The City and County of Brookings plan to officially dedicate their new, joint city-county government center on Wednesday, June 27, 2012 at the new location at 520 Third Street in Brookings. A public ceremony and ribbon-cutting is scheduled for 5:00 p.m. followed by a reception and public tours.
The new joint Government Center is believed to be the only combined city-county government center in South Dakota and will house a combined 62 employees from 13 different city and county departments. The move to one building has caused the City and County to vacate portions or all of four separate buildings in order to provide more efficiencies and savings to taxpayers in both construction and long-range operating expenses.
The cost of the construction was $11.8 million plus $1.9 million in property acquisition. The new facility is located on the edge of the Downtown Brookings Central Business District. The building is approximately 76,000 square feet in size. The construction schedule took approximately 14 months. The City will be remodeling the vacated City Hall into a Public Safety Center for expansion of the police department and the County will be remodeling the Court House for the 3rd Circuit of the South Dakota Unified Judicial System.
The general public is welcome to attend the Dedication Program at 5:00 p.m. and the reception and self-guided tours from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.