Update: Sedgwick County votes to buy old hospital for a new government center
Updated: 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 2.
The Sedgwick County Commission voted unanimously Wednesday to approve a purchase contract to buy the former Riverside Hospital for $4.1 million for a new government center.
The sale is contingent on the county inspecting the facility over the next 90 days and determining that it can cost-effectively be converted to government office space.
The county put a $25,000 earnest-money deposit on the building, which is refundable if the county decides not to proceed, County Counselor Mike Pepoon said.
Original story:
Sedgwick County government is moving a step closer to moving out of the downtown courthouse, poised to buy an option to purchase the former Riverside Hospital for office space.
The $25,000 option, expected to be finalized Wednesday, would give the county time to evaluate the building and estimate what it would cost to remodel it into a government center.
“We have to do our due diligence, that’s the next step,” Commissioner David Dennis said. “During that process, if we find something that we don’t think is going to meet our needs for any reason, we can back out of it.”
It will also allow for a full engineer inspection to determine whether the $4.1 million asking price is reasonable, he said.
“If we find say, it needs a new roof or it needs some major modifications, we can negotiate the price,” he said.
The county has been looking for a government center building for the past several years, so it can free up office space in the courthouse for court functions.
County officials also want to relocate the election office, which is currently divided between space in the Historic Courthouse downtown and an off-site warehouse where voting machines are stored when not in use.
The former hospital building at 2622 W. Central, also known as West River Plaza, offers slightly more than 170,000 square feet, according to a presentation Tuesday by Assistant County Manager Tania Cole. It has five stories and more than 400 parking spaces, she said.
The oldest parts of the building date back to 1966, with the most recent additions in 1991, she reported.
While the election office would have first priority for new space, the hospital building would be large enough to relocate county management offices, the commission’s meeting space and possibly other departments now spread out across Wichita in leased space.
Getting rid of those leases in favor of county-owned space could save the county money in the long term, said County Manager Tom Stolz.
The hospital building would take some work, he said.
“To make this into a government building, accessible to the community, friendly to the community, there’s going to be some remodel costs on that, we understand that,” Stolz said.
The purchase is not set in stone yet and Commissioner Jim Howell said he’s not sure yet whether the building will be the right fit in the end.
“The questions I have, basically, are what’s the life-cycle cost, how is the building going to be configured, how does it meet our needs, is it the right size, what will we put over there, how would things fit, how does this solve problems for the County Courthouse?” he said.
“They (county staff) kind of hinted at a lot of the answers,” he said. “But honestly, I never even got a copy of the PowerPoint, so I don’t know if I think this is the best or the right building for our next consideration.”
He said he didn’t have a problem with buying the option to buy time to get answers to those questions.
The building has been on the county’s radar since at least July, but it originally appeared out of reach.
The renewed interest comes after the expiration of a proposal by a development and construction group called West River Partners LLC.
The partnership — led by Old Town developer Dave Burk — had purchased an option on the hospital and sought to resell it to the county in a package deal that would have included renovating it for government use.
The county rejected that plan — which would have also included three smaller buildings — as too expensive and too open-ended, Dennis said.
West River Partners proposed the county pay $9 million in three payments over three years, plus an undetermined final payment to bring the selling price up to the appraised value of the renovated building.
“That figure at the end was just a blank check,” Dennis said. “How would you buy something with a blank check? We don’t do it that way.”
The West River Partners option to buy the building has now expired, he said.
The county’s option contract and $25,000 in earnest money will prevent any other developers from trying to snap up the rights to the building and flip it to the county at a profit, Dennis said.
He said he’s far more comfortable with the concept of the county buying the building directly from the owner, I Thrive Health LLC, and handling its own renovations.
“That’s cleaner by far,” Dennis said. “We can control it, it’s all transparent, it’s all in the open, the public knows what we’re spending on it. The other (proposal), nothing was transparent. We have to make sure we’re doing things above board every step of the way.”
This story was originally published December 2, 2020 at 5:01 AM.
