Renovations Eyed for Historic Courthouse

At least $2 million in renovations are being eyed for the Grand Traverse Historic Courthouse on Washington Street, which houses Thirteenth Circuit Court and requires both immediate structural repairs and longer-term improvements to address space and technology needs. Court staff recently appeared before county commissioners to review the project, with some fixes planned for this year and others likely to be included in future budgets.

Circuit Court Administrator Trina Girardin said staff have been working on renovation plans for almost four years. She noted that the building – which was completed in 1900 and is now 125 years old – has pressing structural challenges, including crumbling brick, a deteriorating roof, and water leaks causing bubbling in the walls. The building also lacks an HVAC system, which causes the courthouse to be a “sauna” on some days and freezing on others, said Thirteenth Circuit Court Judge Charles Hamlyn.

“When we put thirteen citizens in here to come serve as jurors, I don't want them sitting in a room seeing their breath,” he said. While accommodations don’t need to be plush, Hamlyn added, they should be reasonably comfortable for those working and serving in the building. “(Jurors) are doing their civic duty, and they are required to be there,” he said.

Girardin said the courthouse space is inadequate for the county’s long-term needs. The jury room can barely accommodate all 13 jurors, she said, who must all share a single bathroom during multi-day trials and don’t have access to basics like a fridge or sink. The courtroom itself is also “very small” for a circuit court, Girardin said, requiring squeezing in extra chairs during trials. It also has only one entrance/exit, which means that for some cases – such as when a death has occurred – judges must dismiss the victim’s and suspect’s families in shifts so they don’t cross each other in close quarters in the courtroom, Hamlyn said.

The courtroom also lacks a holding cell, so inmates are often sitting in the jury box or standing around the courtroom, Girardin said. Overall, the historic courthouse “does not meet the needs for the public and the court users,” she said. To address those long-term needs, staff want to relocate the judges’ chambers up to the shuttered four floor – a former law library that has been closed since 2013 and would need to be remodeled – to accommodate expanding the courtroom and jury room on the third floor. The courtroom would almost double in size, with the project also calling for ADA-compliant improvements, a Zoom courtroom, and a jail holding cell, among other upgrades.

A construction estimate from Environment Architects put the renovation project at just under $2 million. Construction would take approximately six months. Girardin said staff have a plan to redistribute employees and continue court operations while construction is underway. Hamlyn noted there would likely be additional costs beyond construction, such as technology upgrades. He said that while staff could continue making do until renovations are completed, the “current setup is not the best way in which we can service people.”

Court staff also hinted at frustration over delays in addressing the courthouse. Girardin said staff met with county facilities in 2021 to start reviewing needed improvements, then met with Environment Architects several times in 2022 to begin creating blueprints for an expansion. But as the court neared a planned path forward, county administration asked staff to pause their work while the county completed its new facilities master plan. The courthouse project has been on hold since early 2023, with staff saying they’re now not sure what the status of the facilities master plan is or how or when improvements will be addressed.

“It was out of our hands,” Girardin said. “The county said they would take care of it.” She added that the facilities master plan calls for a new entrance to the courthouse but doesn’t reflect the other improvements requested by staff, saying the plan ultimately doesn’t “meet the needs” of the building.

County Administrator Nate Alger acknowledged the delay in moving forward, noting that commissioners haven’t yet officially approved the facilities master plan or agreed on which projects they’re going to pursue from it. The only project they’ve agreed to so far is Project Alpha, an estimated $11-$16 million expansion of the county’s LaFranier Road campus. The county could bundle the courthouse expansion and other building projects into a bond, but commissioners would first need to discuss and vote on such a move, Alger said. Commissioners also can modify the facilities master plan, Alger said, and don’t have to follow only the specific improvements suggested therein.

Alger indicated there are also larger philosophical questions to address, including whether the county wants to keep its court operations in a historic building that will likely have significant ongoing costs or move to another facility. But court staff and several commissioners said they don’t want to move the court and couldn’t see a move happening anytime soon even if that was the desired plan. In the meantime, commissioners said that at least the immediate structural issues should be addressed. A desired expansion is one thing, said Chair Scott Sieffert, but “being able to do the business that our taxpayers pay taxes for us to do is something totally different.” He said it wasn’t acceptable for building occupants to see their own breath or for water to be leaking into the courthouse, calling those issues “we should be addressing right now.”

According to County Director of Parks and Facilities John Chase, several courthouse repairs are budgeted in this year’s capital improvement plan (CIP). Those include exterior brickwork repair and sealcoating ($280,000), repairs to the steps and foundation to prevent water intrusion into the building ($75,000), sidewalk and stair repairs ($35,000), and either repairing or replacing the east and west exit doors ($15,000). “It is our plan to address these CIP items in 2025, and we are actively working on scoping the projects,” he tells The Ticker. 

Hamlyn said court staff will work with facilities and administration to hopefully include more structural improvements in the 2026 budget, which will be created over the course of this year. Chase confirms his department will work with the court “to assess and consider recommendations for the 2026 CIP process.”

From there, the larger “renovations would be secondary to that, whether it's part of the facilities master plan or the CIP process in the future,” Hamlyn said. “We'll work through that with county staff.”