Despite rising costs for Old Courthouse, Woodstock officials optimistic about project’s future

As Woodstock gears up to open its long-awaited Old Courthouse and Sheriff’s House, the project is set to come with a few eye-popping features – including more than $20 million in total costs.

Among the renovated kitchens, office spaces, new windows, banquet hall with a handmade iron chandelier, and other additions, were a litany of surprises that tend to come with ripping open a Civil War-era building.

Despite this, officials are optimistic about the project and argue the renovations will be worth it to the public. It’s also cheaper to take care of these problems “while we have the patient open” instead of years down the road, which will bring with it more costs, Mayor Mike Turner said.

“The position this building holds in the Square is without equal,” Turner said.

With just six weeks to go until the building is given over to the tenants, it appears there is much work to be done. Equipment, scaffolding, wires, taped-off rooms and dust make up much of the inside.

However, Turner and City Planner Darrell Moore said that’s typical as work wraps up on such buildings. Barring something “catastrophic,” the building’s construction will be complete by July 14. At that point, tenants will take over and begin prepping their spaces, and common areas will open to the public.

After construction began in February 2022, the budget for the building’s upcoming work sat at about $13 million – up from the $8.4 million pitched in 2020 due to inflation and other rising costs.

However, that new figure has ballooned to about $21.5 million after a handful of change orders were approved over the past year. That expected total also includes everything that has gone into the building since the city took it over in 2011.

The costs since construction began are about $18 million, City Manager Roscoe Stelford said.

The results have been pricey, but the goal is to “future proof” the building, with the renovations designed to last 100 years.

“To be frank, 100 years from now, no one will care if the cost of the building was $22 million versus $18 million. They will care that the building was taken care of and still stands.”

—  Woodstock Mayor Mike Turner on the upgrades at the Old Courthouse and Sheriff's House

For Turner, one of the more noteworthy costs came after workers ripped the floor up in the Public House of Woodstock. The restaurant, which is on the first floor of the building, has been shut down since October while construction finishes up.

When the floor was taken apart, workers uncovered some infrastructural damage that needed to be fixed, Turner said. The city made the decision to fix it completely rather than leave it as it was, and potentially be faced with problems down the road.

“It was an easy decision,” Turner said. “And the right decision.”

Another surprise came from a room that was filled with rocks and rubble in an effort to support another room just above it, Moore said. There was a cost to remove the debris and create new support in its place.

While early in the process, when the city took over the building in 2011, the roof was unsalvageable and close to collapse. There were leaks and holes in it that allowed birds to make a home out of it, Turner said.

Other things such as asbestos, issues with the ceilings, an unmarked water line that was hit during construction and a large oil tank found in the back of the property drove up costs.

“It’s probably like 20 of those types of things,” Stelford said. “It’s just been a huge cost.”

The project is being paid for using historic tax credits – covering about $5.5 million – as well as a $9 million bond issue, Stelford said. The remainder comes from the area’s downtown tax increment financing district, also known as a TIF.

The plan is for the city’s bond to be paid back by the TIF, as well as rent from the tenants occupying the space.

Those tenants include the Woodstock Area Chamber of Commerce; Algonquin-based DIY craft studio Makity Make; Woodstock-based Ethereal Confections, which will host a banquet hall in the spot, among other things; Wisconsin-based Mobcraft Brewery, which will open a bar and brewery in the building; and the Public House.

For Turner, he said he doesn’t hear much from residents about the costs. What he does hear, however, comes from a place of wondering what the costs are and why.

He also compared it to the renovations of the Woodstock Opera House in the 1970s, which came with drawn-out arguments about the costs of those renovations. Today, those discussions aren’t around, and in his mind, the city and the Square are better off with the attraction.

“To be frank, 100 years from now, no one will care if the cost of the building was $22 million versus $18 million,” Turner said. “They will care that the building was taken care of and still stands.”