York County leaders split on location of new Rock Hill buildings

Sometime next year, Rock Hill could see a major complex of new York County government buildings. Or, residents could see separate, smaller structures go up at different locations around town, potentially creating more traffic between them.

It all depends on how county leaders ultimately decide to address conflicting needs on the eastern side of the county. And ultimately voters could decide if the York County Council approves plans for a fall referendum for approval to pay for the projects.

As part of a review of the county’s need for new facilities, a study committee recommended to the York County Council last week that a new “Government Center East” is needed in Rock Hill. The new center would include a Sheriff’s Office booking center to temporarily hold inmates after an arrest, an expanded family court facility, and possibly other county offices and storage space.

But the best location for the new complex – if all of the offices wind up in one place – depends on whom you talk to.

David Hamilton, the county’s clerk of court, who manages the county’s court proceedings, says the center will be cheaper and more manageable if added as an expansion to the current York County office complex on Heckle Boulevard.

“We can put a new entrance on Highway 5 and have plenty of room for growth,” Hamilton said.

York County Sheriff Bruce Bryant, on the other hand, says a Heckle location for a new booking center won’t make sense for deputies who could be driving from as far away as the North Carolina border.

“If it’s on Heckle, it’s not that far to drive another 10 to 15 minutes and get to Moss,” Bryant said.

The Moss Justice Center in York already houses the county’s main detention center.

Instead, Bryant wants to see a 48-hour holding facility with up to 56 beds built closer to Interstate 77, with the most likely location identified by the study committee being at the current Rock Hill school district office on Anderson Road.

That location would give deputies making arrests in the Rock Hill-Fort Mill area – which because of its population is where the Sheriff’s Office makes most of its arrests – a central location to drop off suspects. As it stands now, Bryant said, a deputy assigned to the Carowinds area could be away from his patrol for nearly two hours if he has to transport a prisoner to the Moss Justice Center and then drive back to the Fort Mill area.

If built, the new booking center on Anderson Road could even replace the municipal jails currently used by Rock Hill and Fort Mill police, Bryant said.

“If you have a central location, it’s going to be more sound financially than having a lot of older buildings scattered around,” he said.

But Hamilton has made it known he doesn’t think the Anderson Road location would work with a large new detention facility, an office complex housing several courtrooms, and all the parking they would require.

“It’s a major congested area,” he said, “and it gets even worse in December during the Christmas shopping season.”

Currently, the county office complex on Heckle Boulevard houses the clerk’s eastern York County office, including recordkeeping for family and juvenile court proceedings and some Department of Social Services hearings.

Hamilton wants improvements to the family court facility to be the focus of any new construction effort in the eastern part of the county. The Heckle offices are one – and on some days two – courtrooms short of their needs, and judges sometimes have to hold family court hearings in a prefabricated doublewide trailer set up as a mobile court.

The mobile unit went up in 2008, attached to two other main courtrooms through what used to be the main lobby entrance at the facility. Hamilton says the third courtroom has structural problems because it isn’t a permanent structure. Since it’s detached from the main building and has multiple entrance points, the prefab court also poses security challenges for both judges and inmates using the structure.

“That was supposed to be a quick Band-Aid,” Hamilton said. “Now we’ve been using it for years.”

When all three courtrooms are in use, judges sometimes have to commandeer a conference room for all the county offices on Heckle and hold hearings in there. If a new facility is built on Heckle, it would likely go up in a wooded area owned by the county behind the current offices for clerk of court, juvenile justice health departments, with a separate entrance onto West Main Street.

A combined facility would be paired with a new “Government Center West” housing county offices in York, the location of which has stirred controversy among York city and business leaders concerned about county employees and the foot traffic their offices generate leaving the downtown area.

But it’s possible the two facilities could potentially be split in two, with the courtrooms staying at an expanded Heckle complex and only the booking facility opening on Anderson Road.

The argument for combining the two facilities is shortening the distance between the detention center holding an inmate and the courtroom where they will have their hearing. But Hamilton argues that for most bond hearings, a judge could set bond in a closed-circuit hearing without the inmate ever leaving the holding area.

“They’re still going to have to get from one place to another when they go to Moss,” Hamilton said.

If the booking center is ultimately built as a stand-alone facility, the county could put the extra space to other uses.

“In the exterior building (to the holding area), instead of it being an empty shell, that could be used for procurement and warehouses,” said York County Councilman Michael Johnson, who facilitated the study committee meetings.

The sheriff doesn’t foresee a separate jail facility being a liability if the proposal is put to a public vote.

“It’s not going to be a prison with concertina wire all around it,” Bryant said. “It’s not going to be a gray bar hotel.”

Cost will play a part in whether the government center gets split. At a county workshop in February, consultants with Cumming Construction Management said an expansion of the existing offices on Heckle would be the more affordable option, costing an estimated $27 million versus $42 million to purchase and renovate the school district offices. Building only the booking center on the Anderson Road site would cost taxpayers an estimated $11.8 million.

Some money could be saved if the existing school district offices are incorporated into the future detention center.

“We could gut that building and maybe add on to the existing building, and that could save some money,” Johnson said.

Whether to build the new Government Center East will be up to the voters if a list of York County projects is presented to the voters in a planned November referendum. But the study committee avoided recommending a location for the complex, noting only that “this was presented as a possibility” at the current Rock Hill school district office location.

Ultimately, the York County Council will have to make a decision about where to locate the proposed joint complex, or even if it should be a joint complex, when it begins formulating the ballot question, likely next month.

“I’d like to start to hash it out by the middle of April and have something passed in May, if we’re serious about getting a campaign underway,” Johnson said.

Bryant said he isn’t likely to take any part in a referendum campaign, other than explaining what needs his office faces. All other decisions the sheriff plans to leave up to the county council.

“And my condolences to county council for having to make those decisions,” he said.

This story was originally published March 10, 2015 at 9:58 PM with the headline "York County leaders split on location of new Rock Hill buildings."