ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla — We need more space. That’s the message from various county leaders, including the sheriff, medical examiner and the elections supervisor in St. Johns County.

The population boom there is putting pressure on county offices to keep up.

Vicky Oakes, the St. Johns County supervisor of elections, has been asking for more space since 2021.

Last fall, the county’s medical examiner showed off her cramped quarters.

“The administrative and the morgue, yes, yes, is at max capacity,” Daniel Whitcraft said. He is the director of facilities for St. Johns County.  

A recent study shows the Medical Examiner’s Office needs twice as much space as it currently has.

The state just added two new judges to the Seventh Circuit Court in St. Augustine, Whitcraft noted.

But at the St. Johns County Courthouse, “We don’t currently have space for those two new judges,” Whitcraft said. 

Between 2020 and 2024, according to the U.S. Census, the St. Johns County population increased by 22.5%, putting the pinch on all kinds of government buildings.

Tuesday, the St. Johns County Commission approved, in a 3-2 vote, to spend $13.5 million toward retrofitting and also building additions to certain county government buildings.

Whitcraft said the price tag could have been much more, possibly $100 million if the county had built all new spaces. However, the staff was able to knock down the cost to $13.5 million by finding unused space.

“We’ve been able to identify underutilized spaces,” he said. “We are thinking outside the box…there was no way we were going to get $100 million to address these things.”

So, for example, the former jail, which is now called the annex at the sheriff’s office, was up for demolition approval. But now, “it’s not going to be demolished,” Whitcraft said. It’s going to house administrative space for the sheriff’s office.

The Medical Examiner’s Office will actually have an addition built, costing $6 million.

The total $13.5 million will not be coming from impact fees, according to County Administrator Joy Andrews, who said impact fees have already been slated to build things such as “parks, libraries, and for the sheriff administration building. “

As for the supervisor of elections, she will get the space she’s been asking for since 2021: an office will be retrofitted next to her current facility.