Carbon County officials are changing direction with a proposed office building that has been at the center of controversy in recent months.

On Thursday, the county commissioners announced they are downsizing the plans for the proposed Susquehanna Street office building and parking garage. They announced no rock removal will be done at the base of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church.

The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission weighed in on the project because of the bedrock removal behind St. Mark’s Episcopal Church.

Residents and parishioners had filed a lawsuit over concern that the historic church would be damaged.

The original project called for demolishing the former archives building and constructing a three-story, 66,279-square-foot building and parking garage next to the current 76 Susquehanna St. offices.

Two weeks ago, the board canceled the contracts for the $12.6 million project.

Commissioners’ Chairman Wayne Nothstein said that they met with the architect and engineers about the changes on Wednesday and have “decided to revamp and re-evaluate the project.”

“We had canceled the contracts, and in the aftermath of that, we were looking at the court case (that St. Mark’s filed against Jim Thorpe over its approval for the project), and as we speak, there still hasn’t been a judge assigned by that Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts to handle the case,” Commissioner William O’Gurek added. “So realizing that that may take a real long time, the three of us said, ‘let’s take a look a this situation, and it’s not too late to try and get it right.’”

Nothstein said that the plans that have yet to be determined will include using the existing archives/maintenance building, possibly removing the second floor of that building; and incorporating it into a smaller two- to three-story office building for the court offices on the existing footprint of the parking lot. The plans for a two-story parking garage would be scrapped, ending the need to take the borough’s parking spaces along Susquehanna Street.

O’Gurek said that the commissioners’ intention for the larger building was not out of disregard for the integrity of St. Mark’s.

“In our minds, we always did and always pursued what we were planning to do with the integrity of the church in mind,” he said, adding that this downscaling is trying to compromise with the business community, church and borough to obtain the office space the county so desperately needs, while being good neighbors.

Because of that, “We told our architect to go back to the drawing table,” O’Gurek said.

Commissioner Thomas J. Gerhard said that what the county now hopes will work in that space reduces the project by about two-thirds.

“I think it was the right thing to do,” he said.

The downside, the commissioners said, is losing the 40 parking spaces in the existing lot for the building. But the greatest need is for buildings, personnel and equipment to effectively operate county government.

In a related matter, the commissioners also voted to take the approximately $10 million bond that it received for the proposed building project and invest it in CDs for a year until the project is ready to move forward.

The timeline has not been set as the project goes back to the drawing phases and weave its way through the proper steps again before it can become a reality.