Now that the city of South Bend has moved out of the County-City Building, St. Joseph County leaders are also considering leaving it and moving into the former Studebaker complex.
The county has its eye on what was known as Studebaker Building 113. That’s the long two-story structure on Lafayette Boulevard that developer Kevin Smith has spent the past decade renovating.
It’s now occupied by several tenants, including The South Bend Tribune, Purdue Polytechnic High School, and enFocus, the nonprofit consulting firm.
On Tuesday county commissioners will consider hiring a consultant to study how the county could use space in the building. Making the pitch to hire the firm will be Bill Schalliol, the county’s economic development director.
“With the work that’s already happened and just some other things that the county could get involved in, in partnership with the city and some other entities, it seems like it would be a practical space for us to locate," Schalliol says. "This study looks at this space, this new configuration, what it could be, how it lays out, and then gives us some basic costs on how to do that.”
The county would pay the consultant about $50,000 to produce the study in eight weeks.
