New courthouse, high price

MANAGING EDITOR

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Curry County commissioners spent more than an hour of an almost five-hour meeting Thursday pondering four options for renovating the courthouse, prices ranging from almost $5 million to $10 million.

After the session, commissioners said they don’t have the money to commit to any of the options offered. At least not yet.

Commissioners Chet Spear and Tim Ashley said the original plan was to use part of some $14 million generated by a December bond issue. Commissioners raised gross receipts taxes to pay off those bonds.

Part of the bond cash was initially earmarked for a $9 million expansion and renovation of the county’s jail. Another estimated $3 million to $4 million is also being used to pay for renovation that has already started on the Gidding Street building.

“We don’t have enough money,” Ashley said later. He and Spear said the presentation was part of a process, that commissioners are still considering their options.

The jail expansion, Spear said, may not need to be as extensive or costly as first envisioned. Jail population has been steadily decreasing, Spear said, and all indications are that it will continue to decline. Spear said there is a possibility jail expansion and renovation could be scaled back enough to come up with some of the cash needed to renovate the courthouse.

There may also be some money to be saved in renovating the Gidding building, Spear said. Commissioners plan to move all elected and administrative offices from the courthouse to the Gidding building when it is completed.

Later in their marathon session, commissioners were shown an animated concept of what their new chambers will look like once the Gidding renovation is finished. It’s been estimated to take about a year.

All five commissioners said something has to be done about the courthouse. Chief District Court Judge Drew Tatum told them he keeps tarps and buckets in his office bathroom for the inevitable leaks when it rains. Tatum said he believed the options presented commissioners are the best and most cost effective of any presented in the past.

The most expensive option, estimated at $8.9 million, includes building a two-story addition on the north side of the existing courthouse that Ashley summed up as “basically ... a new courthouse.”

The price tag for the least expensive option was $4.8 million. Architects Don Dwore and Nitish Suvarna said it largely added two new courtrooms and a new entrance to step up security inside the building. It would also bring the existing building up to code by adding such things as a fire suppression sprinkler system.