Sweeping changes begin for courthouse space
Posted on Sunday, July 20, 2008
Washington County officials are embarking on an ambitious plan to renovate the Historic Courthouse, buy and remodel the Terminella Building and build a parking garage on church property across from the Washington County Courthouse to meet space needs.
In doing this, they are first taking baby steps, and the financing is to be a combination of revenue bonds — reimbursed by court costs and fines — to fund the Historic Courthouse renovation, and money from an $ 18 million surplus to complete the remaining work (while leaving about a $ 6 million cushion for county contingencies ).
Washington County Judge Jerry Hunton presented this plan to the County Quorum Court on Thursday night and they approved it, with JPs Tom Lundstrum and Joe Patterson voting no.
With that go-ahead, county officials on Monday talked with a representative from the firm that renovated the outside of the Historic Courthouse. That firm is Polk Stanley Rowland Curzon Porter Architects.
The design cost of the exterior renovation of the Historic Courthouse was 10 percent of the project.
“ They’re going to drop that percentage on the inside, ” Hunton said. “ We don’t know what that number is yet. ”
This firm gave a preliminary estimate of $ 5 million to renovate the interior, Hunton said.
He said he told the firm he does not want to go over that amount.
One of the issues that will be looked at immediately is whether to perform an asbestos study in the building, Hunton said.
“ We don’t have any reasons to believe there is asbestos in the building, ” he said, adding, however, that a study should still be performed to make sure.
“ I’ve asked them to give me some names of people who can do an asbestos study, ” he said.
Plans are to also use the Little Rock architectural firm to help prepare the Terminella Building on College Avenue, across the street from the Public Defender’s Office, “ if we get it bought, ” Hunton said.
Once it is prepared and renovated, the plan is to have two courtrooms inside it, one for 4 th Circuit Judge Mary Ann Gunn to use while the Historic Courthouse is being renovated.
Hunton said he talked to owner Tom Terminella on Friday for a few minutes. “ Hopefully, we can sit down with him and, hopefully, reach an agreement. ” Historic Courthouse work
Work on the Histor ic Courthouse, Hunton said, will include replacing the heating and air conditioning as well as all of the electrical components. “ We think on the plumbing side we may not be in as bad of shape, ” he said. “ It’s just going to be a long, hard grueling process and it’s going to take awhile to get accomplished. ” How courtrooms are constructed within the Historic Courthouse, Hunton said, will depend a lot on cost. He also said that while some of the period aesthetics will be observed, the offices within the Historic Courthouse will be modern. “ We’re not trying to make this into a museum, ” he said. “ We’re trying to make it a working courthouse. ”
Parking garage Hunton said he has continued talks with people at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church about the parking garage that would be constructed across College Avenue from the Washington County Courthouse and would include a skywalk for pedestrian traffic. The garage would be built on the church property and leased to the county on a long-term basis. The engineer ing fir m working on that project is McGoodwin, Williams & Yates of Fayetteville. Hunton said Fayetteville city officials should and will be consulted about the matter.
Juggling act The order of the projects and when they are completed is a juggling act of sorts. “ It’s going to be a Herculean process to get all these things lined up, everything working, ” Hunton said. On the up side, he said, the projects are going to create some work in the county amid an economic downturn.
Financing the Historic Courthouse, Hunton said, will start with the architect’s estimate of cost, then going to bond counsel, putting a package together and bringing it to the Quorum Court for selling the bonds before putting the project out to bid.
All of the work will require Quorum Court appropriating money every time officials reach a phase where money is required.
Hunton says he believes he has good support from the Quorum Court, and that members committed themselves in a public vote last Thursday.
“ I think, right now, for the Quorum Court to go some other direction would not be very responsible, ” Hunton said. “ I think they know that. ”
JP Joe Patterson, chairman of the Public Works Committee, said he believes Hunton’s plan is workable, even though he does not agree with it.
Patterson said his committee has already done all of the exploring and looking, and has played a role in getting to this point — that the committee did its due diligence in looking at several options.
Hunton initially talked about creating a judicial complex in south Fayetteville, Patterson said, “ and the old courthouse was never in the equation. ”
Also, Patterson said, “ When this first started in 2007, there really wasn’t anything for sale downtown, and we looked. The Terminella Building probably came up for sale due to the economy, I would suppose.
“ It brought a lot of options up. We looked at the Terminella Building. We looked at the [old ] library, ” he said.
He referred to the old library building east of the existing courthouse. It is also called the Fulbright Building and is up for sale, with a $ 9 million asking price. The Public Works Committee recommended Hunton look into the purchase of that building, but it was not part of the plan he presented Thursday night.
Not taking the recommendation to look at the Fulbright Building, Patterson said, is Hunton’s prerogative.
Patterson, however, says he has an issue with having courtrooms in three different buildings: The Historic Co ur thouse, Te r m inella Building and Washington County Courthouse. He said that will require “ a lot more security. ”
He said security also will be required on the skywalk that will go with the parking garage.
“ I’m all for doing the old courthouse, ” Patterson said. “ That’s the good thing in all of this, is we’re going to get all that done. ”
Lundstrum said that the main reason he voted against Hunton’s plan is that “ it didn’t make sense. In the initial stages, it did, when the Judge [Jerry Hunton ] brought up the parking deck across the street. At that time, I was not aware of all the existing buildings for sale around the existing courthouse.
“ Everything has been presented as an emergency. It has to be right now. That was my main disappointment Thursday night, that we acted on it without pursuing the Fulbright Building, which had far better prospects then the way we went. ”
For one, he said, the property is the only one in the mix that abuts the existing courthouse. It could have provided enough room to build a two-story parking deck.
Lundstrum said he would have supported Hunton’s proposal simply to renovate the Historic Courthouse.
“ I think that’s a building that needs to be saved, ” he said.
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