CINCINNATI — Hamilton County is exploring the move of several of its offices out of downtown and into the Mercy Health building in Bond Hill.
The plan, which has to be approved by county commissioners, would include moving the Hamilton County Job & Family Services, Developmental Disabilities Services, Public Health, Environmental Services, the Office of Addiction Response and the Veterans Service Commission to the building off the Norwood Lateral at Reading Road.
Hamilton County Administrator Jeff Aluotto presented the property acquisition plan to the board of commissioners at a Tuesday meeting. While still preliminary, Aluotto said the plan would help relieve the county of high operating costs and shed large deferred maintenance and future capital needs.
"We have over $100 million over the next 20 years that we have to put into our buildings," he said.
The move would affect around 1,400 county employees across the six departments, though that would be limited to between 500 and 600 employees on any given day.
Most of the employees affected would be JFS staff. Of the more than 800 JFS employees, the county said roughly 300 work in person at the current Alms & Doepke Building on any given day.
"A building where, post-COVID, it is only half-full — because of the nature of the work that JFS workers are doing, which is out in the field — so many, many of them are not in the building anyway. When they go to work, they don't come downtown. They work out in the field, and when they do come downtown, it's challenging because space is tight, parking is tight," said commissioner Denise Driehaus.
The Alms & Doepke building is a product of the 1800s — outdated, with no dedicated parking and dark interiors, Driehaus said.
The acquisition plan would fix those problems and then some, according to the preliminary plans.
Between a surface lot and structured garage, the Mercy Health site boasts more than 1,600 parking spaces. The site also sits on a SORTA bus line and is centrally located in the county, Aluotto said.
"There's a security system, multiple board rooms, there's clinic space in the facility that could very easily work to be positioned as forward-facing customer space for people coming in for different types of client meetings There's a large cafeteria, multiple conference huddle room space. There's also outdoor spaces and actually a walking trail around the building as well."
The timeline would not be swift: If the Hamilton County Board of Commissioners approves the purchase, they would expect to close on the former Mercy Health property by October of 2024, Aluotto said.
While the Alms & Doepke building would vacate, three other county buildings would also undergo disposition. Those include 250 William Howard Taft, which houses Environmental Services and Public Health, and the two Developmental Disabilities Services sites located at 1520 Madison Road and 5093 Kingsley Drive.
Veterans Service Commission Executive Director Orlando Sonza says he expects at least a six-month renovation of the interior of the building to get the various areas of the building ready for the new county office tenants.
Aluotto said the move would affect more than 500 employees.
The purchase price for the building in Bond Hill given to the county was $95 million, but Aluotto said because they would be buying Mercy Health out of their lease, Mercy Health agreed to pay the $30 million buyout cost bringing the actual cost for the county down to $65 million.
"This board has been insistent that we engage the Bond Hill community when it comes to this," Driehaus said. "It's a very large building in the middle of Bond Hill and the impacts of us going in can be significant, and I think significantly positive because that building is not being utilized right now the way it could be."
Commissioner Stephanie Summerow Dumas echoed Driehaus' support, calling the potential consolidation a "win win for the community".
"As far as buildings that we have and that we may vacate, developers are just sitting waiting to figure out how to buy those buildings, I have no doubt," she said. "Of course it needs to meet our vision as a county."
Summerow Dumas also praised Mercy Health for being a good partner in the process, sharing the same county's same vision of being good stewards in the community.
Commission president Alicia Reece felt differently.
When she was a state representative, she fought hard to get Mercy Health in Bond Hill, a process regional leaders spent more time advocating and negotiating for than Mercy Health actually stayed in the building, Reece said.
"I lived in Bond Hill and the partnership is not what was promised," she said. "The goal was to have corporate jobs — not government, not my taxpayer jobs — but the corporate jobs were supposed to come there to give us more...we were supposed to have high-paying jobs — 1,050 high-paying jobs. Those are now gone. (Mercy Health, you) didn't even tell Bond Hill that you left."
With the Community Action Agency locate just down the street, Reece also stressed her concern over the optics of two social services being located in Bond Hill.
No decision was made Tuesday, but a vote is expected next month.
