The Columbia County Judicial Center is undergoing renovations.
The current judicial center is approximately 62,000 square feet and between 18,000 and 20,000 square feet is being added. Work has begun on the first phase of the construction, which is adding on two new wings to the building and a small addition to the basement, said Facilities and Construction Manager Steven Prather. These two-story wings will be on each side of the building.
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“Basically, this is to provide some more office space for us to reorganize the rest of the offices in the courthouse,” Prather said. “It gives us a new jury assembly room. The new jury assembly room is being constructed to house a lot more people and it also has the ability to be used as a courtroom in the future if need be. We are building another courtroom on the right side on the second floor as well. That will give us more capacity for having court.”
On the first floor, a space is being construction that will be left empty for future use, Prather added.
Following the construction of the additions, renovations inside the judicial center will begin, Prather said.
“All the different courts, magistrate, probate, superior, clerk of court, all those areas, we will move people in and out as we renovate those spaces,” Prather said. “New HVAC, new carpet, total renovation of inside.”
As for how long the work will take, because there are multiple phase, the timelines for competition are different. For the new additions, Prather said the work should take approximately 540 days or 18 months, and for the renovations inside, the work should take approximately 240 days or eight months.
During this time, court should not be disrupted. Prather said they have been planning and designing the project for six years as to ensure minimal disruptions.
“We’ve put a lot of thought into how this works and how we can phase it while maintaining operations,” Prather said. “Now, I’m not going to say that one day we might have a lot of loud noises and they may have to move court a day or we may have to stop construction depending on noise, but the idea is that everything goes as planned and they maintain operations.”
One area that will face some disruption is the parking situation at the judicial center. Specific spots have now been labelled as visitor spots for people visiting the county or court, Prather said. For more information on the parking situation, visit columbiacountyga.gov.
