County would have void to fill at CCB

FORT WAYNE, IND. (WANE) - After Tuesday’s announcement, Allen County Government, for the first time in 40 years, is looking for a new tenant or tenants that will fill half the space of the nine floor downtown City-County building.

"Should the city indeed determine that they're going to move out of the building, I am comfortable that we are going to be able to fill the space," Commissioner Nelson Peters said at the Friday, June 19 meeting; just four days before the announcement.

Even before Tuesday’s announcement by the city, county leaders were gearing up for the possibility of a big void in its building.

"We've got somewhere between 60,000 and 86,000 square feet of space to fill," Commissioner Bill Brown said on Friday.

That's about half of the building, and what to do with it was a heated topic of discussion during Friday's commissioner meeting. The lease generated about a million dollars a year of rent for the county. Filling the space and money gap will be big priorities for county commissioners.

"We're a landlord, we can't dictate the city lease this building from us, but we could talk about things like a building consortium, I mean there are other things that could be considered," Brown said.

One plan involved the Allen County Sheriff's Department moving its headquarters into the building, but the Commissioner's on Friday instead voted for a location off Adams Center and Paulding Road. Timing may explain their vote.

"By the time people get moved out, by the time we're able to do some of the things we need to do around here to make some of those accommodations, we could be well into 3 or 4 years down the road," Commissioner Peters said Friday.

After the Mayor’s announcement Tuesday, County Commissioners released the following statement to NewsChannel 15:

“With today’s announcement by Mayor Henry, the Board of Commissioners will begin a thorough examination of all viable options for the City-County Building. We will spend the next 18 months studying alternatives and various scenarios for filling the space that will be left behind should the City ultimately leave the building at the end of 2010.”

“It is our intent to continue our ongoing pledge to make County services easily accessible and as effective as possible. We will keep the public informed of our progress during this process. We will continue looking for ways in which the city and county can collaborate.”

A vote by City Council must approve the plans for the city to move out of this building and into Renaissance Square.

That vote's expected sometime this summer.