ROGERS -- Benton County officials were generally positive in their initial assessments of proposed office space in the old Kmart building.
"I think it will work, we should have plenty of space," County Assessor Roderick Grieve said last week while touring the building at 2115 W. Walnut St. "We have roughly 26 people in the Main Street office and they will all be moving here."
Office space
Benton County is leasing office space in Rogers in the first phase of a three-part plan to shift some offices. Later moves may include relocating the planning office, coroner’s office, maintenance department and storage.
Source: Staff report
Grieve said his main concern is having space for desks and computers.
"Our people, weather permitting, 90 percent of the time they're out in the field." he said. "We don't have a lot of public traffic."
The county is finalizing a lease for 20,000 square feet in the building, with a right of first refusal on an adjoining 17,000 square feet.
Benton County property records show the entire building has 114,656 square feet. Some of the former retail building is already leased. The Samaritan Shop moved into 24,000 square feet in April.
County Judge Barry Moehring said he expects the space will be ready in early January and the Benton County Election Commission will be the first office to relocate.
"There are only two variables," Moehring said. "First is final approval of the budget. Second is the signing of the lease. We've agreed to terms so I think going to work out as well."
The county plans to address several issues by acquiring the space in Rogers, according to a report Moehring made Nov. 14 to the Quorum Court. The Election Commission will need more space to house and maintain additional voting equipment the county has agreed to buy. Election equipment is now kept in a county building on Southwest 14th Street.
The second space issue stems from the need to move the Division VI courtroom and offices from leased space on East Central Avenue in Bentonville. The county has been notified the lease will be terminated early in 2018 and plans to shift the court to a county building at 221 S. Main St. That space is used by the Assessor's Office, which plans to move into the new Rogers space.
Moehring said the County Clerk's Office will shift its Rogers operation from the county building at 1428 W. Walnut St. to the new space, leaving more room for the collector, assessor and state Department of Finance and Administration operations there. Room will be made available in the new space for the county's Equalization Board to meet when needed.
Preparing the building will require removing some walls and adding others, as well as modifying or moving some doorways and creating others. Moehring said the modifications should be done before the county moves in, although some minor changes may be still need to be made.
"It's a unique space and I think we have a plan to use it well, plus we have some additional space for storage which I think we will use next year." he said.
Moehring said the option to add adjacent space is an important factor as well.
"There is some additional flex space and storage space in the first phase," Moehring said. "Given our growth, I have no doubt we will make use of all the space we have. The extra space, we'll need to study that early next year and determine the feasibility of that."
The Election Commission need for space is driven by the size of the new voting machines, which are larger than the current ones. The county will be buying 475 of the machines, plus 65 ballot counters and 119 printers. Kim Dennison, election coordinator, said she will have to see how the new machines fit into the space in the new building.
"Until we get all of the new machines in and into the new building, I don't know how much space we'll have for testing and training," Dennison said.
Betsy Harrell, chief deputy clerk with the County Clerk's Office, said the space allotted to that office should be adequate and the location should be better for early voting.
"It will be better for early voting solely because of the parking," Harrell said. "Early voting always falls in the last part of the month and at the other office we're sharing space with the DMV they always have a huge crush of business at the end of every month. That should not be a problem at the new location."
NW News on 11/27/2017