The Jefferson County Health Department has taken the first step toward moving its Hillsboro office to a new location.
The Health Department Board of Trustees voted unanimously Feb. 25 to buy 7.75 acres of land in Hillsboro for $762,953.40.
Steve Sikes, the Health Department’s operations manager, said the property does not have an address but is near the intersection of highways 21 and B in the Pear Tree Plaza.
He said the land is near the Dollar General and Phillips 66 gas station and borders Hillsboro City Park.
Sikes said the property was purchased from David Mangelsdorf of BL and Z Investment LLC.
Chairman Dennis Diehl said the Health Department building at 405 Main St. in Hillsboro is more than 70 years old and needs to be replaced.
“We have outgrown it; it’s not in disrepair, but it needs a lot of upkeep,” Diehl said.
Sikes said the next step would be to seek proposals for an architect to draw up plans for the new building.
He said the main goal for the property is to construct a building that would meet the current needs of the Health Department but provide room to grow. He also said he hopes a bus garage could be built on the property to house the Health Department’s six mobile units – vans used to provide health and dental services at nursing homes, schools and other places around the community.
Sikes said there are no current plans for what the Health Department will do with its office on Main Street in Hillsboro once the new office is completed, although he said it’s likely the old property would be sold.
“I don’t believe we would hold on to it,” he said.
He said the Health Department started looking for land for a new office more than a year ago.
“We wanted to stay in the city of
Hillsboro as much as possible,” he said. “The thing about this property is that it has a lot of infrastructure to the lot already. There are roads there. The other thing is it’s very accessible.”
Sikes said the purchase of the new property was included in the 2020 budget, but because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Health Department’s recent change in attorneys, the process to buy land for a new office was delayed.
In September, the Wegmann Law Firm, which is based in Hillsboro, resigned as the Health Department’s attorney, after representing it since 1984. The Board of Trustees then hired the Sandberg Phoenix law firm, which is based in St. Louis and has offices in Missouri and Illinois, with attorney Christi Coleman of Imperial to serve as the agency’s main counsel.