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Friday, November 13, 2009
Ind. Courts - "New federal courthouse dedicated in downtown Terre Haute"
Howard Greninger reports today in the Terre Haute Tribune-Star:
A new federal courthouse was officially dedicated Thursday amid federal judges, Terre Haute attorneys and city officials.The new courthouse at 921 Ohio St. rests on a 1.9-acre site at 91/2 and Ohio streets. The one-story brick building with stone facade has 14,310 square feet, according to a fact sheet at the ceremony from the U.S. General Services Administration.
The courthouse was built by Thompson Thrift Development Corp., which will pay property taxes. Thompson Thrift is leasing the facility to the federal government under a 20-year lease. The annual rent is $570,598, according to the GSA fact sheet.
U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Frank J. Otte said the courthouse “is a success story, the result of the work of very many people. It was brought about, things like this just don’t happen, but it was brought about because there were people in the community” who worked to keep the courts, he said.
Otte said the former courthouse, at Seventh and Cherry streets, which will become part of Indiana State University, was made in the Art Deco style of the 1930s, while the new courthouse has a “Williamsburg look.” * * *
Otte and U.S. District Judge Larry J. McKinney each thanked Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., for working to secure the new courthouse in Terre Haute. McKinney, who served as chief judge of the Southern District of Indiana from 2001 to 2007, was part of a group that worked closely on the project.
“The very fact of this building’s existence is a slap in the face of cynics and naysayers and nabobs of negativism, if you don’t mind me quoting Spiro Agnew,” McKinney said, saying approval had to be made from numerous federal agencies.
“Our goal was to have a quality facility that is not an insult to the taxpayer and one that is within the budget that we had. There were serious perimeters. This building had to be within the same cost perimeters to the court as the old building,” he said.
“The process of getting this building here is not unlike pulling Excalibur out of the stone. Only those who were hard-working people of goodwill and had some vision of the future could pull that sword out of the stone. I am telling you there were a lot of them” who made the courthouse happen, McKinney said.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on November 13, 2009 09:20 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts