York County hears courthouse space study; board adds placeholder to FY27 CIP

York County supervisors heard a space-needs presentation Dec. 16 from PMA Architecture and court-planning consultant Keith Fentress that concluded the county’s 1997 courthouse is functionally deficient and will require both short-term changes and long-term construction to meet projected needs.

Fentress told the board the courthouse received an overall score of 68.2 out of 100 on PMA’s courthouse optimization tool and showed 5-, 10- and 20-year projections for courtroom and office needs. He said caseload trends and recent legal and operational changes — including a surge in civil filings, pandemic impacts on dockets and new sealing laws — increase demand for space and operational resources.

"The courthouse scored 68.2 out of a possible 100 points," Fentress said, adding that shortcomings span functionality, security and compliance with recently published Virginia trial-court facility guidelines.

Circuit Judge Rich Rizek, who described his decade on the bench in York, urged the board to treat the problem as urgent. He told the supervisors they are legally responsible to provide “suitable space and facilities to accommodate the various courts and officials” and cited the strain on clerk and prosecutor offices, the lack of meeting and victim-witness space and difficulties recruiting and retaining staff.

"We need space for people — people we can retain," Judge Rizek said. He also described plans to house a regional recovery court in York and said that creates an additional near-term need for hearing space and secure circulation.

PMA outlined a three-tiered response: short-term relief through temporary relocations (for example, moving probation or court services to leased space), a midterm strategy that would relocate Finance Building departments into a new administrative building (PMA estimated roughly 78,000 square feet over three floors as a planning figure), and a long-term evaluation of whether the Finance Building could be reconfigured or an annex constructed for court operations.

Supervisors pressed PMA on forecasting methodology and the size of projected increases. PMA acknowledged uncertainty in long-range projections and proposed running high/low scenarios and gathering additional historic caseload data to refine forecasts.

County staff told the board they placed an initial placeholder in the FY27 CIP budget for space-study implementation and related design work but that the placeholder is not sufficient to fund construction. The board directed staff to pursue more detailed engineering and A&E work (the board asked consultants to seek a roughly 35% design-level estimate) and asked the county’s financial advisers to present alternative financing options — including regional cost-sharing and EDA-type structures — at the January retreat.

Next steps: supervisors asked PMA to refine the scope and cost estimates, and directed staff to prepare 35% design-level cost options and present financing scenarios at the retreat and during upcoming budget briefings.