Will County Leaders Debate New Construction to Escape $1.2 Million in Leases

Capital Improvements & IT Committee Meeting | March 2026

Article Summary: The Will County Capital Improvements and IT Committee is aggressively exploring options to consolidate county offices and exit leased properties, sparking a debate over where to build a new government campus and how to fund it.

Capital Improvements 5-Year Plan Key Points:

• Will County currently utilizes approximately 65,000 square feet of leased space, costing taxpayers roughly $1.2 million annually.

• A Master Plan Update in the agenda packet projects the county will need 118,000 square feet for the County Office Building and 101,040 square feet for Judicial Agencies by 2050.

• Committee members are divided on whether to build a new facility on the site of the recently demolished old courthouse or expand the current county office campus.

• A debt capacity report indicates the county could potentially issue up to $142.6 million in new bonds without increasing the overall annual debt service level.

The Will County Capital Improvements and IT Committee on Tuesday, March 3, 2026, waded into a complex debate over the future of the county’s physical footprint, driven by a desire to consolidate scattered departments and eliminate expensive rental leases.

Committee Chair Mica Freeman initiated the discussion by outlining her vision to bring currently displaced departments—such as the Public Defender, State’s Attorney, and Regional Office of Education—under a single, county-owned roof.

According to County Board Member Daniel J. Butler, the county’s reliance on leased spaces is currently a significant financial drain.

“We use 65,000 square feet of rental space and we paid $1.2 million for rental,” Butler said, noting that these costs were part of the original argument for attempting to save and expand the old 140,000-square-foot county courthouse before the board ultimately voted to demolish it.

“Building a new courthouse building in that exact same location would be the height of folly. I mean, really, tearing down the building and building it right back,” Butler remarked, though he acknowledged the urgent need to address the spatial deficit.

Member Steve Balich argued that the most logical and cost-effective long-term solution is to construct a new, basic facility—potentially on the site of the old courthouse—to eliminate the rental overhead.

“You just build a two-story building, steel, it’s cheaper, and move everybody in there, move everybody into different places in the building, and we’ll save a ton of money in rental,” Balich said. “We don’t really need to have bonds because we’ll be able to take the rent money to pay for the cost of a building.”

However, Member Jacqueline Traynere strongly opposed any plan that might increase the tax burden, and pushed back against utilizing the old courthouse site due to historical construction hurdles.

“I’m not in favor of raising property taxes to pay for new buildings,” Traynere said. She advocated for constructing a smaller, expandable building on the current County Office Building campus instead. “We could put parking at the bottom of the building, but we can’t go down deep because that’s limestone. That was the problem we had with the jail. Building anywhere in that general vicinity costs us a lot of extra money.”

While the committee did not take a formal vote, the agenda packet included deep contextual data to inform their upcoming decisions. A Master Plan Update provided by Wight projects that by the year 2050, the County Office Building departments will require 118,000 Departmental Gross Square Feet (DGSF), up from their current 62,260 DGSF. Similarly, Judicial Agency Departments will see their needs grow from 88,841 DGSF to 101,040 DGSF.

To finance potential construction, the committee referenced a recent debt profile from Speer Financial, included in the packet. The report shows that as older bonds are paid off, Will County will experience a significant drop in outstanding debt payments after 2026 and 2030. By structuring a split-issuance of General Obligation Alternate Revenue Source bonds, the county could theoretically capture up to $142.6 million in project funds without raising its current $25 million annual debt service target.

Member Mark V. Revis suggested that once staff returns with concrete price-per-square-foot estimates, the board should convene a special meeting to ensure all members are aligned before moving forward.

“This is one of those items that is going to cross the threshold where everybody is going to want to have a firm understanding of it before they cast their vote,” Revis said.