FAIRMONT–The Martin County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday heard from Jonathan Loose of Wold Architects and Engineers who presented the beginnings of a new plan for the proposed Public Safety and Justice Center.

While plans for a new jail have been discussed for the last decade, most recently, the county had requested $19.2 million in state bonds to help fund a carefully planned $35 million facility. Once the county learned this past May that the bonding bill did not pass, it authorized Wold in June to complete a redesign of the proposed Public Safety Center to include court facilitates in the project (courts were previously removed for budget reasons).

On Tuesday Loose said that after looking at the proposed site, with the addition of the courts, it will take more square footage so they’ve tried to optimize how to fit the building on the site.

“The intent of the core committee was to prepare the county to meet law enforcement and justice center needs for the next 50 years and beyond, improve the efficiencies of county operations, ensure the safety and security of all departments and functions within the new justice center and provide convenient public safety,” Loose said.

He said that in redesigning the project, his firm initially looked at both a single story and two-story building but quickly determined that a two-story building would be best for the site.

“So how that looks, we still have a jail that’s similar to what (plan) we had before. We have a jail lobby… and a main lobby that connects to the law enforcement center and then there will be a stairwell and a set of escalators that will go up to the next level,” Loose said.

He said there will be some shared amenities between the Martin County Sheriff’s Office and Fairmont Police Department, but both will have their own separate windows in the lobby.

“We have an employee entrance on the back side that allows secure employee entrance to the sheriff’s office or to the jail or to the courts,” Loose said.

As for the upper level, Loose said his company has yet to dive in to the different departments to determine how the spaces should be configured for organization that makes sense. The space is expected to include court administration, county attorney and victim witness and the courtrooms which would include the judges area.

In closing his brief presentation, Loose said, “Right now, this is sort of the prep work for the core committee to continue forward and start looking at the individual departments and get to more of a design drawing. Right now this is a schematic drawing where we’re at.”

For the past few years, Commissioners Kathy Smith and Steve Flohrs have been on the core committee, but neither are running for reelection this coming election. Commissioner Jaime Bleess has said that he is interested in taking over as a core committee member.

After Loose’s presentation, there were some comments made that the commissioners were pleased with the upgraded security measures for staff and the public.

With no other feedback given, County Coordinator Scott Higgins said that Loose would come to Fairmont in early September to talk with department heads. Sometime after that, Loose said that they would work on honing in on a design and a total cost for the project.

Bleess made a motion that the board authorize Wold Architects and Engineers to continue with the next steps in designing the public safety and justice center as a two-story facility. The motion passed.

In other news, the board:

— Accepted a bid of $12,995 from Midwest Garage Doors for new doors on the south side of the garage facility at 1200 North State Street.

— Approved Commissioners Koons and Flohrs to the canvassing board to meet at 10 a.m. on Nov. 13.

— The board held its second preliminary budget workshop.