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Council will compare courthouse sites on Princess Anne Street
City will study other courthouse sitesDate published: 2/11/2009 BY EMILY BATTLE Fredericksburg will spend the next five months gathering information that will allow it to compare two Princess Anne Street properties as potential sites for new court facilities. That study--which will compare the current Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court site with the post office property across the street as locations for three new courtrooms--will cost between $50,000 and $100,000. City Council members want to know if they can expect to save millions of dollars--while preserving their ability to expand the courts in the future--by using the city-owned juvenile court site instead of buying the U.S. Postal Service property. This will delay the timeline for building new courts. At the beginning of this year, council members were working on a schedule that would have had them looking at a guaranteed cost estimate and information to give a final up or down vote on a court proposal for the post office site in June. Now, it appears that council members will just be getting to the point where they could settle on a location to move forward with by June. At issue is whether the city can take on a project so expensive it could require a 10-cent hike in the real estate tax at a time when it is cutting salaries--and possibly jobs--to keep its budget balanced as tax receipts plummet. Council members two weeks ago backed off from a more than $50 million proposal to build an all-in-one courts complex on the current post office site. Building there would require the city to buy the land and build a new facility for the post office. Using the juvenile court site would require the city to buy an adjoining piece of private property at 707 Princess Anne St., but that is a smaller land acquisition, and doesn't come with the cost of building new space for the Postal Service. The city is no longer looking at building new space for all three of its courts at one time. Fredericksburg will solicit bids from architectural firms to look at building new space for the Circuit and Juvenile and Domestic Relations courts on either the city property or the post office property.
Read more stories about Fredericksburg Date published: 2/11/2009
Court Feasibility Study Final Report August 27 2007
(posted by
Einstein
, Feb. 11, 2009 7:30 pm)
completed by Moseley Architects. Question -- How much was spent on that study? Question -- Why is another study needed? Question -- How can a new study cost taxpayers, "between 50 and 100k?" Which is it? Question -- how can such a further expense be justified given the current and near future economic situation?
$50 million Cost for Post Office Site is in THs Article Inaccurate
(posted by
Einstein
, Feb. 11, 2009 7:16 pm)
"Estimated Total Cost: $59.2 million. Cost is likely to increase if construction begins later, and will also increase if the City’s share of post office relocation costs is higher than the $3 million allowance included in the budget estimate." Court Feasibility Study Final Report August 27 2007
PPEA
(posted by
MattKelly
, Feb. 11, 2009 11:28 am)
Actually suggest that we put out a request for PPEA propsals for a court facilities on the JDR/District Court sites but that will now have to wait for the final report on the two sites.
Again??
(posted by
Einstein
, Feb. 11, 2009 9:32 am)
Another study? Another study to attempt to shoe-horn in the $65 million court/retail/residential/parking complex on the Post Office site? Who or what is behind this obsessive push for the Post Office site?? It should have died a quiet death a year ago. We are in a recession -- and will be for some time to come. Make the decision to build the courts on the Princess Ann st. site and start work now!
Court Building Necessary
(posted by
enlightenment
, Feb. 11, 2009 9:16 am)
and so are more judges, but that's a different subject. Circuit Court Clerk refuses to use her office in the Circuit Court Building b/c "mold". Prisoner Escapes occur in that building due to security related design flaws. Juvenile building holding cells are a joke. No room for expansion in any of the three buildings (well, maybe general district ct. building could accomodate 1 additional undersized courtroom). Court related functions split among 5 different buildings currently. Not ideal...
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