State budget regulators approved pre-design funds for a proposed new Indiana judicial building, which would house offices for the state supreme court and others. (Whitney Downard/Indiana Capital Chronicle)
Could the yearslong discussion surrounding a new Indiana judicial center finally be coming to fruition?
Proposals to construct a new building to house the state’s courts have been tossed around for decades – and was even a topic of controversy in the 1980s — but project plans have never developed enough to gain traction.
Now, state officials want to restart the conversation.
To get the ball rolling, Indiana budget regulators this week approved a $5 million request for pre-design funds.
Matt Kent, chief financial officer for the Indiana Department of Administration, said those state dollars will be used to reevaluate the size and layout possibilities of a new building. State officials said they do not expect to spend the full appropriation on the study, however.
Whether any final structure plans will be approved is yet to be decided.
“These funds will go towards the programming phase of the building and site pre-design. In this phase, we’ll work with a consulting firm to explore the needs and requirements of the entities that would eventually inhabit the building. That work covers a large scope, and includes interviewing and understanding the needs of the stakeholders and future tenants,” explained Kent, who spoke before the State Budget Committee on Tuesday.
“It will also include a space utilization plan to determine the needed square footage for each entity and the building as a whole,” he continued. “While some of the larger scope answers regarding the size and number of stories of the building will be answered, we’ll also begin to answer questions about how the interior of the building will function on a daily basis. How do people move throughout the building? How do they work? What are their IT needs, security needs, etc.? Once this programming work is done, we can then start getting a rough estimate on the cost of the building and the scope of how long the project would take.”
Years of discussion
Legislation from 1971 first authorized the State Office Building Commission to construct a new judicial building. At the time, lawmakers intended for the building to house the Indiana Supreme Court, Appellate Court, “and other related agencies.”
Enthusiasm for the project soon cooled, however, in light of other, more pressing state-funded endeavors.
The proposed judicial building regained traction in the late 1980s, and architectural plans were drawn up for a $50 million new building. Plans called for an elaborate, five-story limestone and granite structure located just north of the statehouse. Groundbreaking was originally anticipated to take place in 1989.
That space is a surface parking lot used by hundreds of state employees every day.
But as projected construction costs ballooned, the building became a controversial topic during the 1988 governor’s race. Once elected, Democratic Gov. Evan Bayh ditched the plans.
The legislature last entertained the project in 1999, approving a $4 million feasibility study for a new judicial building. It’s not clear what happened to that study, though.
In the past some of the issues that have stalled the project include location and parking; cost and downtown office buildings losing a large tenant. One other topic has always been whether the five Indiana Supreme Court justices and their courtroom would move as some prefer having representation from all three branches of government in the Statehouse.
Currently, the Indiana Supreme Court has roughly 210 employees at its Capital Center location in downtown Indianapolis, and another 30 people within the statehouse, said court spokesperson Kathryn Dolan.
Rent at the Capital Center location is about $1.5 million a year. The current lease — which runs through July 2034 — is abated for six months and includes a provision “that addresses cancellation should the State of Indiana build a Justice Center,” Dolan said.
She emphasized that, based on her understanding from recent proposal discussions, such a center would include the state’s entire judicial branch, including the supreme court, court of appeals, tax court, the state public defender, and others.
Even so, Chief Justice Loretta Rush said “the Indiana Supreme Court is not requesting a new judicial building.”
“However, we support the legislature’s interest in assessing the state’s space needs and welcome contributing to that review process,” she said in a statement to the Indiana Capital Chronicle.
Other entities that would be included are the Court of Appeals and Tax Court and the State Public Defender. The state’s transparency portal shows those entities have employ about 165 people.
What next?
Before the budget committee gave its stamp approval, Democratic Rep. Greg Porter, of Indianapolis, was critical of the price tag.
“Do we need to spend that much money on surveys? … I mean, $5 million is a lot,” asked Porter, who sits on the committee. “We need to be more specific in regards to the proposal or request for information. These conversations started back in the 80s. … I’m just really perplexed that we need to have this $5 million to do that. I mean, in these tight times, all of a sudden, we want to do other things.”
Kent maintained “there’s a lot of work that would need done to … basically, bring together several entities, and determine what each of their needs are.”
“How is the building going to work? And then the size of the building. And then if there’s any of that money left over, that would probably roll into the design of the building, as well the design phase,” he added.
Joe Habig, acting budget director of the Indiana State Budget Agency, clarified that only 10% of the appropriated funds are expected to be used for the study itself.
“You’re right — $5 million is a lot. But we don’t anticipate the actual study to utilize the entire $5 million,” Habig said, noting, too, the requested funds were already appropriated to the budget agency by the General Assembly. “We anticipate that most of this — at least several hundred thousand — will go towards just updating a study that was done in 2000 or 2001. And so I think with the results of that, we’ll reassess the cost of a full (architecture and engineering) design.”
No request for proposals related to the judicial building study have been published yet, according to state procurement records. State officials did not provide a timeline for proposals, study completion or desired date to begin construction on a possible building.
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