergency operations. The 500 Circle project which would have relocated the operations to the former American Electric Power building in Buchanan has been scrapped with the building sold back to AEP.
Berrien County Commissioners last week approved the sale of the building on the north side of Buchanan to AEP for $1. The county had purchased the building and surrounding property from AEP in 2022 for $200,000.
The resolution approved by the county board last week indicated that assessments conducted on the building since that purchase showed that a capital investment of as much as $17.3 million would be needed to renovate and adapt the facility for the county’s purposes. That number did not include the cost of 911 communications infrastructure and equipment.
The resolution further noted that the county has incurred substantial ongoing operational and maintenance costs in connection with the property. The resolution concluded that conveying the property back to AEP will eliminate the county’s ongoing obligations with respect to the property and avoids a major capital expense to renovate the building.
The resolution stated that the conveyance of the property back to AEP is in the “best financial interest of the County”. AEP will pay all closing, title search and insurance costs, and deed preparation related to the sale, which includes a 60-day inspection period.
Interim County Administrator Mike Sepic said that the county will now develop a new plan on where to move the offices initially destined for the 500 Circle property. The goal had been to move the county’s Emergency Operations and 9-1-1 Centers there. Those centers are now located at the county’s 2100 Empire Facility in Benton Harbor.
Sepic said he did not have information on how much the county has already spent on the property. Earlier reports indicated that the county had signed a contract with Wold Architects of Palatine, Illinois for over $1 million to assess the building and what needed to be done.
Sepic said that the Wold contract has not been paid in full but didn’t have specifics of how much has been paid to the architectural firm.
The fate of the $3 million Federal Emergency Management Administration grant the county received for the 500 Circle project also remains uncertain. The county had pledged to put up $1 million as the local match for the $3 million grant.
The county also received a $5 million state grant to construct an emergency radio 800 megahertz communications tower to improve communications along the state line.
The tower was initially to be located on the AEP property but was moved a short distance away after Native American artifacts were found on the original site. The tower is now located behind the Buchanan Township Hall and Fire Station on North Main Street.
A committee of county commissioners and county staff will now meet to start looking at other possible locations for a new building to house the emergency operations and 911 centers somewhere in the vicinity of the new tower. Sepic said that a new site is being explored with a site near the tower preferred but not required.
In other county news, the search for a new county administrator has been delayed. County commissioners had originally set a deadline of April 14 for applications but have extended the application deadline to May 21 after an initial review of applications only found a handful they wanted to bring in for interviews.
Chet Janik of the Michigan Leadership Institute is helping the county in its search for a new permanent administrator. Brian Dissette departed the position in late January after five and a half years on the job to take the deputy county administrator post in Ottawa County. Sepic has served as the interim administrator since then.
Janik said the search committee reviewed 10 applications in late April and then asked him to extend the application deadline in hopes of soliciting more applicants. A total of 26 people had applied by the April 14 deadline from Michigan, other parts of the United States and Canada.
County commissioners reported that they want to make sure they find the right person for the job no matter how long it takes. They said that the search committee wanted someone with more county government experience than the applicants they looked at in late April.