Kim Norvell

knorvell@dmreg.com

Dallas County will move several health and human services departments into a newly renovated facility about five miles north of downtown Adel.

The first offices at the Dallas County Human Services Campus, 25747 N Ave., opened last month on land that once housed the county's "poor farm."

The move is expected alleviate some overcrowding at existing offices in Adel.

Dallas County Supervisor Mark Hanson said the county has been dealing with space limitations for a number of years as the need for services has grown along with its population.

"It certainly helps," he said of the new county offices. "I think from an analysis of our current administrative needs and with some rearrangement of the buildings that we do own around the square, we might be OK for a period of time. But for me to predict what that period of time is is a little speculative."

Dallas County's population has doubled in the past 15 years. It had 40,000 residents in 2000 and grew to 66,000 residents by 2010. It’s estimated that number is now at 80,000, Hanson said.

A space study analysis conducted 10 years ago revealed the county was under pressure to expand. But county voters didn’t agree, and bond referendums to build a new law enforcement center, jail and administrative offices failed at the polls in 2013, 2014, and again in 2015.

The Department of Human Services moved into the new space in December. Community services, public health and environmental health offices will open there this month.

The facility also will include the county’s emergency dispatch center.

"This building sits right in the middle of the county," Hanson said. "So if someone has a human service need, whether they’re from West Des Moines or Dexter or Perry or Woodward or Granger, it’s pretty much an equal distance for anybody to get to it."

Jerry Purdy, president of Design Alliance in Waukee, said the county spent $3.2 million to rehabilitate the building. It will spend another $375,000 to adapt the space for E-911 services, he said.

The project was paid for with a capital fund that was set aside to purchase land if the bond referendums were to pass.

Dallas County purchased 160 acres in 1869 to establish a "poor farm" to house people who were unable to care for themselves and who had no family willing to keep them. Residents were expected to work to help raise food and cover expenses.

Care started in 'poor farms'

Most Iowa counties had at least one such "poor farm," and over time most evolved into places for people with mental disabilities or illnesses.

The Dallas County farm eventually grew to 562 acres. The existing two-story brick building was constructed in the 1930s as part of the Depression-era Works Project Administration.

It operated as the Dallas County Hospital from 1934 to 1954 and later as the Dallas County Care Facility, before finally closing in 2014. The land was annexed into Adel in 2015.

Purdy said about two-thirds of the space underwent an "adaptive reuse" renovation. The historic character of the building's exterior was maintained, but crews gutted the interior to convert the old residential facility to an office environment, he said.

It is designed to house 70 employees, with room to grow.

Once all employees are settled, officials will again look at the county’s space needs and begin to re-evaluate where their priorities are, Hanson said. The move to county-owned land will help in the short-term, but there are still concerns.

"The issue it doesn’t help us with is our jail population," he said.

Inmate overcrowding is a regular issue at the 36-bed jail facility, according to the Dallas County Sheriff's Office. The jail's bed capacity will drop to 24 in 2018, when a state-issued variance expires.

The facility is separated into six-cell "pods." However, Hanson said, certain detainees can’t be mixed, such as women, juveniles or extremely violent criminals. So if one woman is incarcerated, she will take up an entire pod, leaving five beds empty.

As a result, the county regularly transfers prisoners to the Story County and Polk County jails, which costs about $95 per prisoner each day.

Hanson said the county has yet to decide whether it will pursue another bond referendum to build a new jail, but officials are hopeful they can convince voters the need is real. In August, 52 percent of voters said yes to a $16.8 million jail facility, but the bond needed to reach a 60 percent threshold to pass.

"The principal piece is it’s critical that we are planning for the future and we are not just designing a structure for the next 20 years," Hanson said. "We’ve added 40,000 people in 15 years. What happens if we add another 40,000 in the next 15 years?"