Kane County Morgue remodeling underway

GENEVA – Kane County is getting a renovated morgue, as crews began work this week to gut and remodel it, Kane County Coroner Rob Russell said.

The morgue temporarily closed in June because of mold contamination, and autopsies have been outsourced to the DuPage County Morgue.

Ongoing tension between Russell and Kane County Board Chairman Chris Lauzen in the past months appears to have thawed a bit this week. Russell said he met Monday in a private session with the chairman, along with Chief Deputy Coroner Loren Carrera and Operations Staff Executive Donald Biggs, and they worked out some common goals.

"We discussed what it would take to get the morgue open, and we got a list of things we agreed on fixing," Russell said. "We do not have final numbers, but $76,000 was already budgeted for the freezer-cooler combination."

Russell said final construction costs have not yet been figured out.

“We are just trying to retrofit something in here to get us through the next five years using the existing facilities,” Russell said. “The building is not big enough, but what we’re basically going to be doing is replacing what we have.”

While the morgue will not have more capacity, the new cooler-freezer combination will be something that can be removed and expanded into a new building.

"I told the Judicial and Public Safety Committee that we could make it here another five years, in this building, limping along, but that we need to be walking into a new building in five years," Russell said. "It's not just the age of the building, but the space here. We can't really expand anywhere."

Biggs and Lauzen did not return messages seeking comment.