Clerk Rushing cautioned commissioners in June 2024 about urgent need for new facility
During a June 2024 budget workshop, Karen Rushing, Sarasota County clerk of the Circuit Court and county comptroller, emphasized to the Sarasota County Commission that she and her staff need a new facility to replace the records center they have been using in the Northgate Center Business Park, in the northern part of the county.
The total capacity of that structure is 26,292 cubic feet, she said; 24,002 cubic feet of the building are being utilized.
Rushing underscored the latter detail: “We are at 95% of the use of the capacity …”
During that June 21, 2024 presentation, she explained that she has five employees at the center every day who work to destroy records that can be destroyed, in accord with state law.
“From ceiling to floor,” Rushing added, “the facility is filled with records.”
Their age is not grounds for their being gathered up and thrown out, she told the commissioners. The documents must undergo review, Rushing added, so any evidence within them can be removed.
Moreover, Rushing pointed out that day, the Northgate Center Business Park structure had not been hardened to protect it against weather events. “It could blow away in a hurricane. … We have a risk …”
On March 11 — about nine months and three major storms later — during the reports portion of the commission’s regular meeting that day, Chair Joe Neunder asked Rushing to offer comments on a letter she had provided to him, for the board to address that day.
The Jan. 30 letter from attorney Robert J. Hynds, of Hynds Law in Sarasota, discussed a “proposal for the construction of a new records management facility” on two adjacent parcels in the city of Sarasota. The locations are 2250 Aspinwall St. and 401 Mango Ave.
They “are located just 0.5 miles from the main courthouse, Hynds continued in his letter to Rushing, “enabling your staff to efficiently access and retrieve court files and other records as needed in your daily operations. The Parcels are also sufficient in size to accommodate a flexible design and the construction of a rightsized facility to meet your immediate and long-term requirements.”
Additionally, the Hynds noted, the new structure would be “weather-hardened, and it would have a 25,000-kilowatt generator “(or lower cost option of generator docking station), and fire suppression systems suitable for high-density storage.”
The value of the two parcels, the formal proposal said, is $1,950,000. The construction expense, including a sidewalk, was estimated at $9,057,000 with another $210,000 for the generator, or $60,000 for the docking station.
Further, the letter noted, “The proposed building includes adequate storage, an evidence vault, workspace, offices, and features essential for such an operation, at a cost that is far below the allocation of Surtax 4 revenues for this project.”
The latter part of that sentence is a reference to another facet of the June 2024 discussion: Deputy County Administrator and Chief Financial Management Officer Steve Botelho had explained that a new records facility for the Clerk’s Office had been included among the county’s projects to be funded — or partly funded — through the Surtax 4 program. The money for that program comes from an extra penny of sales tax that voters participating in the 2022 November General Election approved to be in effect from Jan. 1 2025 through Dec. 31, 2039.
However, the previous day — June 20, 2024 — the commissioners had directed staff to eliminate the approximately 30,000-square-foot records storage facility from the proposed 2025 fiscal year Capital Improvements Program (CIP) list. Although the project was estimated at $18 million a couple of years ago, inflation and the rise in construction costs had boosted the figure to $25 million.
Hynds is representing the Swift Family Limited Partnership in the proposal for Rushing, he noted in the Jan. 30 letter.
(A Sarasota News Leader search of the Florida Division of Corporations website found that the Swift Family Limited Partnership filed for dissolution on Sept. 27, 2024, so the company is listed as “Inactive.” The registered agent is Jon F. Swift, whose eponymous construction firm is located in Sarasota.)
An attachment to the letter indicated that the building could be completed within 24 months of the execution of the necessary contract between the Swift Family Limited Partnership and the county, provided that the City of Sarasota permitting process took no more than three months and construction could be finished in 14 months.
The proposed lease term was 20 years, after which the county’s purchase of the building and land would be considered at a price equal to the “FMV [full market value] of the property increased annually by [3%]” or the Consumer Price Index, “whichever is greater.”
‘A build-to-suit approach’
During the March 11 commission meeting, Rushing reminded the board members — two of whom were elected after her June 2024 presentation — that “the Clerk’s Office … needs to have the Records Center … increased in size.” The building she and her staff have been using, she continued, “is really not designed to be a records center … [and it] is vulnerable to storms, which we’ve all experienced this past year.”
Rushing also told the board members, “I have had many contacts about availability of properties and have looked at several sites of existing facilities.”
She added that she “was approached about a build-to-suit approach very close to the courthouse, which would make it a very suitable location for operating the records center.”
Rushing also noted that she felt “County Administration can speak more specifically to the approach that’s been suggested,” as she typically does not deal with such negotiations.
As Chair Neunder summed it up for his commission colleagues, “The ask here” is to allow County Administrator Jonathan Lewis and his staff to work with Rushing on the negotiations for the proposed new building.
When Neunder asked whether Lewis would like for the commissioners to put that in a motion, Lewis replied, “I think [that] would be appropriate.”
Commissioner Mark Smith made the motion, and Commissioner Teresa Mast seconded it. The motion passed 5-0.
“Thank you,” Rushing told the board members.