OBSERVER Photo by Gregory Bacon Tim Card discusses the planned CHQ Transit building that will be constructed at 215 E. 3rd St., Jamestown.

The long-awaited building in the city of Jamestown that will serve as a hub for riders on CHQ Transit will still cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to construct, but at least it’s significantly cheaper than it was a year ago.

During the recent Chautauqua County Planning Board, county Department of Public Facilities Director Tim Card discussed the CHQ Transit building that will be constructed at 215 E. 3rd St. near Jamestown City Hall.

CHQ Transit, previously known as the Chautauqua Area Rural Transit System or CARTS, has been operating out of 215 E. Third St. since 2018, initially renting the location. Chautauqua County purchased the former gas station in 2020 using state funds before Card was appointed DPF director.

The county purchased the property for $158,256 and spent another $44,400 on designs.

It then started remodeling but realized this would be too difficult. “We found more wrong with the building than what was right,” Card told county Planning Board members.

In 2024, they made the decision to stop construction and tear it down.

The county looked into designing a new building. Those design costs were around $74,000.

The bids for a new building came in at $813,000 for an 850 square foot building. “I wasn’t sure that was the proper way to spend taxpayers’ money,” Card said.

The county has used a lot of different funding sources, including state grants, American Rescue Plan Act funds, and some money from the county budget.

The problems continued.

According to Card, the Jamestown Board of Public Utilities had to recently install a buried electric line through the back of the property. “As the city BPU was digging across the back of the property, they found five more tanks. Nobody knew they were there,” he said.

Those have since been dug up and taken care of.

Card said the city of Jamestown is responsible for the environmental issues with the property. “The city is still working with the DEC (state Department of Environmental Conservation) as far as environmental. They’re probably going to have to put in some monitoring wells to check it, but we have been given the green light to move forward with the project,” he said.

Card said they went out for bids again, and this time they came in at about $455,000.

“With the budget we currently have, we are moving forward,” he said.

Card said they’re going to do some of the work in-house to save costs.

Last month the Jamestown City Planning Commission approved the Site Plan Review of the project.

Card said they hope to have the CHQ Transit building finished sometime in October or November.