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Stafford supervisors split on courthouse site and weigh a $110–$120M project plus central services campus
Summary
County staff recommended a courthouse adjacent to the existing building but supervisors pressed to consider county-owned acreage across the street; staff estimated total costs of the courthouse program at $110–$120 million and introduced a related central services campus concept with an order-of-magnitude cost of $170 million over time.
County infrastructure staff presented the long-planned circuit-court project and sought direction on site selection, acquisition and sequencing of related county facilities.
Brian (Chief Director of Infrastructure) and project lead Mike summarized prior studies and recommended siting the new circuit-court building adjacent to the existing courthouse on Courthouse Road. Mike said that option met court criteria, allowed connection to the current building, and was the recommendation generated by prior studies.
But several supervisors pushed back, favoring use of county-owned land across the street — roughly 25–27 acres — to create a new centerpiece for downtown development while freeing the current campus for county administrative uses. "I think we might have four that are in favor of putting it across the street," one supervisor said during the discussion.
Staff provided cost estimates tied to the studies: construction of a new building (higher-density/taller option with two courtrooms per floor) was estimated at about $70,000,000; design and soft costs were roughly $12,000,000; renovations to the existing courthouse to adapt for remaining court types were estimated at $26,000,000. With property acquisition and related work, staff said the all-in figure would likely be between $110,000,000 and $120,000,000.
The board also discussed a broader "central services" campus — consolidating utilities, fleet/facility maintenance, school bus operations, fire/rescue training and storage — that staff modeled at roughly $170,000,000 phased over decades and requiring roughly 100–120 acres for full buildout. Near-term priority items included utilities relocation (estimated at ~$29–30 million) needed to clear the current Cool Landing site and allow other projects to proceed.
Supervisors requested more granular financial analysis before committing: a debt-capacity assessment, line-item CIP sequencing, estimated lease savings and procurement coordination with schools to realize potential economies of scale. Staff said they would return with cost and timeline options for a courthouse across the street and for the central services campus.
