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Federal courthouse, new and old
January 8, 2010
Boilers are working again at Austin federal courthouse; no early closure
UPDATE 4:57 p.m. Despite boilers that had not been working for most of the day, the federal courthouse in Austin remained open all day Friday as the temperature did not drop as much as feared. The boilers were running again after 4 p.m. Friday.
Earlier: There’s no heat at Austin’s federal courthouse on West Eighth Street downtown and U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks says that he will likely order the building closed early today.
“It’s getting colder,” said Sparks said during a lunch break.
Sparks said he has been told that the temperature in the building, which opened in 1936, would drop about four degrees an hour. By his estimate that means it will be too cold to keep working at about 3 p.m.
“I am not going to have people working down here in the high 50 degrees,” he said. “Even I.”
A new federal courthouse is being constructed with more than $100 million in federal stimulus money at Fourth and San Antonio streets downtown, across from Republic Square. Construction is expected to be completed in 2012.
In recent years, the current courthouse at Eighth and Lavaca streets got about $1.2 million in upgrades, including more than $700,000 in heating, ventilation and cooling work.
Sparks said that the new boilers that were installed require 8 pounds per square inch of gas pressure to operate, an amount they are not getting because of the amount of gas that is being consumed downtown with today’s cold weather.
“Have you ever worked for the federal government?” Sparks said. “None of this surprises us.”
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September 17, 2009
A photo crasher at courthouse groundbreaking?
The row of shovel-wielding dignitaries at the groundbreaking for Austin’s new federal courthouse this month included members of Congress, federal judges and others with a hand in planning and funding the $100 million-plus project.
At the end of the row was George Lobb.
It’s not clear how Lobb, a young lawyer who sometimes practices in federal court, got there. But there he was, wearing a gray suit, a hardhat and a wide grin for the cameras.
“We had an interloper,” said U.S. Magistrate Judge Andy Austin, who said local federal judges were not amused. “It was almost like this Forrest Gump thing.”
“The night after the groundbreaking, I was watching the news and I saw a shot of the group. I was like, ‘What the hell was he doing in there?’” Austin said.
Reached by phone this week and asked how he ended up in the shot, Lobb went silent, then said he would call a reporter back later in the day. He never did, and failed to return a follow-up phone message.
According to the State Bar of Texas, Lobb went to law school at the University of Houston and was licensed to practice law in May 2008. Austin said he has been court-appointed on a handful of criminal cases in federal court. State court records show he has about a dozen clients with pending criminal cases, mostly misdemeanors.
The Sept. 2 groundbreaking was attended by perhaps a couple of hundred people, from Austin City Council members to the police chief to assistant U.S. attorneys. After a series of speeches under a big tent set up on a now-closed section of San Antonio Street next to Republic Square park, the dignitaries moved to the block of land to the west, the site of the future courthouse.
Lobb brought his own shovel to the event, which he had painted orange and white, and at one point asked Austin and other judges to sign it.
When Shala Geer-Smith, a spokeswoman for the General Services Administration who was helping organize the event, spotted Lobb with the shovel and in line for the picture, she handed him one of the ceremonial shovels, which were painted gold, Austin said.
“She didn’t know who it was and didn’t want to risk offending him by asking,” Austin said.
When the group lined up for pictures, Lobb took his place to the far right.
“I was annoyed that he did it,” Austin said. “”It’s going to be the photograph that you kind of look back on. … The groundbreaking is kind of the singular event when you recognize all that work you have done getting up to that point.”
This week, Austin alerted the General Services Administration officials that Lobb may have taken a ceremonial shovel from the event. They called Federal Protective Service officials, who apparently have retrieved it, Austin said.
“This guy had nothing to do with the courthouse,” he said.
In the top picture, from left to right, are Senior U.S. District Judge James Nowlin; U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio; U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel; U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin; U.S. Rep. John Carter, R-Round Rock; U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Pitman; U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin; U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew Austin; Public Building Service Commissioner Robert Peck; George Prochaska, General Services Administration acting regional administrator; Will Wynn, former Austin mayor; Neel White, CEO of White Construction; and George Lobb. The bottom picture is George Lobb. Photographs by Katherine Wallace.
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September 14, 2009
Dirt's moving at the site of future U.S. courthouse
Workers have begun to move dirt at the future site of Austin’s new federal courthouse downtown, according to Shala Geer-Smith, a spokeswoman for the General Services Administration, which is overseeing the project.
Construction of the more than $100 million courthouse is expected to last three years. At the ceremonial groundbreaking earlier this month, John Straub, a project manager with White Construction Company, said that it will take about 30 days of digging before foundation work can begin. The structure will be completed in about two years, he said.
Geer-Smith sent over some pictures, shown below, of U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel, who along with U.S. Magistrate Judge Andy Austin have worked for years to get the project to this point.
Read more about the courthouse project here.
U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel, in photos taken today and provided by the General Services Administration.
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September 2, 2009
Part of downtown street closed for courthouse construction
From a stage erected on a block of San Antonio Street downtown that will now be permanently closed to vehicles, a string of dignitaries paid tribute to the ideals of justice, to Austin and to jump-starting the local economy at a groundbreaking ceremony for Austin’s new federal courthouse Wednesday.
“Throughout history, the rule of law and the ability to provide justice under the law are the hallmarks of great civilizations,” said U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio. “Austin is a world-class city. … Austin will soon have a world-class federal courthouse.”
The $116 million building was funded this year under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The eight-story building will house the federal district and magistrate courts that are currently in the historic U.S. Courthouse on West Eighth Street. Other federal support agencies that do not fit in the historic building, such as the probation department, also will move into the new building.
Construction is expected to begin this month and be completed in three years.
U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel, who with U.S. Magistrate Judge Andy Austin has spearheaded the planning, along with members of the federal General Services Administration, said the current courthouse — built in the 1930s — has outlived its usefulness.
U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, noted that when he was a federal prosecutor working in the current courthouse, he saw jurors and prisoners taking the same elevator.
“That’s really unacceptable,” he said.
McCaul said the courthouse project will be “a boon to the Austin economy.”
U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, estimated that over the course of construction, the project “means a couple of thousand jobs.”
A General Services Administration spokeswoman did not have an estimate of exactly how many jobs will be created.
The building will utilize energy-efficient technology, such as the use of natural light and using rainwater captured on site for irrigation, officials said.
It will be constructed by White Construction, which has a main office in Austin. White recently build the Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas.
The courthouse will be constructed on the site of the former half-built Intel Corp. structure across from Republic Square Park. San Antonio Street between Fourth and Fifth streets, which runs between the future courthouse site and the park, will be permanently closed now, said John Straub, a project manager for White Construction. One of the four lanes of Fifth Street will be closed during construction, and the parking adjacent to the site on Nueces and Fourth streets will be eliminated, he said.
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August 17, 2009
Groundbreaking Sept. 2 for new federal courthouse
A ceremonial groundbreaking for the new federal courthouse in downtown Austin has been scheduled for Sept. 2.
A variety of local officials — including U.S. representatives and City Council members — are expected to be in attendance to mark the upcoming start of construction on the more than $100 million building, said U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel.
Yeakel said he hopes that construction on the building will begin soon — perhaps even before the groundbreaking — although he did not know the construction schedule. Calls to White Construction Company, the general contractor on the project, were referred to the U.S. General Services Administration. GSA officials did not immediately respond to requests for information today.
In March, the stalled courthouse project got new life when it was awarded up to $116 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
The courthouse will be constructed at Fifth and Nueces streets, across form Republic Square Park. It will replace the 73-year-old U.S. Courthouse on W. 8th Street, which judges say is crammed and outdated. The long-term fate of that building has not been determined.
In 2002, when officials began to scout a location for what was then supposed to be a $62.9 million project, the goal was to begin construction by 2004. Funding in the federal budget never came, though.
The Web site for White Construction, whose principal offices are in Ridgeland, Miss., but which also has an office in Austin, says that construction of the courthouse is expected to take 34 months.
Yeakel said the groundbreaking will celebrate the project and mark an occasion that is rare in Austin — the construction of a major public building. The courthouse will serve Travis and 16 other Central Texas counties.
“We’re probably not going to get another courthouse in Austin for 100 years,” he said.
“I have spent a tremendous amount of time on this… and I think it’s something the community is going to be happy with.”
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April 10, 2009
Federal courts close at noon; county and state courts open all day
It’s the Christian holiday of Good Friday and the federal judges in Austin have ordered that the U.S. Courthouse on West Eighth Street close at noon.
In Travis County, the state district clerk’s office and county clerk’s office are open all day. Some judges in Austin’s state and county courts are holding court, but the dockets appear light.
Good Friday, which precedes Easter Sunday, is a commemoration of the day that Christians believe Jesus Christ was crucified on the cross.
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February 18, 2009
Austin federal courthouse could get funding in stimulus bill
Austin’s federal judges are “hopeful and optimistic” that the federal stimulus bill signed by President Barack Obama on Tuesday could include funding for a new federal courthouse downtown, said U.S. Magistrate Judge Andy Austin.
The bill allots $5.5 billion to a federal buildings fund, of which $750 million will go toward the construction of federal buildings and U.S. courthouses. (The largest portion of that fund — $4.5 billion — is for making federal buildings more energy efficient.)
The bill does not specify which buildings or courthouses will be funded, but Austin said a House-Senate conference report stipulated that $450 million go to build a new headquarters for the Department of Homeland Security.
That leaves $300 million for other federal buildings or courthouses. Where the money goes is up to the General Services Administration, which must submit a spending plan to congressional appropriations committees within 45 days.
Judge Austin said he knows of no federal buildings that are ready to be built. However there are seven cities, including Austin, where design and site acquisition have been completed for new federal courthouses, according to a December letter to congressional leaders from the director of the Judicial Conference of the United States.
First on the list is a San Diego courthouse, estimated to cost $110.4 million. That project is slated to be funded in a pending appropriations bill. Second on the list is a Los Angeles courthouse, which is estimated to cost $530 million.
Third is the Austin courthouse, estimated to cost $116.1 million, followed by ones in Salt Lake City, Savannah, Ga., Mobile, Ala., and Nashville, Tenn.
Because the San Diego project already has funding and there is not enough money in the bill to pay for the Los Angeles courthouse, Judge Austin believes that the Austin courthouse could be funded under the bill.
“We are keeping our fingers crossed,” he said.
The planned seven-story Austin courthouse will be built on land at the corner of Fifth and Nueces streets, across from Republic Square Park. The design by lead architect Mack Scogin is mostly complete.
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December 4, 2008
Rare courthouse video in today's Statesman
The federal judges in Austin made a rare exception to their policy prohibiting cameras inside the U.S. Courthouse for my story today on the 72-year-old building.
Check out the story here, and be sure to click on the video link on the left hand side, which features excerpts of interviews with U.S. Magistrate Judge Andy Austin and U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel and a tour of the courthouse.
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