The Porter County Board of Commissioners voted 2-to-1 Tuesday morning to approve a two-year lease of the old Sheriff’s Residence with an option for a third year to an artisan boutique. Commissioners’ President Jim Biggs, R-North, and Vice President Barb Regnitz, R-Center, voted in favor, while Commissioner Laura Blaney, D-South, voted against, reiterating her stance that the building should be used as office space for the Memorial Opera House staff.
“This is an opportunity for us to breathe new life into this building,” Regnitz said of the space that has been vacant for the last four years since the Porter County Museum moved out.
“I’ve already said my piece on this,” Blaney said. “I think we can use the building. I know you two have made up your minds. Work is already happening over there.” She added that people often enquire about renting the Opera House, but it’s often unavailable due to show rehearsals.
Making the Sheriff’s Residence available for events would have filled that role, she contends. And she’s unimpressed with the rent they’ll be making off the lease. “I don’t think $25,000 is exactly a boon for the county,” Blaney said.
Without Porter County Council approval, the Board of Commissioners may only make up to $25,000 per year on the lease, for up to three years. The Council didn’t get behind the plan because the majority of that body was in favor of connecting the Sheriff’s Residence to the MOH via a modern glass and metal addition that was scuttled by Biggs and Regnitz.
“I truly appreciate that,” Regnitz replied. “We just don’t have any resources to fix it up.” An arrangement was made for the Board of Commissioners to take out a loan of $120,000 from the Redevelopment Commission for necessary repairs and renovations to the Sheriff’s Residence to be repaid with income from the lease.
Electrical upgrades of $27,000 and a mini-split HVAC system at $28,000 were also approved for the building by a 2-to-1 vote, with Blaney voting against. “I’m disappointed that the entity that wants to lease it has already started advertising it and work has already started before we’ve voted on a lease,” she said.
In a phone call Wednesday Biggs said the only work he was aware of having been done before the vote was mold remediation. “Even though somebody wasn’t officing out of there we have a responsibility to keep up with things like that,” he said.
Biggs said it makes little sense to open up the building for use by the MOH which the county is already subsidizing. “We need to make sure it either pays for itself or makes some money for us, or get it out of inventory,” he said.
Biggs said the county will barely make back what it took to get the building in working order, but should the boutique be a success in the location it’s chosen he would expect to raise the rent at the end of the term.
“Certainly, we wouldn’t be the first ones who thought outside the box. Look at Crown Point,” he said, referring to Lake County’s sale of its old courthouse decades ago.
Shelley Jones is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.