Travis County announced a site for the new civil and family courts facility and entered into an exclusive negotiation agreement with Hunt Development Group. The site is located between 17th and 18th streets, bounded between Guadalupe and San Antonio streets in Austin’s civic district. Following voters’ rejection of a 2015 bond proposal to build a new courthouse in Austin, Travis County Commissioners Court and a citizens advisory committee have been examining ways to provide additional civil and family courts capacity. The project is a years-long effort triggered by a 2009 county assessment, which found Travis County lacked “a site appropriate to respond to the current and forecasted demands for the existing civil and family justice system,” according to the county’s website. The current courthouse–Heman Marion Sweatt Courthouse–was built in 1931 and designed to hold four court rooms. Currently, the county is operating 19 court rooms in that space, and county officials estimate a total of 29 court rooms will be needed by 2035.