An architect presented plans for a downtown justice complex at Tuesday night’s Board of Aldermen meeting.
“A majority of the board of aldermen would like to see the project finished this term of office,” Ward 3 Alderman P.C. McLaurin said.
This may be difficult due to the cost of the land that the city will have to purchase when it decides on a location, McLaurin added.
The plans include a new police department, municipal court and electric department to be built on the block bounded by Jefferson Street on the south, Lafayette Street on the east, Dr. D.L. Conner Drive on the north and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street on the west.
“[The location] is desirable for the justice complex because it’s immediately adjacent to the existing jail,” architect Gary Schafer said.
The complex, which would total 31,000 square feet, would need to be public and welcoming but also fulfill the needs of the departments it would house, he said.
The building will house all three departments, but each will be separate for security reasons, Ward 4 Alderman Richard Corey said.
“It’s going to be used by a variety of people in the city,” Corey said.
The proposed building is two stories high and contains such features as a work-out gym for police to and an emergency meeting room in which city officials can convene during time sof crisis. The plans also allow for much better parking, Corey said.
The new electric department would offer a drive thru window as an option for citizens who would rather pay their bills from the convenience of their cars rather than entering the main lobby. For those who prefer to enter, the electric department would be located at the center of the proposed building.
The justice complex would also offer a larger courtroom, which could seat as many as 122 people at a given time, Schafer said. The current courtroom seats about 60, he said.
In addition, a new temporary detention center would be built to hold people for short periods of time, such as intoxicated citizens waiting for a relative to pick them up and detainees waiting in court.
“It is absolutely not a jail,” Starkville Police Chief David Lindley said. “Right now, there could be 20 detainees in a courtroom at the same time. It is for security reasons,” he said.
Under this new plan, one or two detainees could appear in the courtroom while the rest of the detainees wait, under surveillance, in the detention center.
Lindley said detainees would be held in the detention area for no more than three to four hours at a time, and probably would not be held for more than one or two.
An estimated cost of the new justice complex totals almost $8.7 million plus site acquisition. The cost has risen from a previous estimate of about $7.9 million due to hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Schafer said.
“I hope that it will be built with sufficient space for expansion over the next 25 years,” McLaurin said.