County still needs space planning help

Last December, in this space, I wrote that our county officials needed to solicit professional help in connection with the county's space needs and surplus property. Here's what I wrote:

I think that this problem has simply gotten too big to be handled the way it's currently being handled. The county should buckle down and hire a professional firm to conduct a comprehensive study of its current space needs and the potential for using or selling vacant or soon-to-be-vacant properties .... I suspect that it might be a good idea to hire a large out-of-town firm with little connection to local politics or real estate.

I know such a study -- if done right -- would be expensive, perhaps in six figures, and I know that county commissioners sometimes howl over the cost of professional services. But having good information and good recommendations could make millions of dollars worth of difference in the county's future plans, whether it's income from selling existing properties or expense from building a new office complex.

Eight months later, the county's situation is, if anything, even more complex and confusing than it was before. The county is still renting space for some offices while worrying about abandoned or soon-to-be-abandoned surplus property, some of which would probably cost more to renovate than a new office building would cost to construct. The new Bedford County Medical Center is rising on U.S. 231, and once it opens the county will have another big vacant building on Union Street. Meanwhile, the county jail is running out of room, and the county commission's courthouse and property committee has talked about the idea of building a new jail and criminal justice center, including courtrooms and judicial offices, and using the existing jail for female inmates only.

There are conversations underway about converting the old Harris Middle School building into an extension campus for Middle Tennessee State University. Hopefully, something will come of those discussions, and the possibility of HMS as a college facility must be taken into account by any comprehensive property study. But that doesn't mean the county can afford to sit and twiddle its thumbs. The time to study what to do with the county's personnel and properties is now -- not two years from now, not six months from now. A study will be expensive, but building the wrong thing in the wrong place for the wrong reasons will be even more expensive.

When I first started covering county government in the mid-1980s, the county was learning the perils of procrastination. It was forced by the court system to build a new jail in response to overcrowding. The court order meant the county had to act quickly, and so the jail was built in a site no one was completely happy about and became overcrowded within just a few years after it opened.

Wouldn't it be better to decide what is best for the county rather than get caught in a similar trap and have to respond to a crisis a few years from now?

John I. Carney is city editor of the Times-Gazette and covers county government and other topics. His home page is lakeneuron.com .