Hardin Fiscal Court picks site for new government building

Hardin Fiscal Court took steps Tuesday toward building a new county government office complex.

The vote on an engineering firm to design the building included a decision to build the $12 million structure on county-owned property along Ring Road in Elizabethtown adjacent to the emergency management building. The measure passed 8-1 with Magistrate Bill Wiseman casting the only dissenting vote.

ICON Engineering & Inspection Services, an Elizabethtown company, was selected as engineering firm for the project. In December, ICON completed a comprehensive study commissioned by county government to determine the needs of 10 departments and the office space required to meet those needs.

Based on the discussions Tuesday, construction bids will take six months or more and construction is expected to take a full year.

The county offices housed in the H.B. Fife Courthouse and the R.R. Thomas Government Building in Elizabethtown's traditional downtown will be relocated. The courthouse will remain in use by county government. Plans call for the county attorney's office, now on East Dixie Avenue, to move there. The county also expects to sell the R.R. Thomas Building, which takes up one corner of the square.

The decision has no impact on the Hardin County Justice Center one block off the square, where judicial staff and the circuit clerk's office are located. That structure, built less than 15 years ago, is operated by the Administrative Office of the Courts, a state agency.

For details on Fiscal Court's meeting, see Wednesday's print edition of The News-Enterprise.