Kirkpatrick Gives More Details on County’s Church Purchase

Kirkpatrick says the reason the county has to leave downtown is because some JP's dislike Durand Center owner Jeff Crockett and refused to buy his building.

Boone County Quorum Court member Heath Kirkpatrick joined KHOZ’s “Around the Table” program on Thursday to discuss the purchase of the First Presbyterian Church Building by the county.

Kirkpatrick said the building totals approximately 43,000 square feet and will house a main court room in the sanctuary and a couple of other smaller court rooms in the gymnasium when the renovations are completed. In addition to that, there is space for all the current offices that are spread throughout the courthouse, Old Federal Building, and Office of Emergency Management to be housed there as well.

When asked about including the Revenue Office, currently located on Goblin Drive, he said he would like to see space provided for them as well so that the new building becomes a one stop shop for all county business including the Department of Motor Vehicles.

“We’ve not specified DMV,” Kirkpatrick said, “but it would really be nice to have everything right there, and I think they can make that happen.”

Social media chatter about the move has brought up the potential issue of traffic congestion at the intersection of Goblin Drive and Capps Road. The City of Harrison is close to beginning a two-phase project to improve Goblin Drive that will include the Capps Road intersection as well as the intersection at Industrial Park Rd. The first phase of that project will start at Industrial Park Rd. and include the addition of a roundabout at the intersection. When asked about the possibility of a roundabout at the Capps Road intersection Kirkpatrick said he believes that is currently the plan although it will need to go through more red tape being that Capps Road is a state highway.

Regarding the future of the Boone County Courthouse Kirkpatrick said that the plan for it is currently unknown but keeping it open in some fashion is a strong desire of the county.

“It breaks all of our hearts to have to move away from downtown. That was…just about all of our JPs, we wanted this to be close,” Kirkpatrick said.

He called the cost of restoring the old buildings on the square outrageous due to the number of years that renovations have been put off by past courts and county leaders. He mentioned the possibility of selling the courthouse and the Old Federal Building although acknowledge there would be a great deal of public backlash and says no decisions have been made yet.

He also mentioned his disappointment at the county not moving forward with purchasing the Durand Center last year.

“For us to move away [from downtown] is not good,” he said.  

As for the reason the county did not purchase the Durand Center Kirkpatrick says the decision was largely political.

“We had 73,000 square feet with a renter already in it to offset some of the cost with Signature Bank being there,” he said, “That was very disappointing. That to me was a no-brainer.”

As for the reason some JP’s were not in favor of the purchase he said it had a lot to do with the building’s current owner, Jeff Crockett.

Host Coleman Taylor said, “I still feel like, and I’m sure they wouldn’t necessarily say this, but their biggest hold-up was the owner of that property.”

Heath Kirkpatrick answered, “That’s correct, yeah.”

He went to say, “My constituents, that’s what they’ve told me. ‘We should be at the Durand Center.’ And so, I’m speaking what the people are telling me.”

As for Kirkpatrick’s future on the Quorum Court he says he has not yet decided if he will file to run for office again, citing upcoming projects at Woodland Baptist Church where he ministers taking much of his time.

He represents District Three and has until March 1^st at noon to file for reelection. He says that if someone out there is interested in taking that seat, he may not run for election at all.

See the full interview with Heath Kirkpatrick here: