Polk County commissioners continue to wrestle with building a new courthouse on the East side of the county.
The commission’s Building and Grounds (B&G) Committee closed the courthouse in Ducktown November 30, 2022, declaring it unsafe.
The latest reported incident had been a piece of the ceiling falling in a restroom. There was also extensive water damage in the walls and visible black mold throughout the building.
At the time, committee members agreed a permanent plan would be in place by the February 2023 commission meeting.
Commissioner Mush Davis had most recently placed the Ducktown Courthouse on the June 20, 2024, commission meeting agenda.
He thought Requests for Proposals (RFPs) had been turned out for an architect for a proposed site for a new courthouse near the Copper Basin Community Center. Both B&G Chairman Greg Brooks and Commissioner Keith Barker agreed that was their understanding.
However, County Executive Robby Hatcher said he had been waiting for the committee to furnish an idea of the size and other requirements for a new building.
With that, B&G members agreed to meet June 27 after the special called county budget meeting.
At that meeting, working with planners, ideas for an 8,400-square-foot building were developed.
But based on an approximate per-square-foot cost of $200, the size resulted in a cost estimate of about $1.67 million, greater than what has been anticipated.
B&G members immediately began talking about ways to reduce the cost and a meeting was scheduled for July 2 at the Ducktown Courthouse in order to consider various measurements to meet current needs. This was seen as a way to compare projections from June 27 to what would actually work.
However, due to several conflicts among B&G members, the meeting was rescheduled for this Thursday, July 11.