Reno, Washoe build joint justice facility

Reno will soon have an award-winning courthouse.

The city's municipal courthouse, designed by Windom Kimsey of Tate Snyder Kimsey Architects in Reno and Las Vegas, won't be completed for two years and already it's won an award.

The American Institute of Architects recently honored Kimsey's design and will feature the building in its 2003-2004 justice facility review.

The courthouse is extraordinary for another reason: It's a joint project between the City of Reno and Washoe County, which will be locating its district attorney offices in the top floors of the building.

"It's very unusual," said Gary Stockhoff, deputy director, public works, for the City of Reno and project manager for the courthouse project.

Stockhoff says when talk of merging the area's courts began, the city and county formed a committee to figure how they could be combined into one jurisdiction.

At the time, Reno's plans for a new municipal courthouse were in already in the works so the group decided to see if the courthouse project could be used to house the county's DA offices as well as somehow combined with the existing family court building.

The result is Kimsey's design - an 160,000-square-foot, eight-story building with the city's courtrooms, offices and judges chambers on the first three floors, and the county's DA offices on the top five floors.

The building, located between Court, Sierra and Rainbow Streets, will be called the Mills B.

Lane Justice Facility and connected via the lobby to the standing family court building.

The building, expected to cost about $26 million, took a year and 10 to 12 people to design, said Kimsey.

"A courthouse design is much more technical," said Kimsey.

"There are three distinct zones of circulation, for public, staff and prisoners."

A single-point of entry for both buildings had to be created in order to assure that everyone entering passes through metal detectors.

A holding area for prisoners is reached without breaking the public path.

That includes transporting prisoners through an underground, concrete tunnel between the two buildings in order not to breach the secure staff parking underground.

In addition, the building had to include two separate elevators, a new requirement that precipitated the need for a new building, said Stockhoff.

The two elevators are to ensure that plaintiffs and defendants travel separately, he said.

Kimsey designed it with other considerations in mind.

"The lobby has a lot of glass, a lot of natural light," he said.

"Whether people are there for a trial or traffic ticket there is a higher stress level.

[The light] helps to alleviate some of the people's anxiety."

None of it would have happened, though, without the cooperation of two clients who had different needs.

First, the city and county had to work out all the details of who would be responsible for what.

That process took a few months, said Stockhoff, and resulted in an inter-local agreement between the two parties.

Under the agreement, the city manages the design of the project.

Bills are paid by the city, which then collects the county's portion.

The roles reverse once construction starts; the county pays and gets reimbursed by the city for its share.

"All things considered, it has worked very well," said Stockhoff.

The courthouse is going out to bid in the fall and construction is expected to start by January, with completion projected within 18 to 20 months.