Volusia County, FL - On Tuesday, the Volusia County Council unanimously approved a contract to establish a guaranteed maximum price of $11,794,504 for the construction of a new Sheriff’s Office evidence storage facility.
The site for the new evidence facility will be 10 acres off of Tiger Bay Rd., near the Sheriff’s Office Training Facility. The plans for the new evidence center have been in the works for several years since the current evidence center is aging and out-of-date. The new evidence center will be 29,635 square feet and will take about 13 months to construct. Construction is expected to begin March 1 of this year and be completed in April of next year.
"I'm happy to say this is the first capital project that we promised we would do when we had money when the economy came back because it's so overdue," said County Manager Jim Dinneen.
The total cost of the project is $13.5 million. That includes the $11,794,504 construction contract with Ajax Building Corporation, $355,496 for furniture (to be approved by the Council at later date), and $1,350,000 that has already been spent for permits and other fees. The majority of the contracting work done on the project will be done by contractors and subcontractors from the Central Florida area.
"What I think is important is that we are going to get what we paid for, and we won't have to shortcut on the building," Dinneen said. He explained that the new building is necessary but that his only concern is that the County had to take out a 20-year loan for the Municipal Service District (MSD) fund, which is already stressed, in order to cover some of the cost of the project.
$5 million of the total cost of the project will come out of the County’s general fund, and the remainder of that money is supposed to come out of the MSD fund, but County staff says there is only about $1.5 million in MSD reserves, so a $7 million loan is necessary in order to move the project along. The County Council already approved the loan at its December 7 meeting. For earlier reporting on the loan approval, click
here.
"It's gonna be a great project, and I'm excited that 74% of the workforce doing the work will be local contractors or subcontractors, so that's always good for our economy," said Council Chair Ed Kelley.
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