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A Message from the County Manager  Welcome to the first edition of the Lake County Building Bulletin. This monthly newsletter is intended to provide citizens and stakeholders with the latest information on Lake County Government’s campaign to update and improve its facilities. Through a series of projects, such as an expansion to the Judicial Center and creation of a government complex south of downtown Tavares, Lake County is embarking on its largest capital-improvement plan ever. The effort to expand government facilities is a direct result of Lake County’s Master Space and Facilities Plan, which took a comprehensive assessment of all County operations including constitutional offices. Completed in 2005, the plan inventories the County’s current office space at about 420,000 square feet and outlines the need for an additional 750,000 square feet of space over the next 15 years. To fulfill these forecasted service demands, the Lake County Board of County Commissioners is putting in place cost-effective solutions for new office space and infrastructure. With its current plan the Board is committed to meeting the challenge and properly equipping County employees to better serve the citizenry. Our commitment to Lake County citizens is to constantly strive for improvement. These future developments will ensure our ability to meet this goal. Please stay tuned to the building process as Lake County Government is dedicated to informing its citizens about these exciting changes. Cordially,
A host of departments are slated to move offices by the end of the year. The Office of Information Technology (IT) and Information Outreach (IO) will take a page from a popular television show when staff from these two departments begins “trading places” on Friday, July 14. The computer squad of IT will depart the fifth floor of the Historical Courthouse, as well as the offices on the second floor of the Lake County Administration Building, and take up shop on the first floor of the Administration Building where Community Services and IO used to reside. The public information and marketing arm of the County will move to IT’s old digs in the Historical Courthouse. All phone numbers will remain the same. |
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| Parking garage, constitutional offices begin to take shape The first project in a long line of proposed changes for Lake County Government operations in downtown Tavares is a two-story office building and seven-story parking garage at 320 W. Main St.  The contracted architectural company, HLM Design, presented this month proposed building elevations for the facility, which will house the offices of the Property Appraiser and Tax Collector. “The design has a nice feel from the inside out and the outside in,” said Richard LeBlanc, Staff Architect for the Lake County Department of Facilities Development and Management. “The exterior architecture is intended to compliment the architecture of the Lake County Historical Courthouse and will serve as a transition for the design of the Judicial Center expansion.” While the initial design is an important step in the process, this project has many more phases to complete before becoming a reality, including property acquisition and city approvals. The Lake County Board of County Commissioners met during a special meeting with the Tavares City Council on June 12 to discuss the office building and parking garage, which is proposed to occupy two city blocks adjacent to the Lake County Judicial Center. At the Board’s regularly scheduled meeting on June 13, the Board provided direction to the Department of Facilities Development and Management to plan for free access to the parking garage. The garage is expected to accommodate about 1,500 vehicles. |
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| Moving day approaches for Community Services
Office space is at a premium for any Lake County department. Take the Department of Community Services for example. Due to expanding services, fragmentation of the Department has continued through the years with the Probation and Court Services and the Housing and Community Development divisions housed at a leased facility on Old Highway 441. This year, Children’s Services, Elder Affairs and several other programs moved to a leased office on Sinclair Avenue. Even with these satellite locations freeing up space, Community Services staff was still sharing limited space in the Lake County Administration Building. With various divisions and programs scattered throughout a handful of facilities, a decision was made recently to relocate the entire Department of Community Services to buildings B and E at 1300 S. Duncan Drive (S. State Road 19) in Tavares, except for Library Services which will be moving to a new location off Woodlea Road this year. With some light lifting already occurring, the process is expected to accelerate on Thursday, June 29, when the Department closes to move desks, file cabinets and other large items to the new facility. The first full day of operations for the Department of Community Services at the new facility is scheduled on Thursday, July 6. New phone numbers for the Department and its divisions are as follows:
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| Roll Call
There are more than a dozen different projects underway for the Lake County Department of Facilities Development and Management. Here are six developments for this month:
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