On January 13, The Peoria County Board voted 16-2 in favor of rebuilding the current Peoria City/County Health Department instead of remodeling the current location at 2125 N. Sheridan Rd.

Included in the vote was to also incorporate the Sustainability and Recycling Services Department, the County Coroner’s office and morgue and the Office of the Regional Superintendent of Schools, creating a new health and human services campus.

Late last year, the board voted to hire Farnsworth Group as its architect and engineering firm and River City Construction, LLC as construction manager at risk. After the two firms were hired, they both have spent the last few months assessing the current facilities of all included departments and made the recommendation of replacement.

“The current Health Department is housed in a building that was built more than a half a century ago,” said Sharon K Williams, Peoria County Board District 1 and Chairperson of the Health Committee. “It has reached the end of its life and it is time to replace the facility. The coroner’s office is housed in a building that was initially a youth detention center and does not work well for the office’s needs.”

According to the assessment submitted by Farnsworth and River City, the health department was determined to be “undersized for programming needs.” The building has already been remodeled and expanded several times. Asbestos abatement would have to be addressed in another renovation as well as HVAC systems. Also, renovation would cause major disruption in services and create code compliance issues. Just as an example, the coroner’s office would require an alternate location for autopsies and the morgue would have to continue to be operational during renovation.

The assessment concluded that “the cost difference to build a new state-of-the-art, energy efficient facility specifically designed to function for the various department’s needs would be approximately 1%-2% less than renovating the existing facility and adding the additional space required to consolidate services.”

“The Board is in discussions on services we provide, demographics of the residents who use our facilities and then finally potential locations,” said Williams. “We look forward in the coming months to making some decisions and working with all board members to address this very important issue.”