Dealing with decaying county buildings was ‘easy to put o ’ — for years
Now, repairs are a priority expected to cost millions
As the Rappahannock County Building Committee moves forward with plans to restore and renovate county buildings in the Town of Washington, some o cials acknowledged that deteriorating buildings has been an issue for a decade, but has only recently been prioritized.
The Rappahannock County Board of Supervisors have only recently started discussing potential plans for restoring and renovating the buildings along Courthouse Row, despite multiple surveys showing serious damage to the buildings dating as far back as 2012. Restoring or renovating the buildings, which currently pose potential safety hazards
in their dilapidated state, is expected to cost the county several millions of dollars.
The buildings in need of repair include the courthouse, Rappahannock Association for Arts and Community Theater, Court Clerk’s office, old jailhouse, the Commissioner of Revenue, the Treasurer's office, the Commonwealth Attorney’s office and the former county administration building.
Piedmont Supervisor Christine Smith, who is also a member of the Buildings Committee, said renovating and restoring the buildings haven’t been as high of a priority in the past as it should have been.
“I don't think anything stalled the process,” Smith said. “It's just a matter of we've established priorities, and some of the work takes a long time to do. And it isn't just the Building Committee, it's also getting buy-in from the board as a whole and funding the project. So you know, it's not like you just decide to do something and you do it. There are a lot of layers, and you work through them one thing at a time.”
Rappahannock County hired Alexandria-based company Wiley-Wilson in 2019 to survey the conditions of county buildings in the Town of Washington. Most of the buildings surveyed, according to a report that was released February 2020, are more than 130 years old and have “many compromised or antiquated building systems.” The 2020 report found multiple “issues of dire concern for life safety and/or security that are recommended for immediate review and remedy.”
In a presentation to the body in January, the Buildings Committee laid out other “pressing issues” that are not linked to life or safety, including signs of water infiltration abound in spalling, chipping and bubbling finishes across a number of buildings both on their interiors and exteriors, roof replacements and HVAC renovations.
Reported issues with the buildings have gone unaddressed for a decade. A 2012 report from the John Greenwalt Lee Company on drainage, masonry and flashing improvements for the county offices said that problems with them “are typical to all buildings up through the early 20th century before the significant changes to modern construction.”
“These buildings exhibit typical conditions from the late 19th and especially 20th century of good intentions in trying to maintain buildings without correctly interpreting the symptoms of deterioration … These 20th [century] accretions were ill-conceived and the main repair approach is to selectively remove these and locate actual sources of problem and repair with compatible materials for their period of construction,” the 2012 report said.
Former Stonewall-Hawthorne Supervisor Chris Parrish, who was in office at the time the report was issued, said that he doesn’t remember it showing anything that required immediate action from the body.
“It never was an emergency, and I think there were differing levels of urgency that was going on,” Parrish said. “So part of the problem was identifying what needed to be done, and that's only recently been done. Literally, within the last year or two … It was just a matter of priority. And it was just something easy to put off.”
County Administrator Garrey Curry said some repairs were done to buildings as a result of the 2012 study, but he could not say for certain if all the recommendations were addressed. “For example, look at the photos showing parging on the lower extent of the front of the [Commissioner of Revenue] building compared with what is there now ... the parging was removed,” Curry wrote in an email. Parging is the application of a cement coating, usually to masonry walls.
Jackson Supervisor Ron Frazier, chair of the Buildings Committee, said past Boards of Supervisors have been reluctant to allocate and spend money on addressing issues with the buildings.
He also said the Buildings Committee didn’t meet as often in 2020 because of pandemic restrictions.
Right now, the Buildings Committee is working on a proposal to share with the Board of Supervisors so they can move forward with restoration of the old jailhouse and plans to either renovate or build a new courthouse, which will be costly regardless of which option officials chose.
“There’s just a lot of details we have to work through before we actually put some sort of a plan together to present to the Board Supervisors,” Frazier said.
Page Glennie, a member of the Buildings Committee since 2019, said he toured the attic in the old jailhouse and saw the “life and safety” issues highlighted in the 2020 report, saying the
Board of Supervisors cannot afford to ignore the issue any longer.
“What I really want to see happen is far more citizen involvement because this is such a critical part of the community,” Glennie said. “... What is it they want? You know, do they want to go as far as take this building back to the original configuration? Do they want the campus look?”
ADDRESSING ‘ANIMAL DROPPINGS’ IN VACANT JAIL, SAFETY IN COURTHOUSE
The Buildings Committee and Board of Supervisors have jointly agreed to begin restoration work with the old jailhouse, fixing the chimneys; gutters and windows; waste removal and cleaning of the attic.
According to a report put together by Buildings Committee member Dale Waters, the attic space above the old jailhouse “is full of discarded HVAC equipment, materials, debris and animal droppings.” The draft also outlines work that needs to be done on the masonry and mortar, replacing rotted wood, removing improper parge coatings and other administrative directives and conditions.
The seven-page report thoroughly outlines work that still needs to be done on the old jail building. No construction has yet taken place on the building.
The Buildings Committee also conducted interviews with employees working in county administration on Courthouse Row on what each office’s space requirements are. Many asked for additional storage and meeting space, and some offices, like the Treasurer and Commissioner of Revenue, requested better accessibility for people with disabilities.
At a March 25 Buildings Committee meeting, Frazier said the Board of Supervisors are not in agreement on whether the county should renovate the existing courthouse or build a new one.
“Everybody I've talked to wants to maintain the look and feel of our buildings,” Wakefield Supervisor Debbie Donehey said at a January meeting. “They're not looking for a brand new
The 2020 report found multiple “issues of dire concern for life safety and/or security that are recommended for immediate review and remedy.”
fancy building that stands out, so anything we can do to fix the buildings we have … [and] make sure it looks and feels the same, at least on the outside.”
Members of the Buildings Committee said it would be more cost effective to build a new courthouse rather than try to maintain court functions in the current building. The committee estimated that the cost of meeting court space requirements will be higher per square foot, possibly as much as 50% more.
County bodies, including the Board of Supervisors, have been using the courthouse as their meeting space and could be barred from holding public meetings in the space by a judge at any point because of safety and security concerns.
There are security concerns and issues with overall functionality in the current courthouse. When visitors enter the courthouse, there is only one space for attorneys, defendants, witnesses and members of the public to stand, and everyone must walk up the same staircase to enter the courtroom. There are also safety concerns with the distance between defendants and the judge in the courtroom.
The Buildings Committee outlined other impacts of maintaining court functions at the current courthouse:
► Court would need to be held elsewhere for at least a year
► Modifying a historic building adds unknowns to cost estimates
► Redesign of the courthouse is more complex than new construction
► Underground utilities behind courthouse would need to be relocated
There are several concepts created by Wiley-Wilson of what a new courthouse and its surrounding campus could look like, including a change in the orientation of the building and adding additional exits and entrances. Those concepts can be found on BoardDocs, the website where the county shares meeting agenda and minutes.
The committee is currently working on a clear presentation to submit to the Board of Supervisors on how to move forward with the courthouse.