Allen County Commissioners Cory Noonan Brian Winegardner and Beth Seibert met to discuss the use of ARPA funds at Thursday morning’s meeting.
Precious Grundy | The Lima News
LIMA — Allen County Commissioners are taking the first steps towards residing in a new building. According to Commissioner Cory Noonan, the county has discussed plans to relocate for over a decade. The hope of the new building is to have many offices in a central location.
In 2021, Allen County was awarded $19.8 million from the American Rescue Plan Act.
Commissioners had the opportunity to use $10 million for unrestricted funding. The plan is to use $10 million for the new building project.
“For the past few months, we have been looking at the needs of the non-judicial administrative offices,” said Noonan. “Eventually, we have to do something with the courthouse; we have to get people out of the courthouse. It does not make sense to move people out and then move them back in. Right now it is all about planning and seeing what we can do.”
The Allen County Courthouse is home to multiple administrative offices. Once the project is finished, the offices will transition. The Courthouse will remain a part of Allen County.
“We have been committed to protecting our employees and providing protection of our county,” said Noonan. “The protection of the Allen County residents that visit those offices is kind of the emphasis behind the dollars that we are providing for the County. With the dollars that are less restrictive, we have dedicated those to infrastructure building-wise. We know we have that amount of money. We are working on what other dollars we have to add to that.”
The next steps will include discussions with the county attorney, deciding on a location and determining a plan for design.
Noonan said the Commissioners discussed a handful of locations. Each location is already owned by Allen County or a county entity.
“This office has been on a path to put these administrative offices in a new facility,” said Allen County Commissioner Beth Seibert. “The money that we were able to pull down from the American Rescue dollars as unrestricted really became important to use in fulfilling that dream.”
Reach Precious Grundy at 567-242-0351.
