West Fort Hill – Graham County government has released details for a centralized justice center it plans to build on an 11-acre parcel off West Fort Hill Road.
The project would move local courts, administrative offices, the Sheriff’s Office and the Graham County Jail at an estimated cost of around $20 million – only $5 million of which has been secured.
The target date for completion of the facility is fall 2025.
The project comes as the result of a 2017 order from Superior Court Judge William Coward decrying substandard conditions at the current Graham County Courthouse, a facility built in 1942 that includes one courtroom, cramped administrative offices, substandard jury accommodations, and an overcrowded and dilapidated county jail. Further, the building is not Americans With Disabilities Act-compliant.
The Sheriff’s Office is located in a 4,500-square-foot, two-level former bank building off Rodney Orr Bypass where all patrol officers share a single workstation, and the building does not accommodate evidence storage or provide a private area for interviewing suspects or witnesses. Like the courthouse, it too does not comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act.
There is no timeline for the project, although Graham County Manager Jason Marino has issued a request for qualifications for prospective architectural and engineering services that provides a completion date of fall 2025.
The program is based on current best practice models for judicial space needs, according to an executive summary posted on the county’s website. The building as envisioned would be a 58,000-square-foot facility that combines Superior and District courts, clerk of court, magistrate, district attorney, Juvenile Court, probation, Sheriff’s Department and the jail.
The project would leave the existing courthouse vacant. The building is registered in the National Register of Historic Places and is located on the same site as the original courthouse built in 1872.
Some communities have converted former courthouses into museums and cultural arts centers.
No decisions have been made in Graham County, and initial public conversations among Graham County officials show an interest in moving county offices to the vacated courthouse out of the Graham County Community Building on Knight Street near Tapoco Road.
Such a move would require additional funding to refurbish and rehabilitate the old courthouse.