County offices staying in downtown York

While York County voters will have the final say, we think the County Council made the right decision in voting to keep the county’s administration building in downtown York.

Council members have mulled two options in recent weeks: building downtown or using a site on Arrow Road on the eastern edge of the city. Council voted Monday, 5-2, to keep the building downtown.

Consultants told council members that the cost of building on the Arrow Road site would be $22.9 million compared to $24.3 million for a downtown building. On Monday, members learned that mitigating gasoline runoff in groundwater would limit the size of a parking lot at the downtown site, and that cleaning up buried trash and potential dry-cleaning contamination at the site could add about $100,000 more to the overall cost.

Nonetheless, a majority opted for the downtown plan, which will be included in a county bond package. Voters will decide its fate in November.

Those who favored the downtown site said the added cost should not be a major consideration. Councilwoman Christi Cox noted that once the price of construction on Arrow Road is included, the price difference is “a wash.”

And in a recent letter to The Herald, Councilman Robert Winkler pointed out that the county spent more than $2.1 million to buy and remodel two buildings across from the county courthouse to use as government buildings. One would house the county attorney and deed records; the other would house the tax assessor, tax auditor and tax collectors.

If the new administration building were built at the Arrow Road site, Winkler wrote, the functions of those offices would have to be duplicated, “wasting the money that was spent previously.” Winkler also argues that development along Arrow Road will occur whether the county builds offices there or not.

But perhaps the most compelling argument for keeping the administration building downtown is that it will continue to benefit the city of York, whereas moving the site could have a devastating effect on the local economy. City leaders, business owners and residents lobbied hard to keep governmental offices downtown because the county employees who work there and those who access county services provide a lifeline for downtown shops and restaurants.

The county already has committed to renovating the historic county courthouse downtown. Keeping the government center there seems sensible for many of the same reasons.

Government should be considered one of York’s primary industries, and the customers from that enterprise are crucial to local businesses and the overall economy. Ultimately, it also is in the county’s best interests for its county seat to continue to thrive both economically and culturally.

We think the council made the right decision in this case, and hope voters will second that decision in November.

This story was originally published March 17, 2015 at 6:47 PM with the headline "County offices staying in downtown York."