By David Purvis-Fenker
david@nmpaper.com
WABASH,IN The old Wabash County Jail and Sheriff’s House may have been saved from demolition this week.
Paul Hayden, director of the Northeast Field Office of Indiana Landmarks, presented an update regarding the property to the Wabash County Commissioners, offering the option of donation and restoration of the property.
“What we’d like to do is work as a creative development team of sorts to put together a proposal for the old Wabash Jail. Indiana Landmarks would be working with local architects SRKM of Warsaw,” he said.
Also involved with the project would be the commissioners, who currently own the building, and the Wabash Historic Preservation Commission.
According to Hayden, Indiana Landmarks is a nonprofit historic preservation group that has been in business since 1960.
It would like to acquire the jail, designed by B.V. Enos and Sons and built in 1880 by L.S. Wilson, to restore and use as an office, as it is currently working from the Inguard insurance office. Historic Landmarks would use approximately 25 percent of the structure for their office, and rent out the remaining portion of the building as professional office space.
“What we’d like to do is create a rehab plan that’s broken into two phases. The first phase is primarily exterior. The big issue of course is the roof, which has needed to be replaced,” he said.
Hayden noted that after Indiana Landmarks occupied the building for some time, it would look to sell it.
“That’s also part of what our statewide plan is: to go in, save a historic building, camp out there for several years, maybe four or five years, and then we sell it,” he said.
Hayden informed the commissioners that Indiana Landmarks would like to have the building within the next month, and that the group plans to begin restoration this fall, with the roof being installed by winter.
Working with SRKM, Indiana Landmarks has estimated that the exterior restoration of the old jail will cost $150,000.
“That’s covering a number of things,” Hayden said.
“We need to do window restoration, install new doors, make the building handicapped accessible from the exterior, masonry repair, the brickwork around the building, additional painting, all the windows, the doors, the metal. There’s also cornice work, as some of you are aware there’s some metal cornicing that came off the building last year or so. All of that would be repaired or replaced as needed.”
He said that they would like to have phase one completed by spring of 2017 so that the next phase can begin.
“Phase two, in order for us to occupy the building, will run almost approximately another $500,000, and that’s based on a number from SKMR Architecture of Warsaw. So we’re now looking at about $650,000 total investment,” Hayden said.
Should the commissioners decide to donate the building Indiana Landmarks would take on the cost of restoration, less $75,000 that they asked the commissioners to invest in order to help complete phase one.
Hayden also asked the commissioners to handle the asbestos in the facility.
“Typically when we take over a property the environmental issues need to be resolved,” he said. “We have the owner do environmental remediation before we take the property over.”
Hayden said that asbestos and buried oil tanks are normally found in buildings as old as the jail. An environmental report will need to be done before the building is donated or demolished.
According to Hayden, if the commissioners do decide to donate the property the issue will have to be brought before the board of Indiana Landmarks, which will meet at the end of August.
Commissioner Scott Givens noted that if Indiana Landmarks rents a portion of the building, the rented portion would be subject to property taxes, bringing revenue in for the county.
“It’s an intriguing opportunity. I was fairly certain we were heading down another path for the building,” Chairman Barry Eppley said.
The commissioners will review the information presented by Hayden and present their decision at a later date.