"It's very important that the residents of Garden City be involved in the process," County Executive Tom Suozzi said March 26 at the high school, where he discussed three topics of interest - Nassau's "shambled" finances, its future and perhaps, most importantly, the proposed real estate consolidation plan. The third topic is particularly unique to the village because the properties are housed within its boundaries.

Residents attended what Suozzi dubbed a "town hall" meeting because of their interest in the future reuse of the surplus county properties, whether or not they want currently tax-exempt property to be put back on the tax roll and lastly, their role in re-shaping the county government's "footprint."

Garden City is the sixth community Suozzi has met with but the first to hear about two particular considerations, known as Option A and Option B, which the county received based on recommendations brought forth by Insignia/ESG, the commercial realtor county officials hired.

"We realize this is going to be a very complex process," the county executive said. As part of this process, the county needs to develop communication with the Village of Garden City and its various organizations like the four property owners associations and the Chamber of Commerce.

In an attempt to offer up a dialogue, county officials offered a village bus tour March 26 to better understand Garden City's needs. Superintendent of Schools Dr. Stephen Leitman, Bert Donley from GC Properties and the Chamber of Commerce and Stephen Cooke of Adelphi University were among those who took the tour.

Commenting on the tour's poor turnout, Suozzi said, "The sense that I've gotten from Garden City is that you really don't want us to do anything. You want us to leave you alone so you can do your own thing.

"That's fine with us. This is a big county with problems everywhere so we're happy to do that. But we wanted to make sure that you didn't feel left out of the process. We're here to let you know what's going on," Suozzi added.

The fact remains that Nassau County buildings are "falling apart" due to decades of utter neglect. "We've got the Office of Court Administration of New York State telling us we must repair our courts because they're falling apart and don't properly represent what a court should represent," Suozzi explained.

"Our buildings should be cleaned up because they're a mess. Soot and dirt surround the ventilation, rugs are stained, the Social Services building is filled with asbestos and the Old Courthouse used to be one of the most beautiful buildings anywhere in Nassau County - now it's falling apart."

County officials determined sometime last year that these buildings needed to be upgraded and made more efficient. "But we have to do it in a way that would actually pay for itself," Suozzi said. The real estate consolidation plan grew out of that concept.

"Teddy Roosevelt laid the cornerstone at the courthouse on July 13, 1900 and this building's been a symbol of Nassau County for decades. Now that symbol is a dump," he added.

Presently, the county has 1,317 vacant parcels of land, maintains 577 sumps, owns or occupies 766 buildings, some of which are sprawled across Nassau like the 11 police headquarters buildings, and leases 56 facilities.

"There was never really an effort to plan how the county government, with 49 different departments, should be housed. We decided we needed to start looking at that more carefully," Suozzi said.

The plan entails dividing up these properties into five county campuses: a Public Safety Center, Health and Human Services (the county has eight agencies that focus on such), Courts complex, Corrections complex (Nassau County jail) and Government Operations Center.

Suozzi questioned why election machines are being housed in 30,000 square feet of valuable real estate on the corner of Old Country Road and Franklin Avenue - possibly the most valuable piece of property in Nassau.

"We're not doing anything that Garden City is not going to be happy with. When I was a mayor of a small city, I knew that if I didn't like a project, I'd block it. I don't want to end up in a situation where I have people of Garden City not supporting this project," he said.

Option A suggests relocating county police headquarters to Grumman building five in Bethpage; splitting the intake and administrative functions of Heath and Human Services into two buildings, an off-campus site client based facility and an administration center as part of the Government Operations Center. In addition, the plan calls for the full renovation and extension of the Old County Courthouse to create a Government Operations Center, and expansion of the court complex in Garden City to accommodate Family Court and Matrimonial Court.

In separating Health and Human Services into administration and intake, Suozzi told residents that intake would have to be put in a rented facility, although he's not sure where as of yet. He did say the building would have to be in a high-traffic mass transit area like Roosevelt Field or the Bus Hub in Hempstead - a place easily accessible in the center of the island. "To accommodate that, we would have to build a two-story garage," he explained. "Now I know how people in Garden City feel about garages and we recognize that you wouldn't want a two-story garage in the village. Taking that into consideration, what we would do is put one story in the ground and design it in such a way that it wouldn't look so much like a garage but more like a building with heavy plantings. Again, we don't want to do this project unless Garden City supports it."

Option B includes the same renovations to the Old County Courthouse and expansion of the court complex in Garden City. Additionally, the plan also calls for the expansion and renovations of the Police Headquarters on Franklin Avenue, as well as relocating Health and Human Services to two existing buildings on County Seat Drive in Garden City.

... This plan must be self-funded. "We have to pay for the real estate consolidation based upon the sale of the surplus real estate and operating efficiencies that are created," Suozzi said.

... There must be a balance of effects on the community with the needs of the population it serves, taking into account issues like traffic and the neighborhood's character.

... Landmark status. "We knew from the beginning that we wouldn't sell off or demolish the Old Courthouse because it's a landmark building," Suozzi said.

... Legal requirements. Officials must consider the fact that the Board of Elections must still be housed in Mineola.

Editor's Note: The complete Nassau County Real Estate Consolidation Report and supplemental documents are available at www.co.nassau.ny.us for download as several "Portable Document Format" (pdf) files. You must have a recent version of Adobe Acrobat Reader(r) installed on your computer to view and print pdf files. Some of the files are large so allow adequate download time.