- April 19, 2024
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Flagler County will once again be the owner of the historic Flagler County Courthouse, after voting 3-2 in a special Monday meeting to accept it back from the city of Bunnell.
The county will form a blue-ribbon committee that will evaluate options for the courthouse and submit a plan to the city within four months of its formation, planned for June 16.
Bunnell had asked the county for the courthouse in order to convert it into a city hall. The city has been holding its city council meetings in the county Government Services Building. But after accepting it, the Bunnell City Council decided it didn’t want it: it was too large for their needs, commissioners said, and rehabilitating the old structure would be too expensive.
Commissioner George Hanns voted against accepting the building back.
“My opinion is I don’t want it back. It belongs to the residents of Flagler County and particularly Bunnell,” Hanns said.
Hanns said he doesn’t want to see the building demolished, one of five options City Manager Craig Coffey presented the commission with during a workshop held before the special meeting in which the vote was held.
The other options included not accepting the building back, taking it back and selling it, rehabilitating it for government or nonprofit use, or taking it back and redeveloping it with a private and public partnership.
Hanns said he thought the building should be saved, but that Bunnell should be the one to save it. “Across the nation you commonly see fundraisers, ‘save the old courthouse,’ ‘save the beach,’” he said.
Commissioner Frank Meeker also voted against taking the building back, saying the city’s decision to take the building led the county in another direction with plans for a Sheriff’s Operations Center in the old hospital building.
“Based on what the city of Bunnell was going to do, we’ve gone down another path,” he said, “and we’re pretty well committed to that now.”
Commissioner Nate McLaughlin said he understood the city's position. “I understand the financial dilemma that Bunnell has found itself in with this project,” he said.
McLaughlin said long-term plans to take and rehabilitate the building had been developed under previous Bunnell city manager Armando Martinez, and “that manager’s no longer with them. They have a new manager who has reviewed their line of credit and said, ‘No, you don’t have the credit to do that. It will put you in financial straights.’”
McLaughlin said he doesn’t see the building as an asset to the county. He sees it as a liability. But he suggested the county take it back anyway, and sell it if it can’t find a use for it.
“The historic value is overwhelmed by the financial responsibility that this creates,” he said.
The suggestion to form a blue-ribbon committee came from Commissioner Barbara Revels, who said she wasn’t happy about having to accept the building back, but worried about it deteriorating further.
A mold problem Bunnell commissioners cited as a reason for returning the building developed because the city didn’t keep the building properly air conditioned after accepting it, she said.
“I’m very upset that the city begged for and took this building with great plans, then proceeded immediately to turn the air conditioning off, and let it leak,” she said. “It’s unconscionable to me that the city could take this building and let what happened to it happen to it, and then go on the radio and tell the world, ‘We went in it and got really sick.’”
She visited the building once with Bunnell staff, she said, and the air conditioning wasn’t on. They thought it was broken. It wasn’t, and they turned it on while she was there.
Revels said she thought the building could be rehabilitated.
“It could be a fabulous building, she said. “Yes Craig, we don’t have the money” she said, turning to Coffey, “but there’s got to be something out there.”
In the meantime, she said, the county could take the building back, turn the air conditioning on, and get it insured. She proposed a blue-ribbon committee to study the problem and make recommendations.
Meeker said the county shouldn’t have to accept the building back while the blue-ribbon committee worked.
“Mr. Meeker, we have to get in there and stop the deterioration,” Revels replied.
McLaughlin said that if the blue-ribbon committee deliberates, “there’s a not a satisfactory plan, I will be the first to put it on the block.”
Several people spoke in favor of the old courthouse during the meeting’s public comment period, including local pastor the Rev. Sims Jones, and businessman Michael Barr. Both suggested using the building for nonprofit organizations.
After the vote on the courthouse, the commission voted 3-2, with Revels and Commissioner Charles Ericksen dissenting, to allow Bunnell to continue using the Government Services Building until August.
The city has used the building for free for about five years. If it doesn’t leave by August, Bunnell will have to pay two months back rent at $1 a square foot, plus a $100 facility usage fee each time it held meetings in the commission chambers.
