The Yavapai County Board of Supervisors met last week to review a recently submitted report from Gensler examining the County’s space needs and to discuss a cost comparison report on a County building.
The session was planned to let members review the report with representatives from Gensler, hear recommendations from the Space Planning Steering Committee and examine costs and benefits for County districts.
The Board began discussions with the Facilities Department about space needs in the summer of 2022 and entered into a $481.7K contract with Gensler last year to create a facilities master plan for the County’s real estate to help it manage its physical assets.
Gensler’s work assessed existing facilities’ condition, capacity and uses to help determine future needs for departments and offices for the coming 20 years.
Among the recommendations were:
- Creation of a centralized judicial campus in the Prescott area,
- Repositioning Cottonwood for expansion space,
- Repositioning County libraries as community service centers,
- Creating a consistent model for the Sheriff’s Office and justice departments,
- Making workspaces denser to reduce square footage needs and overhead costs, and
- Making plans to buy existing spaces before building new ones.
The report included detailed plans and estimated costs for the various recommendations.
Also covered in the study session was a cost analysis and proposal from Haley Construction for the Yavapai County Justice Administration Building.
Several options were laid out in the proposal, including:
- A $6.2M tenant improvement that would demolish 22.2KSF of existing jail cells and build new offices and other rooms,
- A $1M storage remodel that would convert the 22.2KSF of cell space into a provisional storage facility, and
- A $11.3M proposal for a new two-story building, with the cost estimate including both the land acquisition and construction costs. (Source)