Employees for nine county departments got to tour their new digs Wednesday. Many were on hand for the opening of the county’s new $188 million operations center.
The county supervisors lined up to cut the ribbon on two green-certified office buildings at the new Kearny Mesa campus.
The center will bring together employees that used to work in disparate locations. The supervisors said that will increase efficiency and improve services.
They also said investing in the operations center now was part of placing the county on solid financial footings for the next 30 years.
“That means it’s going to be easier for future boards of supervisors to operate, the capital improvements will be in place," said Supervisor Ron Roberts. "It’s going to be the complete opposite of what we inherited. We inherited a lot of old infrastructure, we inherited a lot of deferred maintenance.”
Roberts added the operations center is part of a push to complete several capital projects that will serve the county for decades to come.
Funding for the next phase of construction at the Kearny Mesa campus was recently approved, according to Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Pam Slater-Price. It will add two more buildings and a conference center and will cost about the same amount as the first phase.
Slater-Price said many of those costs had been paid in cash.
“For this particular building we paid $75 million up front. And then the second phase is 100 percent paid for already," she said. "So, that means that we’re saving the interest costs. And if you've ever done anything yourself, you know interest really adds up.”
The supervisors pointed to the center’s financing as proof of the county’s solid financial standing. The county has eliminated about 1,400 staff positions in the last two years and expects tax revenues to decline for a second year.
