County in expansion mode

As Kootenai County continues to grow, so do its government facilities.

Within the next month, the county plans to seek an architect for doubling the size of its Post Falls DMV office, remodeling and expanding the evidence storage areas at the sheriff's office and exploring the feasibility of adding a floor to the justice building on Garden Avenue.

"It's a growing county and facilities are getting really tight," said Shawn Riley, the county's building and grounds supervisor.

The county has reserve money available for construction and planning for the projects so it will not have to go to the voters with a funding proposal or raise taxes to pay for them.

The three projects are separate from a different request for qualifications the county will soon put out to seek an architect who will explore the cost and scope of an expansion to the jail's area that houses felons.

The DMV office in Post Falls will double in size to 3,000 square feet. The county's veterans services office next door will not be affected by the expansion.

Riley said design work will be completed this year with construction in 2017.

Assessor Mike McDowell said after the Post Falls facility was built in 1994, it handled 25 percent of the county's DMV business. Today, the office handles 42 percent of the work.

"The business volume has increased year after year," McDowell said.

McDowell said it's not unusual for people to have to wait 45 to 50 minutes to be helped.

"Our goal is to get people in and out in 15 to 20 minutes or less," he said. "Just to improve a level of service, we need to create more space with more folks to decrease wait times."

He said the expansion should also take some pressure off the Coeur d'Alene DMV office.

The project will also include a new parking lot on an acre west of the Post Falls building along Spokane Street to handle recreational vehicle and boat inspections. That should also help the parking issue in Coeur d'Alene for such business, McDowell said.

McDowell said the plan is to add two employees over the next two years to the Post Falls DMV office. County officials added there are no plans to restore a driver's license bureau that was once in the city.

Riley said the evidence storage areas at the sheriff's office are both outdated and not big enough for proper storage. The project will include remodeling the existing storage area downstairs in the sheriff's office, converting a 2,600-square-foot section of the work release center that is not being utilized into evidence storage and constructing a 30-by-60 pole barn for processing vehicles and drying biohazard evidence.

Riley said a 25-by-15 pole barn that can only fit one vehicle is currently being used to process vehicles.

Kootenai County Commissioner David Stewart toured the storage areas at the sheriff's office along with those that Idaho State Police and Coeur d'Alene Police have and it was obvious that the county's areas needed to be expanded and remodeled.

"We're 10 to 20 years behind the times," he said. "There's a whole lot more to evidence storage than what meets the eye."

Riley said the evidence areas haven't been improved since the jail was built in 1987. He said the project should be completed this year.

Riley said he has estimated costs on the DMV expansion and the evidence remodel and expansion, but he declined to release those figures, citing a desire to maintain a competitive bid environment.

The county is also exploring the feasibility of adding a 13,000-square-foot third floor to the justice building due to the need for more courtrooms.

Stewart said he's also interested in continuing talks with the city of Coeur d'Alene to share parking across Northwest Boulevard from the county campus to alleviate the parking problem during peak times.