- Fiscal Court approved a $9,691,376 Guaranteed Maximum Price with an overall project budget of approximately $11.38 million, including contingency funds.
- The 20,000-square-foot facility will be built along Conrad Lane in the county’s “Public Service Corridor” and is expected to cost about $500 per square foot.
- Officials said there will be no downtime for emergency dispatch services during the transition, with backup systems and redundancy plans in place.
Boone County has settled on a project budget for its proposed emergency management and public safety communications building.
Specifically, the fiscal court on Tuesday approved the Guaranteed Maximum Price budget, a contractually agreed-upon cap on construction project costs, along with a general project budget.
At the moment, Boone County’s Public Safety Communications Department operates out of the Florence Government Center, while its Emergency Management Services is located inside the sheriff’s department building.
In 2024, Boone County announced plans to relocate both departments to a new, dedicated building. The new public safety center will be situated at the intersection of Conrad Lane and Bullitsville Road, an area known as the “Public Service Corridor,” which houses the Boone County Jail, Fire Training Center and Sheriff’s Office. The site is currently home to several youth soccer fields. The property’s current zoning designation is Public Facilities.
Deputy County Administrator Matthew Dowling gave a presentation to the legislative body outlining the project’s budget. Pepper Construction, a Chicago-based firm with an office in Cincinnati, was selected as the project’s general contractor in September 2025.
In total, Pepper Construction’s Guaranteed Maximum Price budget is $9,691,376, within an overall project budget of approximately $11.38 million. The budget includes a total direct cost of $1,689,033, including $450,000 allocated for contingency – an amount typically set aside for unforeseen expenses.
“As you can see, the overall project budget shows Pepper’s Guaranteed Maximum Price of $9,691,376 and the Boone County costs, and this includes contingency, which is important to know, is $1,689,033, so this provides for an overall project cost of $11,380,409 million,” Dowling said.
Dowling said that the new facility will cover about 20,000 square feet, with an estimated cost of roughly $500 per square foot. He noted that this price per square foot aligns with other public-safety buildings in the area.
Regarding the timeline, Dowling said the next step was to issue a notice to proceed with construction in March. If all goes as planned, the project should be completed by next spring.
Commissioner Cathy Flaig inquired whether there would be any downtime for the county’s emergency management services when moving and reinstalling critical dispatch equipment in the new building.
Boone County Public Service Communications Center employee Daniel Aylor told the fiscal court there would be no operational downtime, as the departments have service plans in place during the transition.
“We have established several methods that we can back up our system, and we’re working on that now. We’ll have additional phone lines,” Aylor said. “They’ll work out of a plum case radios through Motorola that we currently have – Kenton County has used them when they have gone to their emergency backup center. We’ll use those radios as well, and we’ll be purchasing new computers for our CAD (Computer-aided dispatch) system to put in the new center that we will adjust to make that move from the old center to the new center.”
Boone County Judge/Executive Gary Moore commented that it was an exciting time for the project, as a significant amount of time and effort had gone into reaching this stage of the project.
“I know there’s been a substantial amount of time and energy and talent put into getting us to this point tonight, and it is an exciting time,” Moore said. “We do have a timeline we’re trying to accomplish with getting out of the building in Florence, which they (City of Florence) want to repurpose for their purposes, and so this accelerated schedule also plays into pricing as well.”