Orange County is considering

a site for a new $34 million multistory complex for its building divisions.

With booming development and a surging population, Orange County government is eyeing a new home for its building divisions.

The county is studying the possibility of building a multistory office complex on 6 acres it owns near the Orange County Jail, said Anne Kulikowski, county director of administrative services.

“We are in the early stages of assessing the opportunity to build a new facility to better serve our residents and customers,” she said, raising the subject Monday during a 30-minute budget presentation to the Orange County Commission.

The proposal, described as “in the very preliminary and exploratory stages,” would move the building safety, zoning and planning divisions to a new 80,000-square-foot building. The divisions now are at the County Administration Building, 201 S. Rosalind Ave., and customers with construction schematics often line the hallways and pack the lobby.

The county building division issued 84,000 permits in 2017 and 74,000 in 2016.

The proposed project, as first reported in GrowthSpotter, also would have room for the tax collector’s administrative offices, which now lease space in the SunTrust Center on South Orange Avenue in downtown Orlando.

The future site is in the 3100 block of 39th Street, north of the county’s Public Works office building and half a mile from the intersection of John Young Parkway and Interstate 4.

Kulikowski estimated the preliminary price tag for the project at $34 million, saying construction would be primarily funded by fees that developers and contractors must pay for permit applications. She asked commissioners for $4 million in the 2018-19 budget for the building’s design.

This week’s discussion was part of a two-day budget work session for commissioners, who are scheduled to vote on the county’s proposed budget at two public meetings, the first on Sept. 6 and the second on Sept. 20.

Kulikowski suggested the county set aside $15 million for construction in fiscal years 2019-20 and 2020-21.

“Once this is done … we could say we put building safety, zoning, a lot of our key permitting customertype divisions in a permanent space that has great accessibility, parking and growth potential,” she said.

Moving the building divisions from Rosalind Avenue might inconvenience planning, civil engineering and construction firms with downtown offices, but it would cluster building services in one area with ample free parking.

The vacated space in the administration building could then be filled by other county operations that are now off-site.

Kulikowski outlined a threephase construction and remodeling project that would upgrade a county-owned building on South Street, which could accommodate the Orange County Property Appraiser’s Office when its five-year lease expires. She said the county pays $1.3 million a year to rent office space for the tax collector and property appraiser.

Eddie Ayala, spokesman for Tax Collector Scott Randolph, said the constitutional office would welcome a move to permanent space.

“We’ve been in a years-long discussion about moving,” he said.

Location convenience downtown has become less of an issue through the years as more taxpayers take advantage of the option to pay their bills online, Ayala said.

The SunTrust Center is next to a multilevel garage, but parking isn’t free. As with other downtown Orlando venues, free parking is scarce at the administration building, too.

Many customers circle the small lot in search of a free space or reluctantly pay to park in the garage owned by Orlando, though they too compete for spaces with other downtown visitors.

“It’s only going to get worse,” Kulikowski said.

Her budget presentation included a PowerPoint showing the county’s population of 1.3 million was projected to swell to 1.9 million in the next two decades.

The county’s downtown offices are bursting at the seams, mostly with development activity around the building division, where the lobby and waiting areas are frequently jammed.

“It’s always so full,” Commissioner Jennifer Thompson said.