After long delay, Mora County eyes courthouse completion
Project finally moving forward with money from state, other sources
The first offices are being constructed in the Mora County Courthouse, which has sat unfinished for nearly a decade.
Completion of the two-story courthouse has been stalled by changes on the County Commission, lack of funds and a lawsuit.
Offices — including 5,000 square feet for the county clerk, assessor, treasurer and other departments — are scheduled for completion by September, Mora County Commission Chairwoman Paula Garcia said Wednesday.
Construction of space for a Magistrate Court will begin after completion of the offices and is expected to be finished by December.
To fund the work, the state Legislature appropriated $1.8 million, the county issued gross receipts tax bonds generating $2.2 million and a 30-year lease with the state Administrative Office of the Courts produced $2.4 million. The county “partnered with [Administrative Office of the Courts] to provide oversight on budgets, spending and project management,” Garcia said.
Still, only about half of the 44,000-square-foot courthouse will be complete.
About $2.6 million in additional money will be needed for offices for the sheriff, county manager, emergency medical services and public health. How to pay for that construction has not be determined, Garcia said.
County offices have been operating out of portable buildings since 2006.
The history of the courthouse project goes back to 2006-07, when the County Commission decided against renovating the old, 1930s-era courthouse, which was determined to have mold and asbestos, Garcia said.
Garcia, who has reviewed County Commission minutes that dealt with the project, said the commission in about 2009 made plans to move forward with a new courthouse.
“They started out with a pretty affordable project,” she said. But then the cost of the project grew from $4 million to $12 million.
“No one could explain why they would want to make it bigger,” she said.
The building’s shell was completed in 2010. The money ran out at the end of 2011, and the people of Mora County were left with an unfinished building, said Garcia, who took office in January 2011.
“It was a setback for the county,” she said.
Structural remediation on the shell was completed in 2017 after “an engineering assessment … revealed that lateral bracing of the walls of the building was inadequate,” Garcia said. A lawsuit filed by the county against the contractor and architect is seeking reimbursement for the costs of the structural corrections. The case is pending.