Downtown LV courthouse a model of security

Jace Radke

Monday, Dec. 2, 2002 | 10:57 a.m.

Surrounded by concrete walls and rising from an elevated plaza, the George Federal Building looks down on Las Vegas Boulevard like a modern castle.

Limestone, concrete, steel and glass combine to convey weight and strength -- an appropriate image for a courthouse that is a model of federal safety standards and one of the most secure public buildings in the nation, according to experts.

Although it was completed in July 2000, the $100 million George Building's safety innovations remain the standard in the post-Sept. 11 era for foiling terrorist attacks at new federal buildings, said Edward Einer, chief architect for the General Services Administration.

"We had our baptism of fire in Oklahoma City," Einer said of the 1995 bombing that killed 168 people at the Murrah Federal Building. "We've been studying security for five or six years, and for us Sept. 11 reinforced that this is a real issue that has to be dealt with."

Since 1995 the GSA has spent more than $1 billion on security at its buildings, said Bethany Rich, a GSA spokeswoman for West Coast operations.

The design of the eight-story, 175-foot-high Las Vegas courthouse was the first to incorporate what the GSA learned from the Oklahoma City bombing. The George Building was "the dawn of a new generation of buildings," Rich said.

Among the special safety features that court officials from around the world visit the George Building to study are blast-resistant walls, reinforced framing to prevent the collapse of floors and glass panels designed to not shatter outward onto people in an explosion.

Those features are being copied across the nation as the GSA, which manages federal buildings, oversees the construction of more than 100 new federal courthouses, Rich said.

"We know how to build buildings that won't collapse, and that's what we've done in Las Vegas," Einer said. "We started with the George courthouse, and we've been able to work backwards from there using computer modeling as a (design) method for other courthouses."

The curtain walls for the George Building were tested in White Sands, N.M., where they exceeded standards for protection against explosives. The exact standards are not released as a security precaution.

The building's reinforced steel frame is designed to keep floors from pancaking down on each other in the event of collapse, and the glass on the courthouse's facade is held in frames that are integrally connected so the glass will not be blown outward by an explosion, Einer said.

The genesis of the George Building was U.S. Senior District Judge Lloyd George's highlighting of the need for a new courthouse in Las Vegas. That's one of the reasons the building was named after him.

His calls for a new courthouse coincided with a major expansion of the federal judiciary when several omnibus bills were passed in the Legislature in the late 1980s. The GSA was charged with building 150 new courthouses across the country. About one-third of those buildings, including the George Building, have been constructed, Einer said.

George wanted the building downtown because courthouses have historically been located in downtowns as both the physical and political centers of communities. The new courthouse sits across from its predecessor, the Foley Federal Building, on Las Vegas Boulevard.

"There is no comparison between the new building and the Foley Building," George said. "The Foley Building served us well in its time, but I did have concerns for the safety of people in that building."

The Foley Building does not have separate elevators or corridors for prisoners, putting court employees and the public close to prisoners. George remembers being concerned about those issues during some of his cases, including a trial involving Tony Spilotro, the man tabbed by authorities as the overseer of Chicago mob activity in Las Vegas in the 1970s and '80s.

"When I tried the Spilotro case there was a feeling that some of the witnesses were in real danger," George said. "I also remember a case with two Canadian bank robbers who were very clever, so I held their hearing at the jail so they didn't have to be brought to the courthouse.

"In the new building those wouldn't be issues. I just have everyone brought over."

The George Building has elevators used by the U.S. Marshals Service to move prisoners from an underground holding area that can hold more than 100 people. From the elevators prisoners can be taken directly to courtrooms without using public hallways.

"The old building left a lot to be desired from a security standpoint," U.S. Marshal Fidencio Rivera said. "The George Building is probably the securest building in town."

Some of the security measures are obvious, such as the 3-foot-tall white concrete pylons that surround much of the building. The pylons have metal centers and are spaced a few feet apart to stop vehicles from getting too close to the building.

Traditional security measures, such as surveillance cameras and X-ray machines, also are used at the courthouse, but much of the building's security is less noticeable, Einer said.

"There has to be a balance between accessibility and safety, so we've tried to make the security as transparent as possible, and incorporate it into the landscapes and the buildings," Einer said. Something as simple as the elevated site of the building helps protect the courthouse from vehicle bombings and allows for parking for judges and prisoner holding areas to be located in a secure basement.

"We can't let the terrorists separate us from our rights," Einer said. "They win if we start building ominous fortresses that become alien in the environment.

"We don't want the federal presence in the community to be a negative. A courthouse should be a positive and welcoming place that symbolically represents our freedoms."

George said that the design by architect Mehrdad Yazdani did more than capture the importance of the court system and its ties to the ideas of justice and freedom.

"We wanted the building to be a venue that makes the people feel that this is their building," George said. "It's built to embrace the city, and I think it accomplishes that."

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, a longtime defense attorney, said that the George Building represents what he would like to see more of downtown.

"It really breaks away from the old traditions of a courthouse being a rectangular box," Goodman said of the L-shaped building that includes a single gigantic metal column that supports a metal trellis canopy that shades a plaza. "It's really an architectural splendor."

The design of the courthouse also takes into consideration flexibility and growth, George said.

For example, there is room in the George Building to add eight district courtrooms in addition to the six district courts and four magistrate courts already in use. The building also is temporarily housing the U.S. Bankruptcy Court while the Foley Building is refurbished.

The construction of the George Building allowed planners to make improvements ranging from state-of-the-art audio and visual capabilities in courtrooms to round tables in jury deliberation rooms.

"With round tables everyone gets a chance to look at each other while deliberating," George said. "King Arthur used a round table, but we may be the only ones who use it for juries."

George said he is still getting used to working in a courthouse that bears his name and features a portrait of him in the foyer.

"I like to invite jurists back to my chambers to thank them personally for the service they have done, and one jurist I remember told me how much she liked the building," George said. "She also said I looked a lot like the picture of my father hanging downstairs (in the foyer).

"I told her, 'Thanks. I'll tell dad you like the building.' "