Jeffco Health site draws no offers from developers, plan ‘on hold’
JEFFERSON COUNTY – A plan to redevelop the County Health Department campus in Lakewood is on hold and county commissioners put in limbo a wider project that would have provided possible relocation sites for the health agency.
“We are on hold. We really didn’t get any bids” for the Jefferson County Department of Health parcel on the southeast corner of West Alameda Avenue and Kipling Street, said Kathryn Heider, county spokeswoman.
Neighbors of the parcel fought unsuccessfully to persuade City Council that the county’s plan to redevelop the parcel was too vague and posed problems for the surrounding neighborhoods during a marathon public hearing last year.
Council’s 7-3 approval of the county’s rezoning application for the property at 260 S. Kipling changed the parcel’s large-lot residential designation to Planned Unit Development zoning. The Jeffco health agency had operated at the site under special-use permits approved by the city in 1974 and 1988, but has occupied the site since the mid-60s, before Lakewood was incorporated. The former zoning carried over from a similar large-lot residential zoning category originally bestowed by Jeffco.
The change would allow the county to sell the property for commercial and retail development including supermarkets and other single-tenant retail stores up to a maximum of 150,000 square feet. Other uses include gas stations, banks and financial institutions, fast food outlets, office buildings, convenience stores and low-power telecommunications facilities.
But the county’s proposed relocation sites for the health agency fell in a Tuesday vote of the three-member Board of County Commissioners, who tabled a plan to sell off a number of other county properties and purchase other parcels to facilitate a proposal to spread county services and agencies at sites throughout the county.
The BCC’s direction shifted with the recent replacement of two commissioners.
Six-year Commissioner Kevin McCasky, a Republican who represented the Lakewood area on the board, resigned in February and was replaced by John Odom, who was appointed by the county Republican Party Vacancy Committee last month. Former Commissioner Kathy Hartman, a Democrat, lost her District 3 seat in November’s election to Republican Don Rosier.
The new board decided to change the recommended 2011 Capital Improvements Plan to focus on what they see as the county’s most critical needs. In addition to taking several projects put of the current mix, commissioners also decided not to issue $11 million in additional public debt.
“With tight revenues projected to continue into the future, prioritizing and addressing the most urgent infrastructure needs is one of the highest priorities of the Board,” said Rosier.
“We put some major projects on hold and took some off the list. Completing all projects on that list would exceed the amount of money we have to spend by millions,” Commissioner Faye Griffin said. “Instead we pared down the list by almost $60 million.”
“This is a big change,” said Commissioner Odom commented. “We are changing directions and not moving forward with many projects. There is a new fiscal restraint with the Board of County Commissioners.”
During Tuesday’s meeting, commissioners dropped plans to purchase the vacant Target building on West Colfax and an office building on Parfet Street in Lakewood, both of which were possible sites for a relocated Department of Health. The Target site also was under consideration as a site for a satellite Sheriff’s Office.
A proposed county “service hub” at West 44th Avenue and Wadsworth Boulevard in Wheat Ridge also was removed from the current Capital Improvement Plan in Tuesday’s vote.
Commissioners instead will consider relocating Public Health Clinics now in Arvada as well as the Arvada and Lakewood Motor Vehicle Offices into a facility proposed for a 4-acre, county-owned parcel near the Head Start/Russell Elementary School in Arvada.
Heider said the plan would save current rental costs and “increase accessibility for residents.”
Some items in the Capital Improvement Plan remain in the works, including plans to replace the central plant and mechanical systems at the county’s 26-year-old detention center and a project that would increase space for the Sheriff’s crime lab and evidence storage. But plans for new buildings for the Community Corrections and Work Release programs have been placed on “indefinite hold,” in the revised plan approved Tuesday.
“It is imperative to address outdated infrastructure in the detention center,” Rosier said. “The mechanical systems in the jail have already doubled their projected life span, and replacement systems would operate more efficiently and economically.”
The original plan called for the county to sell the New York Building in Lakewood, which currently houses the Community Corrections program. But that plan also is on hold. Instead, the county will work with the program’s contractor to determine a fix for the program’s “facility needs,” according to a statement released by the county.
Commissioners also tabled a plan to build a Sheriff’s Office substation between Evergreen and Conifer.
The remaining Capital Improvement projects will be funded by 2009 Certificates of Participation that were issued after the final payment was made on the Administration and Courts Facility, in Golden. That pay-off results in a $7 million reduction annually in bond payments. Some of that money is going to pay for energy upgrades on the county campus and county libraries as well as automatic book sorters for libraries.
