BRADENTON – An additional unpermitted renovation at Manatee County Government's downtown administration building has been identified. The construction project took place on the second floor of the building. Material and subcontractor invoices associated with the extensive renovation are dated between late March and July of this year. So far, the county has paid approximately $145,000 for materials and subcontracted labor on the project.
TBT reported last month about an extensive renovation to the county building's ninth floor that was undertaken earlier this year. The building's ninth-floor renovation included upgrades to the administrative wing, including to the county administrator's office. TBT also uncovered that the county had not applied for, or received, a building permit or Notice of Commencement (NOC) for the project.
Like the invoices related to the ninth-floor renovation, the paid invoices obtained through a public record request for the second-floor renovation do not include the total cost of direct labor. The total of $145,000 is the amount spent not including "in-house man hours" that were incurred through the use of property management employees who worked on the project over several months.
The county's administration building, or the Manatee County Administration Complex, is located at 1112 Manatee Avenue West. Although the building is owned by the county government, its jurisdiction is within the City of Bradenton. When the county needs (or wants) to perform construction or renovation on it, and that work requires a building permit under Florida law, the county must submit a building permit application and construction plan to the city. Once plans have received a review by city officials, a permit is approved, a NOC is issued, and inspections are scheduled and completed throughout the course of the building project.
The renovation project undertaken on the administration building's second floor included the construction of a new media production studio, an employee breakroom, offices for the records management division, as well as the construction of office space that was intended for employees of the county's Department of Development Services–including the division of building and permitting.
The renovation to the second floor appears to have also bypassed the required procedures of a plan review, building permit application and issuance, and appropriate inspections under Florida's building and fire codes.
Paid invoices related to the second-floor renovation project show the county purchased approximately 3,720 square feet of drywall, 2,400 linear feet of metal wall studs, paid $1,348 to a subcontractor for work to the fire suppression system, and paid more than $35,000 to an electrical subcontractor. The county also paid the architectural design firm Sweet Sparkman more than $28,000 for the project's design–$9,000 of which was for the required services of an engineer.
There were also paid invoices from Waste Pro for the rental of a 20-yard roll-away dumpster and disposal fees. The invoices are dated from March 31, 2022, through June 30, 2022, and total nearly $3,600 for charges associated with seven haul-aways of the filled 20-yard dumpster. In our reporting, Hopes' Office gets Upgrade in Unpermitted Renovation to Administration Building, the county paid roughly $2,000 to Waste Pro for material haul-away during its ninth-floor renovation.
TBT reached out to the city to ask whether it was aware of the unpermitted construction undertaken by the county to its administration building's ninth and second floors. We inquired whether the city had conducted any inspections in relation to either renovation.
City of Bradenton PIO Jeannie Roberts responded by email telling TBT that an "after the fact" permit was applied for on Friday, September 2, for the ninth-floor renovation and that the city had received a building permit application for the second-floor renovation on July 12. The "after the fact" permit for the administration building's ninth floor was issued to the county on Thursday, September 8, and the permit for the second-floor renovation was issued on August 24. As of Thursday, no inspections had yet been scheduled for either project.
Click here to view the "after the fact" permit issued to the county on Thursday for its ninth-floor renovations.
TBT followed up with the city in an attempt to clarify whether any of the work that had already been completed on the second floor–prior to plan review and permit approval–would also undergo "after the fact" inspections like those that will take place on the ninth floor. We had not received any response to our additional question by the publication deadline for this report.
Text messages from the cell phone of Deputy County Administrator Charlie Bishop, who also serves as director of the county's property management department, show that at least a portion of the second-floor renovation was completed on June 15–nearly a month before the county submitted a permit application for the second-floor project. The text messages were obtained by the Florida Center for Government Accountability through a public record request.
On June 9, 2022, at 8:57 a.m. Bishop sent a text to a property management employee by the name of "Brennan" instructing the employee to, "Start cracking the whip on second."
Later that same day, at 1:46 p.m., Deputy County Administrator Robert Reinshuttle texted Bishop asking, "Did Brennan forget his whip today?"
On June 15, the employee of property management sent a text message to Bishop informing him that the "flooring is done and offices and studio will be ready on Friday."
The employee added, "They started framing the permitting side today too."
Bishop requested photos be sent to him and, roughly ten minutes after receiving the photos from the employee, Bishop forwarded the photos of the completed media studio and a hallway with offices to Reinshuttle.
"Thank you, it looks beautiful," Reinshuttle replied. "Please make sure the wall is put up in Debbie's office, I want Morehead to be in there."
Although the text messages exchanged by county employees in June stated that offices were being framed for employees of the permitting division, a property management journal entry note shows that the Department of Property Management reimbursed the Department of Development Services for the cost of office renovations on the second floor.
The August journal note read, "Renovations were done to the second floor for Development Services to move into, it has been determined to move another department there, so this is reimbursement of those costs."
The total reimbursement to the Department of Development Services from Property Management was $66,454.
An "after the fact" permit is simply a permit application submitted, approved, and permit issued after construction work has already been completed. In instances where an individual or entity undertakes demolition, construction, or alteration of a structure without the required permits and inspections, such a permit can be issued so that building officials can go backward and perform the required inspections that should have been completed under the permit schedule.
Many times, on larger renovations or those that include alteration or addition to electrical or mechanical systems, building officials will require the property owner or contractor to "un-do" some of the work completed (such as walls, flooring, ceilings, cabinets, etc.) in order to reveal the portions of electric or plumbing which require inspection. Sometimes an engineer will be required by the building authority to inspect and "sign off" on work inspected after the fact. "After the fact" permits can cause expensive increases in a building project's total budget depending on the nature and scope of the work that was completed without proper permitting and inspections.
Among the paid invoices from the second-floor renovation reviewed by TBT were several pages of detailed notes written by a subcontracted electrician. The electrician's notes describe the extensive electrical work performed, including the installation of switch quads, replacing all 2x4 wafer recess lighting with 2x2, and a new electric "raceway" running from the electrical room to the media studio to feed its new dedicated circuits. The electrician also made note of changes having been made to the "original scope of work."
Florida's Building Code is ultimately intended to protect the safety and health of the public. The state's Fire Building Code and Fire Prevention Code are in addition to the building code and fire inspections exist to help prevent fire risk or emergencies that could result from building alterations creating coverage issues for a commercial building's fire suppression system (fire alarms and sprinklers). By obtaining a building permit, these systems can be reviewed and inspected as work is completed to assure fire safety standards are met in accordance with Florida's Fire Codes.
Florida Statutes 553.79- Permits; applications; issuance; inspections:
(1)(a) "After the effective date of the Florida Building Code adopted as herein provided, it shall be unlawful for any person, firm, corporation, or governmental entity to construct, erect, alter, modify, repair, or demolish any building within this state without first obtaining a permit therefor from the appropriate enforcing agency..."
Florida Building Fire Code 901.3- Fire Protection Systems; modifications:
"Persons shall not remove or modify any fire protection system installed or maintained under the provisions of this code or the Florida Fire Prevention Code without approval by the building official."
TBT reached out to the City of Bradenton Fire Department to ask whether the department was aware of the renovations undertaken by the county to the second and ninth floor of the administration building, or whether any inspections had been completed by a fire marshal.
In an email, a spokesperson for the fire department wrote, "We were not aware of the work on the ninth floor. We are involved now and the issue is being addressed and will be inspected," the official response read. "As for the second floor, we have a permit currently in for review and are clarifying if all the work (done) on that floor is included in the current permit."
The response provided by the department spokesperson emphasized that the fire department itself does not handle permitting and that relevant information concerning unpermitted work to the administration building's ninth floor that TBT reported in August was forwarded to the City of Bradenton's Building Department and Code Enforcement Division to investigate.
The spokesperson wrote that once the fire department has determined what work is included in the building permit issued to the county for the second-floor renovation, any work that may have been completed on the second floor prior to the issuance of a permit–and which required inspection by the fire marshal–will also undergo fire inspections as required by state statute.
Dawn Kitterman is a staff reporter for The Bradenton Times. She covers local government and entertainment news. She can be reached at dawn.kitterman@thebradentontimes.com.
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