County seeks bids on proposed tax office renovation

The White County Board of Commissioners plans to seek bids for renovating the White County Tax Commissioner’s Office to add storage and service windows, including a second drive-thru.

Commissioners authorized staff at a March 29 meeting to work with the county’s consulting architectural firm to seek proposals for the project. County Manager Jason Cobb said the current concept would improve traffic flow and accommodate growth for customer service.

The working design presented at the meeting included a proposed addition of 1,936 square feet, mostly on the rear of the current 2,444 square-foot building that fronts Brooks Street in Cleveland.

The existing drive-thru lane flows from the back of the property between the building and a parking lot, exiting on Brooks Street. The proposed second drive-thru on the other side of the building would have traffic enter from Brooks Street and exit through the adjacent White County Chamber of Commerce parking lot, which is also owned by the county.

Tax Commissioner Cindy Cannon noted there are lanes behind the building for when the current drive-thru line backs up, but larger vehicles and those who make a wide turn can sometimes obstruct traffic exiting from the office’s parking spaces next to Mountain Valley Community Bank.

“Having the drive-thru on each side will eliminate that blockage,” she said.

Along with the extra drive-thru lane, the design concept would increase interior service windows from six to eight to accommodate growth the county is experiencing.

Cannon said the renovation would provide much-needed storage for documents, some of which are required to be kept for years or even permanently.

“There’s so much retention that we are required to keep, and unfortunately those type of things can’t be housed off site because of the need to pull those for various reasons and have those accessible,” Cannon said.

County Commission Chairman Travis Turner acknowledged the need.

“It’s not something we can kick the can down the road much farther,”he said.

Once bids are received, they will be presented to the Board of Commissioners for further deliberation. Turner said that will include deciding on a funding source, which is said could come from Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) dollars.