Mind you in the November election voters rejected a 1/4-cent sales tax hike to pay for a new Forsyth County courthouse. The courthouse project is still a go, but now county commissioners have to figure out how to pay for the proposed $15.5 million parking deck that goes with it:
With 660 parking spaces, the parking deck’s overall cost, including design, surveying and site testing, is estimated at $15.5 million compared with $4.1 million when the project was much smaller in scale. Estimated construction costs alone are $11.8 million.
But there’s more:
In addition to the court facilities/public parking, county staff has identified these projects for possible pay-go money: Kaleidum children’s museum at $20.3 million, replacement of a public radio system at $9 million, renovations to the Tanglewood clubhouse at $2.6 million, a roof replacement for Forsyth Tech at $1.2 million, capital repairs for Smith Reynolds Airport at $1.2 million, elections equipment at $750,000 and the Lewisville Volunteer Fire department dive-rescue team at $50,000.
But county staff is recommending that just four of the projects receive funds: the $7 million for the courthouse parking, $1.2 million for Smith Reynolds airport capital maintenance, $4.3 million for the public radio system and $750,000 for the elections equipment.
Commissioner Dave Plyler–according to the Winston-Salem Journal— “is concerned that the longer projects such as the Kaleideum are delayed the higher costs will rise until they are enormous.”
