County courthouse project in a pinch

Kim Smith

Wednesday, June 21, 2000 | 11:17 a.m.

Unless someone can cough up another $4 million for an extra floor, Clark County court officials say the new Regional Justice Center will open with no room to grow.

County officials say there may not even be enough money to finish the project, let alone add another floor.

Court administrators and county officials have been meeting over the past several weeks to discuss possible funding sources for an additional floor for the $123 million courthouse, which is under construction and expected to be completed in January 2002.

However, Assistant County Manager Mike Alastuey said paying for the courthouse itself will be a stretch and the additional floor is "a stretch beyond a stretch."

"We're in the position where we will have to work on the budget to even meet the commitment we've already made," Alastuey said. "The project is not fully financed and that definitely includes the furnishings, too, which is a list that continues to grow."

Alastuey said court administrators are actually asking for something along the lines of $7 million -- the cost of building the floor, finishing the interior, furnishing it and paying the city $1.25 million.

The city would be owed that money because with the addition of the new floor, the ratio of the building used by the county would change, Alastuey said. The city has contributed to the overall cost of the building because it will house municipal court.

The project has been beset by financial problems since well before the county sent it out to bid.

Because of the skyrocketing costs of construction materials, the justice center's committee cut $13 million off the project before it went to bid. But, when the bids came back the lowest bid was still $13.5 million higher than expected.

The county settled on a bid of $123 million and decided to forego an 18th floor that would have allowed room for expansion.

Because of the concessions, instead of having a building that could accommodate the courts for 15 years and the district attorney's office for 10 years, county officials settled for a courthouse that they thought would suffice for seven to 10 years for the courts and for five to seven years for the district attorney's criminal division for five to seven years.

But now that's not even true, said Nevada Supreme Court Justice Nancy Becker. Because the space for additional courtrooms is needed now, the district attorney's office will have to move much sooner.

"If we don't add the extra floor we're going to have to move the district attorney's office out at a much earlier stage," Becker said. "Instead of moving them in seven years, we'll have to move them in 18 months."

Renting space for the district attorney's office, which has 300 employees in its criminal division, would cost about $1 million a year, said Chuck Short, district court administrator.

In three years the cost of renting space would almost equal the cost of the additional floor, Short said.

"We encouraged the county back then to consider trying to identify resources for the additional floor, but a number of events have made the argument more compelling in the courts' mind, one of which is our civil caseload," Short said.

Because of the phenomenal growth in the number of civil cases being filed in district court and because legislators are considering the creation of a business court system, the additional floor is needed more than ever, Short said.

More than 16,000 civil cases were filed in 1999, up from about 14,000 cases in 1995, court statistics show.

"I'm personally concerned that we're going to have a courtroom shortage when we move into the building," Short said. "If we don't make an effort to try to solve the problem now we're not serving the courts, the litigants and the public well.

"We're trying to cut down lines, not lengthen them," Short said. "We need space to litigate cases, whether it's in this building or not."

When legislators decided to create a family court system, it took years before the courts were opened, Short said. But, that isn't going to be the case with the business court system, which will handle such things as stockholder and partnership disputes.

"It's been fast-tracked," Short said.

Unlike other projects, Short said, the decision to go forward or not can't be put off. The building is going up now.

"The decision has to be made this summer, it will become irreversible late this summer or early fall," Short said.

District Attorney Stewart Bell said those involved in the court system and county finance people have been working to find a solution.

One option is to ask legislators to increase civil filing fees, but even if they did, the money would not be available until June, and the county is reluctant to take a chance, Bell said.

Alastuey said there is no guarantee the fees would be increased.

"The prudence of that (relying on an increase in fees) has to be questioned," Alastuey said.

Short said in years past, the county has used portions of its capital projects fund to pay for different projects' furnishings, fixtures and equipment. However, the courts are not expecting the county to just hand over the money.

"We're doing everything in our power to identify resources in unconventional ways, including private donations," Short said. "We're not going to the county saying 'Give us X millions of dollars.' "