Office takes shape n County officials expect to be moved in and open by March 1

BENTONVILLE -- Benton County's new office in Rogers is taking shape and officials expect to open for business March 1 at the 15th and Walnut streets location.

"All the walls are up and they'll probably start painting next week," said County Judge Bob Clinard. "The IT stuff is in, the light fixtures are in. We're scheduled to move around the middle of February and open up by March 1."

The county bought the former USA Drug building in fall for $779,275 and earmarked about $200,000 for renovation of its interior. The county will consolidate offices that had been at Third and Poplar streets in Rogers and on Southeast 28th Street in Bentonville.

The county clerk's office will move its satellite office from Poplar Street, while the collector and assessor offices will combine their operations from the Rogers and Bentonville sites. The Rogers state revenue office also will move from Poplar Street to the new building. The revenue office in Bentonville already moved into its own office on Southwest D Street.

The different offices have been allotted their space in the new building and are working out what to move, Clinard said.

"We're going to inventory what's in the old building and decide what we're going to move, what we're going to leave and what we're going to put in storage," he said. "Some of the things in the old building we're not going to need."

County Assessor Bear Chaney said moving his offices shouldn't be too complicated.

"The only thing we essentially have to move from one location to the other are the people and the computers," Chaney said. "The other stuff we can move after the first of March if we have to."

County Clerk Tena O'Brien said her move will be a bit more complicated because of the nature of her office.

"I've got a lot of archive records. That's going to be the biggest part of our move," she said. "We've got some big rolling cabinets that have to be dismantled and set up again and lots and lots of books."

The move into the new Rogers office should complete a series of moves that have gotten the county out of leased space and into county-owned offices wherever possible and into newer, more useful space.