Solicitor’s office hoping to build $1.2 million center for drug court, intervention programs in downtown Conway

When Mary Powell started working with the solicitor’s pretrial intervention program in 1991, she saw maybe a few hundred clients each year.

That was long before the addition of the juvenile diversion program, before juvenile arbitration, before her office’s alcohol and traffic education efforts.

More than 2,000 people participated in Horry County intervention programs last year, and that doesn’t include those going through the drug and mental health courts, which are handled by a different staff in the same office.

Despite that growth, for much of Powell’s time with the solicitor’s office these programs have been housed in a rickety old tobacco warehouse on the corner of Laurel Street and Second Avenue. That building, which is just under 11,000 square feet, is no longer large enough to meet the office’s needs.

“With having so many different programs and trying to serve so many of the people in the community, you just really need the space,” said Powell, who oversees all of the intervention programs except drug court and mental health court. “You need the space so that one program doesn’t interfere with the other program. It’s just a challenge.”

Local officials hope that will soon change. Horry County leaders and Solicitor Jimmy Richardson are discussing plans to construct a $1.2 million facility for all of those programs in downtown Conway.

Richardson wants to build the office in the county’s overflow parking lot at the corner of Lewis Street and Second Avenue.

Along with being too small, the current intervention programs building has fallen into disrepair, Richardson said. When he looked at the cost of renovations, the price tag was about $800,000.

Richardson said that’s when he changed his approach: “I said, ‘Well, stop. We’ve got a building here that’s pushing 100 years old, if not older. And we could build a new building. … This doesn’t make sense to me.’”

Richardson began contacting contractors and the county.

His office has been setting aside money for years for facility improvements and his plan is to use that money and a loan to build the office, then pay off the loan with the proceeds from the sale of the tobacco warehouse.

The process is somewhat tricky because the property would actually be held by a limited liability company set up to manage any land or buildings used by the intervention programs, which are primarily supported with fees from participants.

County officials have also raised questions about the solicitor’s proposal.

Although they say the parking lot isn’t needed, they have concerns about the construction plans for the building.

They want the office built to the standards of other government buildings. Richardson, however, just wants a basic office similar to those used by other attorneys in downtown Conway.

The solicitor said several builders told him they could construct a suitable facility for $100 per square foot. The lowest county estimates were $180 per square foot.

“They’ve got it in their mind that they want to build another library or another courthouse,” Richardson said. “I simply want office space.”

One reason county officials are hesitant about the deal is the future of the building. The solicitor has proposed that the intervention programs’ LLC lease the land for $1 per year for 20 years with two five-year renewal options.

Should the solicitor’s office ever leave the building, it would be turned over to the county.

County officials voted this week to authorize Administrator Chris Eldridge to begin negotiations with the solicitor’s office on the lease.

During a Jan. 28 meeting of the council’s Administration Committee, Eldridge agreed that there is a discrepancy between how much the county would pay to build the facility and the amount the solicitor’s office wants to spend. However, he did say the parking lot is rarely used and there is enough parking in the main lot of the Government and Justice Center on Second Avenue.

“This is something new,” he said of the lease agreement. “I don’t think we’ve done something like this in the past.”

Despite the red tape surrounding the project, Richardson said both sides see the need for the facility.

“It’s a great idea and everybody agrees on that,” he said. “It’s not costing the county anything. … Everybody’s on the same page, but the legal part of it they’re going through now and I’m sure they’re discussing how to make that work.”

For the employees who work in the current building, a new office would be a welcome sight.

“We’ve just outgrown the space that we have,” said Candy DeBusk, the director of the drug and mental health courts. “With drug court, we have two treatments rooms. But the issue is you have to go through one treatment room to get to the other one. You have to make sure the groups start at the same time, they finish at the same time so people aren’t walking [through] ... It’s just a really weird setup.”

The county’s drug and mental health courts offer nonviolent offenders a chance to turn their lives around instead of going to prison. Each court has its own judge and every participant pleads guilty and has his or her sentence suspended pending completion of the program.

Drug court, which the solicitor’s office started more than a decade ago, involves regular drug testing and treatment sessions. DeBusk remembers when drug court had five participants in its fledgling stage. Now more than 100 come through the office on a typical day.

Mental health court, which the solicitor’s office launched in June, assists repeat offenders who are living with mental illness. As part of the program, the solicitor’s office partnered with the Waccamaw Center for Mental Health. The initiative provides a psychiatrist and clinical assessments to people who would likely not have that help otherwise.

DeBusk said the initiative, which has 10 participants, helps address a need drug court could not meet.

“We were having to turn a lot of people away,” she said. “Because the program that we have through drug court, even though it’s wonderful and does great for the clients that we have, it just really wasn’t set up to be able to address people with mental illness.”

Should the solicitor get his wish and build the larger facility, DeBusk said that would provide the court programs with the space they need, allowing them to continue providing the care and accountability to a population with few other opportunities.

“It gets them here,” she said. “And once they’re here, then we can start working with them and getting them better.”

This story was originally published February 12, 2016 at 4:23 PM with the headline "Solicitor’s office hoping to build $1.2 million center for drug court, intervention programs in downtown Conway."