Wednesday, April 17, 2024–2:21 p.m.

-David Crowder, WRGA News-

Now that the Rome City Police Department has vacated the joint law enforcement center, plans are underway for the conversion of the facility into judicial space.

Floyd County Facilities Manager Ryan Davis told the county’s public utilities and transportation committee on Wednesday that the architect has done a couple of walkthroughs, and interviews will be taking place in the next couple of weeks regarding space needs for the second floor.

“They will develop a test fit plan for us to review that will show where everybody can fit in the building,” Davis said. “I’ve already asked them to go ahead and give a proposal to go straight into the full construction documents so we can roll right into that. Hopefully, you will get that proposal for the county commission’s first meeting in May. We’ll just go straight from test fit into construction documents.”

Meanwhile, three companies have submitted bids for the renovation of the former Glenwood Primary School building, which will be the new home of the Floyd County Police Department once they vacate the law enforcement center.

“We will be sending something to the county commission for the low bid on the project,” Davis said. “After discussion, we think the low bid is the right choice. We don’t have any issues with their quality of work and their history.”

Davis told the committee that he is going to ask for approval of the budget that makes sure the work gets done but allows room to negotiate down on some things that can be done in-house and other small items that have been pulled out to have more competition to save money.

“We pretty much know that we probably have a couple hundred thousand dollars in savings,” said Floyd County Manager Jamie McCord.

One possible area of savings is with the sprinkler system.

“The company that the contractor brought in wanted to replace the whole system,” Davis said. “On a 60,000-square-foot building, we are probably looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars. So, I pulled that out of the project and I am going to have companies come in and give us proposals.”

According to Davis the amount of savings is difficult to judge because the system has to be approved by the fire marshal and up to code, but he has had conversations with people who are knowledgeable about sprinkler systems, and they feel the work may not have to be that extensive.

“Ideally, if I can get it less than six figures, I’d be thrilled,” he said.