Centre County government expects to spend about $33 million for the overhaul of the former Centre Crest building in Bellefonte and renovations to the Willowbank Building and courthouse.
Commissioners on Tuesday took steps toward authorizing a general obligation bond of $30 million that would cover the bulk of the costs, with county funds accounting for another $3 million. The board unanimously approved adding to next week’s consent agenda a resolution declaring intent to issue the bond.
Renovations to the former Centre Crest building at 502 E. Howard St. are estimated at $29,246,429, deputy county administrator John Franek said. Improvements to the county’s Willowbank Building and continuing renovations at the courthouse, primarily replacement of retaining walls, are projected at $2.8 million. The remainder of the funding would be for contingencies.
The declaration of intent is just the first step in issuing the bond. Settlement and availability of the funds would likely come in July or August, bond counsel Jennifer Caron told the board.
Debt financing for the project will not result in a tax increase, Commissioner Mark Higgins said, noting that millage in part of the county’s budget covers bond servicing. Board Chair Michael Pipe said the $3 million in county funding will come from American Rescue Plan Act revenue replacement money.
The 118,000-square-foot Howard Street building, which will mostly be used for county offices, had been used by Centre Crest since it opened in 1938, but in March 2021 the nursing home moved to the new Centre Care facility in College Township. The county maintained ownership of the building and, after an adaptive reuse study last year, commissioners approved in March a proposal by Muhlenberg Greene (MG) Architects to design final plans.
The county has owned the 84-year-old building longer than any other facility except the courthouse.
“We have a solemn obligation to keep this significant county building in good repair,” Higgins said.
Pipe added that the project, in part, preserves the legacy of Centre Crest.
“The amount of people that have worked there, resided there and family members who visited there is certainly in the thousands,” Pipe said. “I think we do have an obligation to honor those people, to invest in this building, breathe new life into it and reuse it. We know that the building has good bones as they say. It certainly can be updated and upgraded.”
County human services offices, which are currently located at Willowbank and at leased spaces in other parts of the county, are expected to move into the facility.
Having the offices under one roof would streamline access to services for residents and improve coordination while also saving the county money on lease expenses to offset some operational costs and fixing costs for decades, commissioners said.
It would also alleviate overcrowding in Willowbank Building offices.
“The pandemic did allow us to do some remote work but as we thankfully see cases decrease we’re bringing more people back into the building,” Pipe said. “The work that we do really is person to person, human to human interaction teamwork. We really feel that it’s best done in person. So we need additional space to alleviate some of the overcrowding that we have here in Willowbank.”
Moving employees from leased spaces would also bring back about 100 workers to Bellefonte.
“The Bellefonte community we know is seeing a lot of investment, constant investment and revitalization,” Pipe said. “This would really be part of that, this investment in the Bellefonte community would bring about potentially over a hundred workers back into Bellefonte… These would be people going to lunch, having meetings in coffee shops in downtown Bellefonte, potentially even moving here.”
The building would provide space for other county departments, like the elections office, and the planning development will determine a percentage of space that could be leased to businesses or nonprofit organizations.
The county will continue working with Bellefonte Borough and will hold town hall meetings for community input on that space, Pipe said.
Commissioners “have been clear-eyed and realistic,” about the costs, Pipe said. He credited Commissioner Steve Dershem for asking tough questions and helping to identify cost savings for the project.
Dershem said he “labored long and hard” over the decision but now feels “comfortable,” with the moving forward.
“As much as I’ve struggled with saying ‘yeah, this is the right move, and maybe it’s a little bigger than we need right now,’ I think it will relieve a lot of growing pains into the future,” he said. “And I think there’s also an opportunity for us to take this facility and partner with some of the community resources we use daily and put them all under one roof.”
He added that he is hopeful the end result will be a partnership with the Bellefonte community that “we can all be proud,” and a facility the serves the needs of the county for generations.
“This really will be a project that will serve us well into the future,” Pipe said, noting that the plans could be downsized during the process if needed.
Franek said the goal is to have the project out to bid in January 2023 with construction completed in the second quarter of 2024.
