Travis County will ask voters to approve $291.6 million in bond funds to build a new civil and family courthouse in downtown Austin.
On Jan. 27, Travis County Commissioners Court voted to move the planned bond referendum from May to the November general election.
The following week the court reviewed the project budget, arrived at the cost and moved forward with related contract amendments.
The votes follow months of discussion about the county's present and future legal needs as well as attempts to lower costs.
"[The] only thing I would like to say to the public is that this is in fact the largest brick-and-mortar bond initiative that Travis County has ever taken on," Commissioner Ron Davis said. "I think the discussion here has laid out a lot of things whereby we could eliminate a lot of doubt that may be in voters' minds."
Background
The civil and family courthouse would partially replace the Heman M. Sweatt Courthouse, which houses the county's district and associate courts.
Representatives of Austin's legal community have said the courthouse will not meet the county's future legal needs.
"The dockets are growing," Judge Eric M. Shepperd, president-elect of the Austin Bar Association board of directors, told commissioners Jan. 27. "We [started with] three courts in [the Sweatt courthouse]; now we have 21. You've seen the crowds. We've all seen it. We need this courthouse as a community."
As designed, the new 14-story, 520,000-square-foot courthouse would initially include 28 courtrooms—33 when fully built—and a four-level underground parking garage.
It would house the county's civil and district courts courtrooms and administrative functions, among other departments.
County staffers estimate if voters approve the project, construction could be completed by February 2019. The Sweatt courthouse would house four probate courts and justice of the peace offices, county Strategic Planning Manager Belinda Powell said.
Discussions related to the courthouse project date back to facility master planning in 2002. The county researched potential sites downtown from 2006-08.
In December 2010 the county purchased the site at Fourth and Guadalupe streets near Republic Square Park. In November 2011, Commissioners Court approved a central campus master plan.
Considerations
Matias Segura, a senior adviser with project consultant URS Corp., told the court Jan. 27 that URS expects project costs to escalate 4 percent annually and 7 percent by the estimated midpoint of construction of March 2017.
If builders reach the projects midpoint in May 2017, the project would cost about $2.5 million more, Segura said. Should builders reach the midpoint in July, the delay costs about $5 million. By September the delay would cost about $7.3 million more.
Staff briefed the court about construction costs as well as so-called soft costs, such as professional services and inflation, during the Feb. 3 meeting.
The court also discussed alternate sites at Airport Boulevard as well as Palm Square at Cesar Chavez Street and I-35.
For more information, visit
www.traviscountytx.gov/cfch.
Travis County will ask voters to approve $291.6 million in bond funds to build a new civil and family courthouse in downtown Austin.
On Jan. 27, Travis County Commissioners Court voted to move the planned bond referendum from May to the November general election.
The following week the court reviewed the project budget, arrived at the cost and moved forward with related contract amendments.
The votes follow months of discussion about the county's present and future legal needs as well as attempts to lower costs.
"[The] only thing I would like to say to the public is that this is in fact the largest brick-and-mortar bond initiative that Travis County has ever taken on," Commissioner Ron Davis said. "I think the discussion here has laid out a lot of things whereby we could eliminate a lot of doubt that may be in voters' minds."
Background
The civil and family courthouse would partially replace the Heman M. Sweatt Courthouse, which houses the county's district and associate courts.
Representatives of Austin's legal community have said the courthouse will not meet the county's future legal needs.
"The dockets are growing," Judge Eric M. Shepperd, president-elect of the Austin Bar Association board of directors, told commissioners Jan. 27. "We [started with] three courts in [the Sweatt courthouse]; now we have 21. You've seen the crowds. We've all seen it. We need this courthouse as a community."
As designed, the new 14-story, 520,000-square-foot courthouse would initially include 28 courtrooms—33 when fully built—and a four-level underground parking garage.
It would house the county's civil and district courts courtrooms and administrative functions, among other departments.
County staffers estimate if voters approve the project, construction could be completed by February 2019. The Sweatt courthouse would house four probate courts and justice of the peace offices, county Strategic Planning Manager Belinda Powell said.
Discussions related to the courthouse project date back to facility master planning in 2002. The county researched potential sites downtown from 2006-08.
In December 2010 the county purchased the site at Fourth and Guadalupe streets near Republic Square Park. In November 2011, Commissioners Court approved a central campus master plan.
Considerations
Matias Segura, a senior adviser with project consultant URS Corp., told the court Jan. 27 that URS expects project costs to escalate 4 percent annually and 7 percent by the estimated midpoint of construction of March 2017.
If builders reach the projects midpoint in May 2017, the project would cost about $2.5 million more, Segura said. Should builders reach the midpoint in July, the delay costs about $5 million. By September the delay would cost about $7.3 million more.
Staff briefed the court about construction costs as well as so-called soft costs, such as professional services and inflation, during the Feb. 3 meeting.
The court also discussed alternate sites at Airport Boulevard as well as Palm Square at Cesar Chavez Street and I-35.
For more information, visit www.traviscountytx.gov/cfch.
