Veterans Office headed to Litter Landing

FINDLAY — Hancock County Veterans Service Office will be moving into the former Litter Landing space after it is renovated, Veterans Service Executive Director Nichole Coleman said this week. The agency currently is located at Riverview Executive Park (the former Kodak building), 1100 E. Main Cross St., Suite 123. County officials are hoping to relocate Veterans Services by November 2025. The green bins for the public to drop off recyclables will remain at the former Litter Landing site, she said. The county commissioners plan to convert the eastern side of the 6,369 square-foot building — the side where people once dropped off recyclables — to offices, Coleman said. A small addition for employee bathrooms and a board room also is planned. The western side of the building will be converted to a garage for Veterans Service vehicles and storage. County Commissioner Timothy Bechtol said it is too early to have a cost estimate, but he believes the improvements will cost less than $1 million. "We're super excited," Coleman said. "Commissioner Bechtol (who is an architect) is going to help us with that first, very rough, sketch." "Soon we will be getting the (request for quotes) out there for companies to start sending in proposals," Coleman said. Shorter walk The small brown Litter Landing building, with the water wheel and located nearest to Sandusky Street, will be demolished and replaced with parking for Veterans Service clients, Coleman said. "We certainly are not complaining about the amazing space that we have (currently), but a lot of our clients either struggle with physical or cognitive disabilities and sometimes it's hard for them to make it all the way down to our office," she said. Since the 2007 flood, county government still has three displaced offices that are paying to lease space, Bechtol said: the Public Defender's Office, Board of Elections and Veterans Services. "The commissioners are actively looking for every opportunity to get them back into county-owned facilities," he said. "So when this facility became available, we explored that option, and we thought that out of the three, that" — Veterans Services — "was the best fit for that site." "We're going see how the plans work out and make sure they actually do fit. We're just judging from what we know about (Veterans Services) operations," Bechtol said. "We want to see some actual drawings here done. I'll prepare those and we'll review them and if all looks good, we'll proceed to get an architect of record on to finalize the drawings before going out to construction." "It's certainly a strong street frontage for the veterans," he said of the former Litter Landing location. "It would, I think, help veterans find the office more easily and use it and benefit from it." Fiscal frugality Coleman also said the prominent location will be helpful for veterans. "We are excited about having our own place, the fact that it is in such a visible (location)," Coleman said. "If we say, 'We're in the old Litter Landing,' everybody knows where that is. And if they don't, it's easy to find." The commissioners will pay for the building renovations out of the county general fund. Under Ohio law the county veterans services office each year can spend up to the equivalent of 0.5-mill of Hancock County's property tax. But each year the agency has spent less than that. It has left unspent in the county general fund nearly $1.2 million since 2012, Coleman said. Her predecessor also "returned" money to the general fund, she said. The east side of the former Litter Landing building, where people once dropped off recyclables, will become offices for veterans services staff. The west side of the building will become a garage for six vans, a sport utility vehicle, a military truck and trailer. It also will be used for storage. Customer service "We have a transportation team who takes veterans to their VA medical appointments. Sometimes those appointments are at 7:30, or 8 o'clock in the morning so our drivers' day might start at 5 o'clock in the morning. And in the winter that's not an ideal situation for our drivers or our clients," she said. "So now we'll be able to have a place where the drivers will be able to get in warm vehicles instead of freezing cold vehicles in the winter." The former offices of Litter Landing, which are attached to the larger building and on the Sandusky Street-side of that main building, will have a client waiting room, computer lab, and small bathroom with a shower. The area also will have a small washer and dryer for laundry. "We want to be able to have a small laundry facility so that when we are dealing with a homeless veteran while they are meeting with us, the little bit of laundry that they do have, they can throw them in the wash and wash them and dry them while we are meeting with them," Coleman said. "We have been wanting to do a small computer lab so that we would have maybe two computers for our clients that don't have internet at home or if we're meeting with them and they need a copy of their bank statement or a copy of their marriage certificate or something, if they have got it saved somewhere that they can get to online, they can print for us," she said. Coleman said the plan also is to make the driveway off Sandusky a one-way entrance; cars would exit the Veterans Services area by turning onto Main Cross Street to the north.