The good-news Christmas present for Greenfield is that the new Franklin County Criminal Justice Center is set to open in six weeks.
The $60 million renovation of the 1935 courthouse building, with a 104,000-square-foot, three-story addition over what had been its “el” wing and parking lot, should be ready for business Feb. 6, according to Franklin Register of Probate John F. Merrigan. Courthouse staff are scheduled to move from temporary Munson Street quarters after the close of business on Friday, Feb. 3, he said.
“Going back should be pretty efficient,” he said, especially since the original move in February 2014 involved “getting rid of old files from around 100 years ago.”
The new Franklin County Criminal Justice Center, which originally had an October 2016 completion date listed, will house all five court departments, the Law Library and the Registry of Deeds in one “modern, secure, code-compliant public building,” according to the website of the state Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance. It will also replace leased Main Street juvenile and housing court facilities.
The new courthouse will also include separate hallways and elevators for defendants in custody, employees, jurors and the public, as well as holding cells and a drive-in “sally port” to securely transport prisoners.
And it will house conference rooms to give lawyers and clients a private place to meet.
The state has been paying $1.7 million a year to lease the 50,000-square-feet of temporary space at the Greenfield Corporate Center. Since shutdown of the courthouse, downtown businesses have said they have missed the foot traffic it generated.
The longer name for what was traditionally known as the Franklin County Courthouse suggests that, with additional space, the center can be the hub for a variety of services that can help people who use the courts. including a restorative justice component, said Merrigan, who has been on the local liaison committee that worked with the state on the project.
“The restorative justice piece is something we’re excited about making work. It’s something we’ve wanted to do since the ’90s,” he said. And as far as courthouse staff, he added, “Everybody’s going to love getting back there,” especially without the dusty, dirty and overcrowded conditions in the past.
To alleviate parking problems in the adjacent Hope Street lot, the roughly 100 employees with parking needs have been a focus of the town arrangement for available spaces in the Hope Street and fire station lots, as well as parking spaces that have been opened up on side streets around town, said Merrigan.
Greenfield Mayor William Martin said the long-awaited return of the courthouse downtown will contribute to growth of commercial activity, along with the planned conversion of the former Sears building on Main Street into a Center for Human Development “medical complex” and the planned return of Greenfield Savings Bank employees from a Munson Street annex.
Cutbacks in FRTA shuttle service to the corporate center after the courthouse moves could help create a shuttle from the parking lots at Chapman and Davis streets to the courthouse for employees and jurors, as well as other transportation needs, said Martin.
That could be a good stopgap to deal with parking issues, at least until the town’s $7.5 million, four-story parking garage can be built at Bank Row and Olive Street.