Weather’s woes aside, courthouse projects a go

TEXARKANA — Despite burst water pipes and the subsequent interior drenching the Miller County Courthouse received triggered by the recent winter storms, pre-existing plans for exterior courthouse improvements will continue.

Miller County Judge Cathy H. Harrison said roughly $270,000 of Arkansas State Historical Preservation Program grant money, which the county received last year, will still be used this year for a Phase 2 effort to refurbish the vintage 1939 courthouse’s first floor exterior roof and fifth floor roof covering the old Miller County jail).

Harrison previously said actual work on Phase 2 during the next few months will be largely contingent on the weather.

Besides the vintage roof restorations, work is also slated to start on replacing the courthouse’s perimeter concrete sidewalk.

“This project is still in the plans to go forward,” Harrison said.

This sidewalk project is being financed by a 2020 Arkansas State Highway Department grant of $92,000, which the county received this past November. This grant, for which the county will supply a 10% match, will be used to hire a private contractor to perform the sidewalk replacement and repairs around the courthouse’s exterior — a project that will also be started and completed as weather permit.

Along with these continuing on-site courthouse improvements, county officials recently spent about $76,000 to buy and clear about eight acres of formerly private land outside the Texarkana city limits on South State Line Avenue. This is still slated for a solar farm.

Once completed, the solar farm will supply at least one or more of the county’s government buildings with energy efficiency improvements.

Meanwhile, the county courthouse’s first floor government offices continue to be set up inside the Landmark Building at the corner of East Broad Street and North State Line Avenue.