Big stink at justice center a mystery, but real enough to sicken workers

By Brian Eckhouse

Wednesday, March 19, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Something is rotten at the Regional Justice Center.

This time it’s an actual odor.

Sewage stenches and pungent whiffs redolent of greasy spoons are common in the lower level of the courthouse, around the corner from the cave of elevators — near the bathrooms. Coincidence? The county employees who maintain the justice center don’t know.

Not that they haven’t investigated the problem. Chasing down odors has become an almost-daily nuisance for the building’s maintenance crew, and could soon be a primary task for a member of the county’s Department of Real Property Management. That department is considering stationing one lucky staffer there to monitor and record the intermittent odors.

A plum assignment, indeed.

Michael Green, the department’s assistant director, estimates three employee hours each workday are spent tracking the odor. That smell test hasn’t been cheap: an estimated $20,000 in employee hours over the past six months.

The stink is most prevalent in the bad checks office on the lower level — which abuts the men’s bathroom. There’s no conclusive proof that the foul air is emanating from the bathroom — or from the bad check unit, for that matter.

The smell also floats through other pockets of the building, including a section of the fifth floor near some judges’ chambers.

Mary Andersen, a legal office assistant, said the scent of stale grease wafts through each morning. A rotten egg stench is less common but more nauseating — to the point where staffers in that department have left work early, complaining they’re ill. Some employees on the lower level, analogous to a basement, have very few sick days left, said Frank Maldonado, who works across from the bad check unit.

“It’s like working in a sewer,” Andersen said.

That’s not the first epithet that has been flung at the Regional Justice Center.

At first glance, the $185 million courthouse appears to be one of the more impressive buildings in downtown Vegas — a soaring 18-floor structure with glass lining two walls of the ground-level foyer. It opened less than three years ago, but problems are so persistent that some observers doubt the building will last its anticipated (or maybe desired) 100-year lifespan — though regulars often joke the floors appear quite sound.

Considerable construction issues and cost overruns that delayed its opening have since been overshadowed by related legal battles and new infrastructure problems. The public’s six elevators are frequently out of order and regularly jammed, and the staff’s lifts are no more reliable.

Several holes beneath toilets at the justice center were ill-placed, requiring “offset” plumbing to be installed. So those toilets are vulnerable to clogging.

But a clogged toilet is unlikely to produce a smell so strong it prompts people to go home ill.

One large deterrent to stalking the stench has been a lack of complete building blueprints. For years the county and builder AF Construction have been embroiled in a dispute over the justice center that could finally be resolved when the matter reaches arbitration in early April. In the meantime, AF Construction is withholding most formal architectural plans.

Without those documents, Green’s staff at the courthouse, led by Property Coordinator Frank Wheat Jr., has to inspect every nook and cranny and all vents. They are examining the building’s overall air circulation and ventilation balance, and could run a smoke test. That entails blocking off the sewer lines and units, then injecting smoke into the system to see whether there are any leaks.

The odor, Green said, could seep into the HVAC system, but there’s no evidence that’s been the case. The bad check division is on the floor beneath the cafe but is not directly under it, and officials said it’s highly unlikely grease is being dumped. The grease from the cafe, Green said, is routed from the ground floor but above the lower level’s ceiling before being relocated off-site. No leaks are suspected, but Wheat and others will continue to investigate.

Until they can solve the malodorous mystery, Lady Justice, who already has a blindfold on her face, may need a clothespin.