End in sight for delayed Justice Center project

WORK ON A $2.5 million addition to the southeast corner of the Ozaukee County Justice Center in Port Washington, which was prolonged by changes and has closed the main drive to the building, is expected to be completed this month. The addition will be used by the Sheriff’s Office. Photo by Sam Arendt
After several delays, the addition on the east side of the Ozaukee County Justice Center is expected to be completed by the end of January, two and a half months behind schedule.
That means the public will be able to access the Justice Center through the east entrance on Spring Street, which has been closed since last spring.
The Justice Center, 1201 S. Spring St. in Port Washington, houses the county courts, Clerk of Courts, Sheriff’s Office, District Attorney’s Office, the county jail and other offices.
The 10,000-square-foot addition at the southeast corner of the building will house a training room for the Sheriff’s Office, provide much needed storage for equipment and evidence, and provide garage space for squad cars, some of which have had to be housed in rented storage space.
The addition also will include a 1,000-square-foot room on the second floor for defensive and arrest tactics training.
A major delay in the project occurred when workers discovered a water main had to be relocated.
Another delay was caused when the county had to address the expansion of the Sheriff’s Office dispatch center by relocating it to an existing training room in the Justice Center and reconfiguring space in the addition that officials had planned to use for that purpose.
That change also resulted in a change order of about $115,000, driving up the cost of the addition to about $2.5 million, Justice Center Building Superintendent Ryan Takkes said.
“It just so happened we were in that phase of construction” when the dispatch center decision was made, he said.
Another change occurred this past fall when officials discovered a retaining wall was too close to a garage door, restricting the turning radius of larger vehicles trying to exit.
That meant having to remove the wall, Takkes said.
The county had been considering an addition for several years. In 2019, officials proposed constructing a city-county building at the Justice Center that would combine a new Port Washington Fire Station with the storage and training facility.
That proposal went nowhere, however, and county supervisors approved a plan to complete the project on their own.
To pay for the addition, the county borrowed $1 million and used about $1.1 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act money as well as $290,000 from the Sheriff’s Office capital reserve fund generated by the jail boarding program.
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Wisconsin’s largest paid circulation community weekly newspaper. Serving Port Washington, Saukville, Grafton, Fredonia, Belgium, as well as Ozaukee County government. Locally owned and printed in Port Washington, Wisconsin.
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