$98.6 million bond on Fort Bend ballot
RICHMOND — Fort Bend County commissioners voted Wednesday to place on the November ballot a $98.6 million bond to fund public facilities.
The bond responds to Fort Bend County’s rapid population growth and rising property values and provides funding for needs that County Judge Robert Hebert described as “pressing.”
The most expensive project included in the bond is the $29.2 million expansion of the Justice Center. The project will add another 105,600 square feet to the existing 270,000 squarefoot building, including permanent spaces for the district attorney, district clerk and county clerk. This accounts for nearly a third of the bond’s funds. An additional $4.7 million will add 400 spaces to the center’s parking garage. County services center
The commissioners added $8 million to the bond during Wednesday’s special meeting to renovate a former Houston Community College building in Sienna, located next to that area’s branch of the Fort Bend County Library. Originally proposed by Commissioner Grady Prestage, this project had been removed from previous drafts. The board plans to convert the building into a county services center for Fort Bend residents living in Sienna and the Highway 6 Corridor.
“It would have a tax office and clerk’s office so that folks in Sienna don’t have to come all the way to Richmond,” Hebert said. There are already centers in Sugar Land and Needville, Hebert said, and with Sienna’s high growth rate, it’s time to provide that area the same conveniences.
The bond will also cover a $3.4 million medical examiner’s office administration building and morgue. Counties are not required to hire trained medical examiners until the population reaches 1 million. However, Hebert estimates that opening a medical examiner’s office now will save the county money because of decreased transportation costs and the rising base fee for an autopsy, currently $2,500.
“The bottom line is looking at it in its worst case scenario, the medical examiner’s office is a break even for the county,” Hebert said.
Other projects included in the bond are a new sheriff’s office administration building, land acquisition and improvements, emergency medical service facility improvements, a 5th Street Community Center expansion with a new freestanding gymnasium, a new library to serve north Fort Bend and renovations to the existing Missouri City branch library, and a sheriff’s office Katy substation. Fairgrounds barn
This bond does not include a proposal for $23.9 million that was under consideration for a new multi-use fairgrounds events center. Instead, $4.7 million was allocated to razing and rebuilding the George Auction Barn at the fairgrounds, creating a 60,000-square-foot replacement facility. The bond includes $1.3 million for maintenance of existing buildings.
Waiting to build the events center, which will likely still be on the fairgrounds, gives the board time to research its cost and make sure partners are committed to the project, Hebert said. Commissioner Richard Morrison has searched for partners for the events center, including the Lamar Consolidated Independent School District. “This way we’re only asking people to vote for the money we know we’re going to spend,” Hebert said.