If approved Nov. 3, the Fort Bend County facilities bond referendum will fund public and government facility improvements and expansions. Each project is a response to rapid population growth.[/caption]Fort Bend County’s substantial population growth over the last decade has strained the county’s public facilities and government buildings. To accommodate the growing population, Commissioners Court approved a $98.6 million facilities bond referendum Aug. 19.
“[The county] provides all of the services required by the state but at the local level,” Fort Bend County Judge Robert Hebert said. “The population growth puts an additional burden on us to provide those services in a timely fashion and at a reasonable cost.”
The bond referendum is broken up into four propositions and addresses needs, such as park improvements, upgrades to the Fort Bend County Fairgrounds, library expansions and new criminal justice facilities.
If approved by voters Nov. 3, the county expects to complete construction of each facility expansion and all improvements by 2018, Hebert said.
Jeff Wiley, president of the Greater Fort Bend Economic Development Council, said the building expansions funded by the facilities bond will not only expand public and government facilities, but will also provide an avenue for additional employment opportunities in the county.
“If Fort Bend County’s population is projected to double over the next 20-25 years, we’re going to have to double the amount of private and public sector employment producing space,” Wiley said. “Everything you see today–commercial and public government space—needs to double just to maintain the service levels and employment opportunities that are expected.”
Major projects
The largest project in the bond is the $29.2 million Phase 2 expansion of the Justice Center that calls for a new office building and the addition of 10 new courtrooms over the next five years.
The demand for additional courtrooms is a result of the addition of two new district courts approved by the 84th Texas Legislature. Hebert said the new courtrooms are expected to accommodate growing jury pools as a result of the new district courts.
The facilities bond also allocates $4.7 million to construct a 400-car parking garage to add additional parking at the Justice Center. Hebert said the new parking garage would provide enough parking spaces for 800 jurors.
“We ask our citizens to serve on juries and it’s an inconvenience [because] they miss work, and they come down and we give them a stipend,” he said. “The least we could do is make sure they have a place to park when they come.”
Another major project included in the facilities bond referendum is the construction of an $11.3 million administration building for the sheriff’s office. The new 48,000-square-foot facility would consolidate the sheriff’s office administration into one location. Hebert said the new location is also intended to improve morale for county deputies and officers.
Expansions to the sheriff’s office also include construction of an 18,000-square-foot substation in Cinco Ranch. The $4.3 million project is slated to expand patrol services in unincorporated areas in north Fort Bend County.
“Over half of our population in this county lives in unincorporated areas,” Hebert said. “We’ve got 410,000 people who mostly live in urban subdivisions, but they’re not served by city police departments. We need to maintain a better profile.”
