Columnist Jeff German: Can’t rush justice center lavishness

Friday, Nov. 19, 2004 | 11:18 a.m.

The flaws in the 17-story Regional Justice Center, nearly three years behind its scheduled opening, are well known by now.

County officials have had a tough time getting the general contractor of the $185 million project to fix them so that the move-in process can begin.

Though the contractor says the $185 million building is completed, some floors still are uneven by a half-inch or more, metal air handling units crucial to the air conditioning system aren't anchored properly and the building continues to leak like a sieve in some areas when it rains.

Despite its construction defects, the justice center isn't short on extravagance -- as I discovered during a tour this week.

Judges used to the crowded, worn-out county courthouse will think they've died and gone to judicial heaven when they move into their spacious new digs.

Their names already are engraved on plaques outside their elegant courtrooms, which are decorated with a red oak finish and set up to handle the latest high-tech equipment. Behind the bench of each courtroom is a decorative screen of slate rocks.

Each judge's chamber has plenty of office space and, best of all, a "robing area" with a private bathroom.

There are 35 such courtrooms in this building that will house district judges, justices of the peace and municipal judges.

It isn't hard to tell who had input into the planning of the structure.

You see the upscale signature of the Regional Justice Center right away -- when you stroll up a flight of cement steps at the main Lewis Avenue entrance, adorned with rows of perfectly manicured palms trees and large sandstone-trimmed architectural columns.

Inside, you walk onto a lobby floor made of brown agglomerate (not solid) marble imported from Verona, Italy. Marble is everywhere in the complex -- on the public walkways and countertops and even on the edging around the elevators.

Just to the right of the main lobby is an atrium, the size of a football field, for the traffic flow between the 17-story high-rise and an adjacent five-story building.

Sandstone covers the walls of the atrium all the way to the glass-enclosed ceiling 60 feet above. Short quotes from the world's most famous philosophers, political leaders, jurists and authors are carved into the stone up and down and all along the walls. Among those represented are Socrates, Abraham Lincoln, Confucius, Mahatma Gandhi, John Kennedy, Learned Hand and Henry David Thoreau.

As you walk through the middle of the atrium, you can't help but notice a series of large cement planters adorned with fake palm trees that seem to reach to the sky.

Even the basement is amazing.

It features a small high-tech jail with several holding tanks, all enclosed by bulletproof glass, to house inmates waiting to make court appearances. The inmates are transported through an underground tunnel connected to the detention center across the street. There are two small arraignment courtrooms on the other side of the holding tanks with bulletproof glass separating the inmates and the public from the judges.

Security is the top priority here.

But if you want to see the jewel of this complex, you have to go to the 17th floor, the home of the Nevada Supreme Court.

The reception area floor is done in gray granite and features a large bronze seal of the state of Nevada.

Nearly everything in the high-ceilinged courtroom -- the walls, the tables and chairs, the massive bench for the justices, even the gallery partition and seating, is made of exotic mahogany.

The justices also have a special outdoor balcony that gives them a spectacular view of the Strip to the south and the mountains to the west.

When you leave the 17th floor, you get the feeling you've had the privilege of visiting an exclusive private club.

And when you leave the Regional Justice Center, you understand why it took so long to build.