Construction Begins on $144mil Courthouse

Largest Civic Project Ever in Mendocino County

Excerpt: It will take two years for construction crews to complete a public project that is expected to pump millions of dollars into the surrounding community, and in effect expand the commercial core of Ukiah with promises of new retail developments and infrastructure improvements.

“There’s no doubt that we are at a unique point in time where the decisions we make today will dramatically shape the future of our downtown,” said Deputy City Manager Shannon Riley.

The scale of the new courthouse project is monumental:

• The new courthouse will embrace the latest technologies and meet national standards for ‘green’ public buildings. It will replace a 1950s-era county-owned building which is dated in appearance and function. The current courthouse is out of compliance with current safety, seismic and accessibility codes and deemed by federal officials as a high-risk building because of seismic concerns. The Judicial Council of California after years of delays ranked the new Mendocino County Courthouse as an “immediate need.”
• It dwarfs other private and public improvements locally past and present. The state funded project has been 20 years in the making, a stop and go process that survived funding crises, multiple delays, and public debates about its location.

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