The chain-link fence that has surrounded the Historic Liberty County Courthouse for more than a year is slated to come down this week.
If all goes according to plan, Lavender & Associates contractors will turn the building back over to the county within the next few days, and some offices will begin their long-anticipates moves, according to Assistant County Administrator Bob Sprinkel.
“This project is as green as we possibly can get. We took an old building with old equipment, old technologies, and made it modern as we can possibly do,” Sprinkel said.
The project includes upgrades with efficiency in mind, such as motion-sensor lights and double-pane windows. Another shift was toward Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, phone service.
The $2.3 million renovations to the courthouse, which was constructed in 1926 and expanded in 1964, are about three months behind primarily due to hardware manufacturing issues, County Administrator Joey Brown said.
Liberty Consolidated Planning Commission Executive Director Sonny Timmerman said his office does not anticipate any disruptions to business and will keep a staff member at the old office on East Court Street until the phones are rerouted to the new offices on the courthouse’s second floor.
“The move for everybody occurs on Saturday, but Friday, as we get that transition and the phones are getting switched, we’re going to try to make sure to do as best we can,” Timmerman said. “We’re packed.”
Once vacant, it will be up to the board of commissioners to determine the future fate of the LCPC’s office on East Court Street. The other office, on North Main Street, is a rented facility.
Sprinkel said some of the offices will get new phone numbers, but the LCPC and Liberty County Extension Office will maintain their current phone num-
bers.
The extension office and 4-H will move to the ground floor on the north end of the courthouse.
At the extension office Monday, secretary Dianne Barnard and 4-H agent Kasey Bozeman packed and sorted items for the move.
“We’re excited,” Bozeman said.
Part of the move includes sifting through three offices and a workroom worth of 4-H items to downsize.
“We’ve recycled a lot, we’ve discarded a lot, we’ve donated some stuff here or there,” Bozeman said. “But I call them treasures.”
The office plans to move Friday but still will be available to respond to inquiries during the move, Barnard said.
Near the extension office will be a multipurpose room where 4-H meetings and Hinesville Area Metropolitan Planning Organization meetings will be held and where the public can await results on election nights once that department moves in.
The coroner also will have an office on the ground floor, while juvenile court will be held upstairs on the south end. Sprinkel said those offices are holding off moving for a short. Both will have new phone numbers.
The Liberty County Board of Elections and Registration, which will keep its phone number, also will move in to much of the south end downstairs.
During the July 19 BoC meeting, commissioners agreed that the elections department is best equipped to determine whether it should move between the July 31 primary election and Nov. 6 general election or wait until after both are over.
“One of the issues that will be taken into consideration is people know where they can do early voting, and to try to change that up is not public-friendly,” Sprinkel said. “She’s [Elections Supervisor Ella Golden] trying to make sure that the public is not inconvenienced in any way.”