The Fannin County Board of Commissioners voted to hire Sutton Architectural Services, Inc. to complete a pre-design phase on the Whitepath building that the county purchased last year.
“I have provided you a preliminary proposal for a pre-design phase for that Whitepath, with the idea of building a foundation for the project before starting the design phases with this,” Architect Peter Sutton told the board. “So that would be data gathering, programming type phase to find out what your needs are, what needs to go into the facility, how many square feet, and then also to bring in some engineering professionals to go through the building with me as well to look at any potential additional issues or anything that hasn’t already been flushed out.”
Chairman Stan Helton said the first phase will cost $37,234 and the second phase will cost $28,592. When Helton asked what other costs Sutton would foresee on top of the first two phases, Sutton said, “Well for the future phases you would have that so once you get into that final design you’re going, dependent on the final scope of work, it’s probably going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 6% to 8% of construction costs.”
Both post commissioners agreed that a pre-design phase was important.
“I would think that doing this assessment is probably where we need to start,” Post One Commissioner Earl Johnson said.
“It’s become a little bit complicated because there’s been some recent releases about libraries going there and monies and this is where we need to start. If we start here we can move forward and know what we do have, know what everyone wants, know what the needs are and so I think this is the correct step to take.”
Post Two Commissioner Glenn Patterson said, “You’re the starting point. That’s what I want people to understand. That we’ve got to gather this information before we can decide on how we want to do it. We’re excited about the library and we want to move forward, but the main thing is we want to know how to do it properly and financially efficiently so it’s a step by step process.”
According to Sutton, he is familiar with the property and has had prior experience working with government entities to renovate a facility.
Helton also explained that the county could potentially expand on the property in the future stating, “The total acreage, I believe, is four and three quarters acres and there’s places over there where we could … use the space that’s not being used as potential for future expansion or if we need to do something now to expand there’s a lot more elbow room and potential than just in the structure as it is.”
An audience member questioned why the board approved to hire Sutton without taking bids. Helton explained that the board did not have to request bids for services.