County considering purchase of former Morrisville building on Broad Street

NORWICH - Chenango County lawmakers are seeking an appraisal of the former Morrisville State College building on 16 S. Broad St. in downtown Norwich to determine whether it might be purchased to accommodate the Sixth Judicial District of the New York Unified Court System.
The 36,000-square-foot, three-story office building has been mostly vacant since the college moved to its present campus at the Eaton Center six years ago. Norwich Mayor Joe Maiurano said he has taken five or six real estate developers to see the building in the recent past, and estimated its price to be about $960,000. It is owned by Ellahi Hafiz of Waverly.
The building’s possible purchase was the topic of a 30-minute executive session of the county board on Monday. Afterward, a motion was made and seconded to spend up to $5,000 from contingency to pursue an appraisal.
Counties have been required to provide chambers, courtrooms and meeting rooms for the state’s courts since the creation of the Unified Court System in 1977. Sixth Judicial District administrators have requested more space in Chenango County for several years, and delivered the latest draft floor plan suggestions of the third floor of the County Office Building (COB) back in 2008. Recent renovations and office switches within the county’s headquarters on Court Street in the City of Norwich have increased the courts square footage from 4,394 to 7,000 square feet.
But it’s still not enough, according to state guidelines. Last month, Hon. Robert C. Mulvey, Sixth District administrative judge, asked members of the Agriculture, Buildings and Grounds Committee for a timeline and commitment for granting additional room. He supported his request by highlighting what he said was “a staggering number” of cases demanding trial in Chenango County’s county, family and surrogate courts as well as a lack of sufficient security at the county office building.
Chenango County Board of Supervisors Chairman Lawrence Wilcox, R-Oxford, who was appointed chair last year, said he was committed to solving the space issue. He said the county and the courts had worked well together in the past, but he was ever mindful of what taxpayers can afford.
“We are obligated to provide you (Judge Mulvey) with the space, but we are also obligated to only do what our taxpayers can afford,” he said.
The committee discussed consolidating space it leases for the district’s law library and Supreme Court Judge Elizabeth Garry with the courts, either into more offices on the third floor of the County Office Building or elsewhere. In the past, supervisors who sit on the Health and Human Services Committee have suggested moving the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Services from leased space at Leilani’s Way in the Town of Norwich into the Mental Health Department at the County Office Building.
Following this week’s decision to pursue a new facility for the courts, Supervisor James Bays, D-Smyrna, acknowledged Wilcox’s commitment to taking on “such a tough issue; a big project.”
The Broad Street building was built in 1992 for the Norwich branch of the State University College of Agriculture and Technology at Morrisville. The college occupied 10,000 square feet of second floor space until, in 2002, overcrowding issues forced them to seek more space and eye a new campus at the Eaton Center.
A fire in 1990 destroyed a former structure at the site which for decades had housed WCHN-AM and WKXZ-FM radio stations and the Carol Ann clothing store. The clothing store had been onsite since the 1940s.
Mayor Maiurano said the building is in excellent shape.

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