Design phase next step for courts building
Justices of the peace also approved $10,000 for jail pod drawings
BENTONVILLE — A Benton County Quorum Court decision on Thursday night again started the process to build a courts building downtown.
The Quorum Court unanimously approved spending $25,000 to begin design work on the project.
Justices of the peace also approved spending another $10,000 for architectural drawings for a new jail pod, according to documents.
“This puts this project on the launch pad again,” County Judge Barry Moehring said of the design phase. “This will give the Quorum Court something to consider financially.”
What JPs will see in about 60 days will be designs about 30% complete, Moehring said. That should provide enough information for a good cost estimate, he said.
The “downtown alternative,” as it’s called in documents, is the plan under consideration for a new courts building.
Residents voted down a one-eighth percent sales tax increase March 12 to pay to build an 87,000-square-foot, $30 million courthouse on Northeast Second Street. The tax would have been for 54 months.
The new plan would use the three courtrooms in the 28,080-square-foot courthouse. The former jail area behind the courthouse would be demolished and replaced by a building with four courtrooms. The plan would cost less than $15 million, Moehring said.
Drawings show a detention area and Circuit Clerk’s Office on the first floor and two 1,700-square-foot courtrooms each on two other floors. The proposal would add 35,000 to 40,000 square feet for courts, Moehring said.
Under Moehring’s proposal circuit judges Robin Green, Xollie Duncan and John Scott would stay in their courtrooms. Circuit judges Doug Schrantz and Brad Karren, along with a new judge who will take office in 2021, would have courtrooms in the new building.
Moehring’s plan also shows one way the building might be paid for. Two buildings now used for court — the courthouse annex and a facility on Main Street — would be sold, and the money would be put toward the new building, according to the proposal.
The sale could net about $2 million, and the county could use $6 million from reserve. The Walton Family Foundation committed to donate $2 million if the courthouse is built downtown, Moehring said. The remaining money could be financed in short-term debt, Moehring said.
The county has a little more than $15 million in reserve, comptroller Brenda Guenther said.
The jail pod design would replicate H pod, Moehring said. That 17,858 square-foot pod holds about 140 women, Chief Deputy Meyer Gilbert said. The new pod, if approved by JPs, would hold misdemeanor prisoners, he said. A kitchen also would be part of the project.
The maximum number of inmates the jail can hold is 669, but that doesn’t mean every bed is occupied. Some must remain empty. One inmate may be held in a two-person cell for his own protection or for disciplinary reasons, Maj. Kenneth Paul said.