MOUNT VERNON — One month ago, the Knox County Board of Commissioners abandoned the idea of building a new transit hub on West High Street.
Thursday morning, the Knox County Land Bank accepted the board’s application to buy the warehouse and receiving building in Heartland Commerce Park (HCP).
County Administrator Jason Booth said that while the building will serve several purposes, its primary purpose is for Knox County Transit.
“Our plan was to build down there on West High Street, and it just got to be too cost prohibitive to do that. So we really wanted to pivot and find another option, but we wanted to stay in that general area,” he said.
Booth said costs kept increasing on the West High Street plan. In 2022, the Federal Transit Administration awarded the county a $6 million grant for an $8 million project.
The county bought parcels from the land bank on West High Street, Norton Street, and in HCP for a transit facility and a maintenance building.
However, continual FTA and Ohio Department of Transportation requests stalled the project. The price tag has since soared to $10 to $12 million.
“It was beyond what we wanted to spend and put into a transit facility. This gives us not only a transit facility but other county uses and then future county uses for a lot less money, so we were excited by that,” Booth said of the warehouse purchase.
Financing
Booth anticipates the land bank will have a contract for the commissioners to review next week.
As part of the purchase agreement, the land bank will credit the county the $250,000 purchase price for the West High and Norton Street parcels and $110,000 for the HCP parcel.
The county will deed the parcels back to the land bank.
“It was just an excellent opportunity and certainly a savings to the taxpayer versus what was going to end up happening because of how long it was taking the federal government to give us an answer.”
County Administrator Jason Booth
The county plans to sell the current transit building once operations move into Heartland Commerce Park.
Booth said the building was appraised at $422,000 two years ago. Sales proceeds could help offset the warehouse purchase.
“That’s where from a cost standpoint, it was a much better financial decision,” Booth said.
Greater accessibility to transit hub
Booth said HCP is more centralized and easier to get to than the current transit facility on Columbus Road.
“Where we’re located now, you certainly can’t walk up to it. There’s not enough room for our vehicles, and there’s not enough room for staff,” he said.
“The warehouse is what’s kind of the exciting piece because it’s approximately 35,000 square feet of space. We will be able to store all of our transit vehicles inside the warehouse at night.”
Finding a way to house vehicles inside at night triggered the county’s search for a new location four years ago.
However, Booth said building such a facility is expensive.
In addition to vehicles being under roof, KCT will use the warehouse for maintenance.
It also allows the organization to be together.
“Under our original plan of needing to build two buildings, one for maintenance and one for a transit center, we were going to be segregated,” Booth said.
“We had to do that because neither lot we owned was large enough to build everything. With any organization, there are some concerns about separating, so I think this really brings the whole organization together.”
Increased space provides options
Booth acknowledged that the warehouse has more office space than transit needs in the initial phases. Preliminary architectural discussions include a lobby for community members, transit offices, and a driver break area, all of which encompass the county’s original conceptual plan.
Booth said that beyond that, “it’s a little bit abstract.” One idea is to use the space on the lower level for a large community conference room.
“We really don’t have any space like that at the county level,” Booth said. “We have a couple of small conference rooms, but for public hearings, regional planning meetings, and large county trainings, we have to utilize the Memorial Building.”
That, he said, is not always a great option.
The county would use some space as KCT’s training room. When the agency does its driver training, 45 to 60 people attend.
“In the original plan for the community transit center, we had a large conference room that was going to be part of that building. So we’re really trying to take some ideas from our original plans and incorporate those into the design,” Booth explained.
Booth said the county will likely leave the second floor as is for now.
