Kane County Judicial Center

              County plans new building
The architect's drawing of the proposed building to be built at the Kane County Government Center shows the public entrance which will face west. The building will house the recorder's and supervisor of assessment's offices.
By Erik Higgins
Architects have unveiled a tentative design for the $1.6 million three-story building to be built this year at the Kane County Government Center in Geneva.
Construction of the building that will house the recorder's and supervisor of assessments' offices and the county data processing de- partment is expected to begin in about three months and be completed before the end of the year.
The tentative design shows that the new building will complement other buildings on the campus.
Demolition of two buildings which stand on the site of the new structure is to begin Feb. 15, according to the construction schedule presented by Ed Duffy, of Frisco, Duffy & Associates, Ltd., the Naperville firm which the county hired to oversee the project.
Still uncertain' is added costs to upgrade the water system nowon the campus.
This could be costly, Duffy told members of the Kane County Board Administration ' Committee, which is working with the architects.
Committee members agreed that any utility costs should not be siphoned from the $1.6 million marked for the building.

Duffy is expected to present them with figures for the water and other utility costs at their meeting later this month.
The design shows the new building would beof red brick and limestone, similar to existing buildings in the complex.
The public entrance, shown in the architect's drawing, would face west. Employees would enter the building from the east.
Government officials had considered designs for four-story building — with both designs measuring 24,000 square feet — but decided on the three-story plan because it has 2,000 feet more of "usable space."
Richard Sharp (R-Geneva), an administration committee member, said usable space is "a key term, I found, in describing the building."
The 2,000 square feet which would be unavailable for practical use in a four-story design includes area for stairs, an elevator shaft and bathrooms, said Larry Briggs, county central services director.
The three departments which plan to move to the new build- ing also benefit by the three-story design, Briggs said, because none of them wouldhave to split their departments on different floors.
"This works out much better," Briggs said of the three-story design.
Work is about two weeks behind the original schedule because workers were unable to locate where the sewer system ran under the buildings, Briggs said.
A map of the pathway of the sewers was not registered with the city of Geneva when the government center — a former seminary — was built in 1948, he said.