Phoenix's new
Maricopa County Criminal Courts Tower is under construction now and has reached about the 12th floor. It is already making quite the impression on the skyline (as of March, 2010). It broke ground in July, 2009, and should be topped out in May, 2010. I'll ask one of our forumers to post some pics in this thread, since I don't have any shots of it.
Height: 289' (88.1 meters).
Size: 682,000 square feet (that's a lot of space; this will be one wide, massive structure).
Novel side note: Infamous Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio tried to get this project stopped, claiming corruption, and eventually filed lawsuits and had various Maricopa County supervisors arrested and charged with various crimes. To date, all of the charges have been dismissed and the project is proceeding accordingly, on schedule and on budget.
Completion Date: December 2011.
Website:
http://www.maricopa.gov/courttower/
Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/user/CourtTowerProject
Details about the project, from the website:
The new Downtown Court Tower is Maricopa County’s single largest project with a total cost of about $340 million, including design and construction.
It is a modern courthouse with technologies designed to improve efficiency and to meet rapidly increasing backlog and growing needs of our justice system. Creatively designed to care for victims as well as defendants, lawyers and judges, this will be an energy efficient facility.
The new facility will be located on the block bordered by First and Second Avenues, and Jackson and Madison Streets.
By locating the new court building in the downtown complex it will be more efficient for the movement of prisoners from the Fourth Avenue Jail. It will also be safer for the public as the inmates will be transferred using tunnels under the streets and there is a large number of holding cells in the lower levels so jailed defendants can stay in one location during their trials.
The Downtown Court Tower is also close to the County Attorney and Public Defender offices, County Sheriff and Phoenix Police Departments. Additionally, the new facility will allow for speedier trials, thereby cutting down higher jail costs caused by inmates needing housing, food and other care.
--don
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