The Cayuga County Legislature's Public Works Committee this week raised the possibility that the county might one day want to construct a new building to house county agencies.
The new facility could be built on land the county already owns on County House Road in Sennett and allow for the consolidation of offices that are a bit spread out and would save big money on energy costs.
Committee chairman David Axton points out that it would be two or three years before a decision would be made, and that's a good thing, because there are plenty of concerns that may or may not outweigh the advantages of a new building.
A big factor would be access.
A lot of people rely on public transportation to get to the human services agencies and other offices at the county building. Moving all the offices out of the population center of the county would, at the very least, mean getting Centro involved to ensure a full schedule of bus routes would be maintained to get people to and from the new offices.
And what would become of the huge office building on Genesee Street? The county courthouse? The last thing downtown Auburn needs is more vacant buildings.
And while we understand that the county isn't in the business of supporting downtown Auburn, the removal of all the county office building workers and visitors would surely have an impact on city merchants who supply the county with much-needed sales-tax revenue.
Considering that as much as $25 million might be needed to upgrade current county buildings, it makes sense to explore a cost-effective alternative. It might actually be less expensive to start from scratch and build a new facility that could take advantage of energy-saving technologies.
We support exploring the idea of building a new county office complex, but any study must take all the interconnected variables into account.
Committee chairman David Axton points out that it would be two or three years before a decision would be made, and that's a good thing, because there are plenty of concerns that may or may not outweigh the advantages of a new building.
A big factor would be access.
A lot of people rely on public transportation to get to the human services agencies and other offices at the county building. Moving all the offices out of the population center of the county would, at the very least, mean getting Centro involved to ensure a full schedule of bus routes would be maintained to get people to and from the new offices.
And what would become of the huge office building on Genesee Street? The county courthouse? The last thing downtown Auburn needs is more vacant buildings.
And while we understand that the county isn't in the business of supporting downtown Auburn, the removal of all the county office building workers and visitors would surely have an impact on city merchants who supply the county with much-needed sales-tax revenue.
Considering that as much as $25 million might be needed to upgrade current county buildings, it makes sense to explore a cost-effective alternative. It might actually be less expensive to start from scratch and build a new facility that could take advantage of energy-saving technologies.
We support exploring the idea of building a new county office complex, but any study must take all the interconnected variables into account.