Column - Red Flag Day at Linn County West

Walk into Linn West from a convenient parking spot, stride down the broad corridor past bustling county offices, marvel at its functionality, consider its popularity, take a right and head into the Board of Supervisors' meeting room.

Then, listen to a presentation on how everything you've seen is just a thin facade hiding glaring, costly defects that would make it impossible to create permanent offices without first stripping it down to its steel skivvies and starting all over.

Well OK then. I could use a little more coffee.

That's what the Linn County Board of Supervisors heard Monday from an architect hired to study the possibility of making temporary Linn offices at Westdale permanent. And the list of deficiencies detailed by Larry Niegowski of Howard R. Green Co. was no fix-it list.

It was a multi-count indictment with red flags waving.

Linn West is taking on water, its masonry is cracking, communications and electrical systems are old and jumbled and lighting is inefficient. Heating and cooling systems are lousy, its plumbing is shot, insulation is thin and inspectors saw an elderly man almost fall down the escalator. The parking lot, with its 553 convenient spaces, must be redone. And from an environmental standpoint, the building is as green as a coal-fired oil tanker.

As he talked, I wondered, briefly, whether it was actually safe to remain in the building.

Linn West's “existing envelope,” as Niegowski called it, contains a note saying “Rebuild Me.” And, frankly, when he said renovations would cost $15.3 million or more, I was surprised. I figured $1.2 gazillion.

So now feasibility has been studied. What do we know?

A Board of Supervisors with a clear majority opposed to staying at Westdale got a study that shows staying is pricey. Not unexpected.

Still, despite Monday's indictment, the case against Linn West has many holes.

As Supervisor Brent Oleson points out, we still don't have an apples-to-apples, line-by-line cost comparison between renovating popular Linn West vs. supersizing the old Administrative Office Building. The former Econofoods store also has yet to be explored.

Numbers being tossed around Monday are estimates. If this is what a Cadillac remodel costs, is there also a Ford Focus option? We still don't know where refired co-location talks with the city of Cedar Rapids are headed. County officials are also planning a public input process that could have an impact.

Show up and be heard. Bring coffee.

Todd Dorman's column runs Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Contact him at (319) 398-8452 or todd.dorman@gazcomm.com