After three county-owned homes on Prentiss Street in Iowa City are emptied this spring, the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office will temporarily use the structures to conduct basic training exercises.

The homes are located at 514 S. Capitol St., 520 S. Capitol St., and 4 E. Prentiss St., and are set to be demolished this year after the trainings. Until last summer, the homes were being rented out by the local rental company Heritage Property Management. The rental contracts were terminated on July 31, 2022.

The properties were originally purchased to use for expanding the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office, Rod Sullivan, Johnson County Board of Supervisors Vice Chair, said.

“The hope was that someday we will be able to do some type of expansion or addition or something to the jail and courthouse, and of course, we took a couple of cracks at that, and the public said no,” Sullivan said. “We’ve never been able to use the property for anything other than then rentals.”

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The plans come after the county conducted a facility audit which evaluated the conditions of all county-owned properties, including the three houses. The audit revealed the houses were in poor condition, and it would be cheaper to demolish than renovate them.

The supervisors unanimously approved a contract with Earth Services and Abatement, the company that will demolish the properties, Thursday during its weekly formal session. According to the meeting agenda, the contract will cost $126,665 of American Rescue Plan Act money for the house demolition.

Johnson County, with a population of roughly 150,000 residents, received $29.3 million of the federal relief funding in 2020.

The houses are set to be demolished sometime in the next few months.

A rental listing on Zillow shows the price of the 520 S. Capitol St. property being $1,460 in 2020.

“We have had a property management company renting it for us for the last, you know, 10 or so years,” Sullivan said.

The homes are over 100 years-old and were built in the early 20th century, according to the audit obtained by The Daily Iowan.

Johnson County Facilities Director Dave Curtis said when the facility audit revealed the houses were in such poor condition, it made financial sense to demolish them.

“It would have cost two to three times to repair and fix them up than what they’re worth,” Curtis said.

The facility audit includes an estimated value to replace the homes, which priced the 520 S. Capitol St. as an estimated $453,120.

Curtis said the cost came from having to not only repair the deteriorating house but also having to make it ADA compliant.

The county uses a facility condition index (FCI) to determine if a home should be demolished. The ratio of what the property is worth divided by the number of repairs and deferred maintenance.

“The rule of thumb if you have an FCI over 60, it’s better financially to just start over, demolish, [and] rebuild,” he said. “All three of these houses scored over 100.”

To prepare for the demolition, the county has been working with the local organizations Habitat ReStore and Friends of Historic Preservation Salvage Barn to remove appliances and antique architectural fixtures.

Mike Haverkamp, Friends of Historic Preservation salvage manager, said the group was interested in houses over 50 years old and would visit them to remove fixtures if they were slated to be demolished.

“There are usable items that would be of interest to people here, [so] let’s try to get those before [the houses go] through demolition,” Haverkamp said.

Once they remove the fixtures, the group will transport them to their facility to then sell the fixtures to the public.

As for the future of the properties, the county has yet to make any plans after it is done demolishing them. The county had considered at one point using the properties as low-income housing, although Sullivan said it won’t happen now.

“I think the plan is still to just kind of sit on the property for a while because we really just still don’t know what the future is with the jail and sheriff’s office,” Sullivan said. “It’s still a problem for us, and we don’t know what to do.”