Historic Bel Air offices could be placed on the auction block or under the bulldozer’s blade.
Harford County officials said they’d rather tear down three buildings than continue to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to maintain them or millions to upgrade them.
The County Council refused to declare the properties surplus so they could be auctioned off this past week, some citing the government’s space crunch as reason to hang onto all available office property.
But the buildings at 29, 31 and 33 S. Courtland St. are too dilapidated to be used, said Debbie Henderson, director of procurement for the county.
The stairs are too narrow, the bathrooms inadequate and the wiring unable to handle the strain of modern office equipment, she said.
“If [county employees] wanted to use their computers, they couldn’t turn the air conditioning on at the same time,” Henderson said.
“In order to do anything there, we’d either have to tear out the insides or tear down the buildings completely.”
During the past two years, Harford has spent a total of $241,000 to maintain and repair the buildings, she said.
Director of Administration Lorraine Costello said to bring the buildings up to code, including electrical wiring and handicapped accessibility requirements, would cost as much as $4.2 million.
Lease coordinator Erin Englar said the county is paying nearly $195,500 in yearly rent to move the tenants to more suitable offices.
County Executive David Craig now may draft a new resolution to the County Council proposing that the buildings be torn down, Henderson said.
Because the buildings are part of a “historic district” designated by the town of Bel Air, demolition or substantial external changes would require the approval of the town’s Historic Preservation Commission and five of the seven County Council members.
Dion Guthrie, one of the four council members who voted against declaring the property surplus, said he’d prefer a resolution to tear down the buildings once Harford declared it could do nothing with them. If the buildings remained in their current state, no developer would want to spend the millions to update them, he said.
Totaling about 11,000 square feet, the three buildings had housed several county agencies including a food pantry, the YMCA, Association of Retarded Citizens and the Court-Appointed Special Advocates’ office. The last of the agencies is scheduled to move out in September, Henderson said.
