Siting questions about the county government complex property in downtown Carthage arose Thursday during a work session of the Moore County Board of Commissioners.

The questions raise the issue of whether the entire 21-acre tract will be needed for the proposed expansion of the detention center along with construction of a public safety facility. If that is the case, at least one commissioner wants the county and its team of architects to study the feasibility of using the Carriage Oaks property as an alternative location for the government office building.

"Can you imagine a 700-bed jail in downtown Carthage?" asked Commissioner Tim Lea, who requested the showing of a Carriage Oaks site analysis during the workshop.

Plans for the detention center-public safety complex have been scaled down to provide beds for about 256 inmates, rather than the original plan for 288 beds. However, the plans being designed by Ware-Bonsall Architects are being developed to provide for future growth at the same site, the 21-acre parcel the county bought from Johnny Grimm in 2007 for $1.5 million.

The LS3P Boney architectural firm is designing the 53,000-square-foot county office building, to be built on the downtown site, but in a different part of the tract.

A major selling point in acquiring the downtown property was its location adjacent to the existing jail, which fronts on Saunders Street across from the Courts Facility.

Not only has the jail population outgrown its existing facilities, but also the Courts Facility is rapidly outgrowing its building. Court sessions are held almost daily, and the building, dating to the late 1970s, is already filled to capacity. Offices for the district attorney and probation/parole program are located in other buildings in the vicinity.

After the meeting, Lea said that both the resident Superior Court judge and a former clerk of court have said that the county will soon need a new facility to accommodate the court system.

Some space will be saved when the new public safety building is completed and the Sheriff's Department is moved from the basement of the Courts Facility. But the clerk of court already needs that space for court administrative purposes.

Carriage Oaks Option

Lea said the county should at least consider the practicality of using the Carriage Oaks property, which the county already owns, for the government office building. This would free space in the Grimm tract for the detention center-public safety building and provide plenty of space for future expansion of those facilities and for construction of a new courts building at some point in years to come.

"We want answers to all these questions," said Board Chairman Nick Picerno.

The analysis of the 21.5-acre Carriage Oaks complex says the site has the advantages of easy access to major highways, U.S. 15-501 and N.C. 24-27, a generally flat topography, and suitable soils for construction. Another major advantage is its ownership by the county.

However, the site does have some wetlands, and LandDesign pointed out that parking issues must be addressed in the future.

Carriage Oaks, a former shopping center, was purchased in the 1990s for the Department of Social Services, which had been scattered into three or four different buildings in various parts of Carthage and Pinehurst for a number of years. The property included the building formerly used as a shopping center, which was renovated to accommodate social services. The rest of the building was rented to private businesses.

Since that time, the private tenants have largely vacated the building, and the county has moved the Department of Planning and Community Development, the Environmental Health unit and the wellness program into the building. Only one or two private tenants remain.

The county's plan calls for Environmental Health and Planning to be moved into the new office building. That would free space in the former shopping center building for DSS expansion.

However, Lea said the Carriage Oaks property is large enough for the office building and that parking arrangements can be worked out.

One corner of the Carriage Oaks property was given by the county to the Moore County Veterans Memorial Committee, which has constructed a memorial on the site to all veterans with county connections. The memorial was dedicated three years ago.

Jail Options

Although the 700-inmate bed figure mentioned by Lea sounds high, he said he is basing his estimate on the results of a study conducted by Steve Allan of Solutions for Local Governments two years ago.

In that study, Allan predicted that Moore County's general population would climb to 111,850 by 2030. He reported that the county's average daily jail population was 97 in 1997, when the new jail was about two years old. By 2007 the average daily jail population had climbed to 123, making the existing facility overcrowded at times. Overcrowding was the reason that the county was forced to enlarge and renovate the old jail in 1995.

Allan advised the county commissioners that they should expect a need for a 600-bed facility by 2030 and recommended that they begin planning for such an eventuality. In the meantime, the detention center now in the initial design stage is expected to be sufficient to meet county needs for the next few years. The reduction in size was necessitated by current economic conditions.

The commissioners viewed the Carriage Oaks site analysis but did not discuss the feasibility of making such a change in plans.

Picerno did ask the architects, Glenn Ware of Ware-Bonsall and Katherine Peele of LS3P Boney, if they had considered all possible sites on the Grimm tract when planning the placement of the buildings under design.

During the meeting, the architects reported on the status of design work on both facilities.

Ware listed a series of options, including single-level housing and stacked housing for the jail, along with the pros and cons of each.

Contact Florence Gilkeson at 947-4962 or by e-mail at florence@thepilot.com.