Repairs to prevent leaks in courthouse atrium to be completed this year
The leaky courthouse sounds more like a venue in Harry Potter than a reality in Edmonton — but the 1973 Edmonton Law Courts building has a decades-long history of letting the water flow when it shouldn’t.
Now, repairs on the glass portion of the building’s atrium, built in 1984, are aiming to prevent further leaks that can often affect occupants of the building.
“The scope of work includes constructing a new flat rooftop and vertical curtain wall envelope outside of the existing galleria skylight system,” wrote Alberta Infrastructure spokeswoman Diane Carter on Wednesday. “This will allow for the existing galleria skylight system to be dismantled with minimal disruption to the building’s occupants.”
The project, which began in February 2018, is expected to be completed in December 2019, but the building itself is still ailing.
In June, Carter told Postmedia there was a “pressing need” for repair of the building, which also leaked through its pedway and cafeteria. Back in 2013, Court of Queen’s Bench Associate Chief Justice John Rooke told Postmedia he had “no doubt, whatsoever” that the city needed a new courthouse.
Then-provincial Court chief judge Gail Vickery also commented at the time on the poor condition of the building and a lack of space, which she said placed the court system in a period of “make-do.”
“We keep finding ways to make it work, but there comes a point where you just can’t find any more ways to make it work any better,” Vickery said at the time. “Edmonton is very near that point.”
Community members who frequent the building expressed joy that the atrium may not need to be littered with buckets to collect water after a photo of the construction project was tweeted.
“I’ve been dodging buckets collecting water from the atrium my whole career,” tweeted Edmonton Police Sgt. David Jones on Tuesday. “This will be a great improvement for our courthouse.”
We keep finding ways to make it work, but there comes a point where you just can’t find any more ways to make it work any better.