DRC continues Teton County Justice Center sketch plan, asks design team to reduce perceived mass and prioritize pedestrian scale

Designers for the proposed Teton County Justice Center presented a development sketch plan that would consolidate the county’s courthouse, detention and related administrative uses into an approximately 80,000-square-foot building spanning three levels.

At the sketch-plan review on May 14, the design team—including Birney Project Management, Arndt Jordan Architects and CLB Architects—outlined a two-entry approach with a primary public entry on King Street and a secondary sheriff’s entry at grade on Simpson Street. The team described an elevated porch and a pair of “porch” moments intended to reduce street-facing scale while keeping courtrooms and circulation stacked inside the building’s central volume. Eric Logan of CLB said the design uses wood, metal panels and a masonry base to “make this a civic, a kind of iconic presence” and to avoid a fortress-like appearance.

The DRC and staff acknowledged strong attention to pedestrian detail at the immediate sidewalk level—canopies, planting bands and accessible ramps—but repeatedly raised concerns about how the building presents at a distance. Multiple members said the massing reads as imposing when viewed back from surrounding blocks. One commissioner summarized the committee’s concern as the building “being heroic at the street but too massive when you step back,” and suggested additional push-and-pull moves or changes to the roofline to reduce perceived bulk.

Designers defended several programmatic choices as driven by operational needs. Arndt Jordan (Arndt Jordan Architects) noted some cantilevering was reduced to meet dimensional requirements and said the planned façades would visually relate to the adjacent campus. The team also explained security and operational decisions, including a secure sheriff vehicle entrance on Willow Street and a secure lot separated with a fencing and planter strategy rather than boulders.

On process and timing, staff said the project is at sketch-plan stage and will return to the Planning Commission and, later, Town Council; the team is targeting a June Planning Commission review and a July Council hearing, and anticipates submitting final development plans and applying for building permits later in the year. The project team noted prior voter authorization of a special-purpose excise tax to fund the Justice Center; the transcript records the funding allocation in the discussion but the precise amount in the minutes was given as a truncated figure and is not repeated here as a confirmed dollar total.

After extended discussion the DRC voted unanimously to continue the sketch plan with direction. The committee’s motion asked the applicant to return with clearer, testable strategies to reduce the building’s apparent mass and to show how pedestrian-scale improvements (particularly on the east and north elevations) would be achieved without sacrificing essential programmatic elements. The motion passed unanimously.

Next steps: the design team will revise massing and pedestrian-scale treatments and return to the DRC as directed before advancing through planning commission review.