Everything you need to know about Dublin’s Under Construction Courthouse
Posted on: 10/21/2016
The $147 million project of a new courthouse in Alameda County, California is expected to go operational in 2017. The planning for this project started in the year 2001 and will be finally realized after years of hard work in policy making and legislative approvals. The 20-acre project will have two buildings, a Country Building and a Court Building. The two buildings will be joined through a 7,500 square foot entrance lobby.
The Court Building, hosting around 13 courtrooms, will replace the existing Gale Hall of Justice in Pleasanton. The other building, the County Building, will host the offices of Public Defender, District Attorney, and Probation Department. This will provide an improved framework for the smooth running of law and order in the Alameda County.
The new building will also host police officers from the city forces, who act as investigators. They investigate all the cases of real estate, insurance, and consumer rights. All these bodies under a single roof will improve the quality of work and efficiency to a greater extent.
In this guide, we have briefly discussed some things you should know about the gigantic five-story building.
The Financing of the Project
The total cost of the project is estimated to be around $147 million. Almost $122 million of this value is contributed by California, whereas the remaining sum is invested by the county. Considering the size of the building and the number of offices it will hold within, the process is proceeding economically.
Here, we have briefly discussed the money being contributed by different departments towards the project:
- A sum of $50 million is produced from the funding by the Senate Bill 1407.
- Around $60 million of the $147 million is contributed by the Alameda Superior Court
- The land, approximately 20 acres, is given by the Alameda County. The county is also paying for the two-story county building adjacent to the courthouse.
The Location
The new courthouse is on Gleason Drive, across from the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, CA. The vicinity is present between Madigan Drive and Arnold Road. The courthouse, once fully operational, will greatly improve the service quality for the locals of the county.
Current Status
The process involving the construction of the new courthouse is complex, as it demands the inclusion of community, state, governmental agencies, and contractors. A SOP must be followed for the initiation and fulfillment of each branch of the project, which requires time.
The project is under construction with the large structure of the building being finished. The project is expected to be completed in the fiscal year 2016-17, so we can expect to see this building operational in the first half of 2017. Considering the size of the project, the work is carried out at a much-accelerated speed.
The Old Hall of Justice
The news is circulating that, once the new courthouse is completed and fully operational, the current Gale Hall of Justice will be evacuated, and the lease contract on the facility will be terminated.
The Need of a New Courthouse
Though the Gale Hall of Justice has served the locals of Alameda Country for years, it lacked sufficient space, so the cases of high-security were handled in the courthouses of other counties. Due to this, the courthouses also remained overcrowded and the machinery was below optimum. The need was felt to develop a new courthouse, which will serve the locals of the county in a better way.
Once the courthouse is open for work, the locals of the area will not need to travel to other counties for their cases, regardless of the cases. All the hearings and trials will happen here. This will greatly improve the quality of justice and will ease the life of the locals of Alameda County.
The new courthouse will improve the size of the courtrooms, deliberation rooms for the jury, conference rooms, and separate circulation for staff, ordinary people, and those in custody to improve the safety of the former. The building will host improved life-saving and fire-fighting mechanisms, which will prove lifesaving in case of emergencies.
The new courthouse will improve the speed and quality of justice to a fast growing population of Alameda County. If there hadn’t been this initiative, a strain would have been put on the courthouses of other counties, which would have lowered the quality of justice.
Under Construction Courthouse is already Empowering Women
An amazing thing we would like to mention is the construction process of the court is already empowering women. We are talking about the 34-year-old Ciara Seger, who is the project superintendent at the courthouse construction site, representing the Hensel Phelps Construction Company.
Ciara, a Civil Engineer from Brigham Young University, is leading a team of over 350 people daily. This is a huge achievement for her as the statistics show only 10% of the construction workers inside the US are females. With the likes of Ciara, the trends of the industry are changing as we can expect more women coming forward and offering their innovative and managerial services at the bigger screen.
Just like Ciara, Nancy O’Malley, Alameda County District Attorney, also became vocal over constructing the courthouse. She addressed the realtors in the area to help the authorities spot the scams and abuses, carried out by scammers, with the saving of innocent people, as far as the mortgage is concerned. Nancy will move with a team of a 1200-member staff in the first of half of 2017 to make sure the locals have quick and easy access to justice.
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