County’s new justice center is nearly finished

CATSKILL―Construction of the new Greene County Justice Center has had its share of setbacks and delays, but the project is nearing the finish line.

August Freemann, construction manager and owner of Freemann Project Management Services of Cairo, told county legislators this week that they are still shooting for the end of April for completion.

Connected to the historic Greene County Courthouse by an elevated pedestrian walkway, the justice center is a three-story 47,000-square-foot office building with a ground floor parking garage, expansion of courthouse operations on the second floor, and space on the third floor for the offices of the district attorney and public defender.

The 0.68-acre Bridge Street site was cleared back in the spring of 2021 when the old county jail was torn down.

Lawmakers have approved $28.8 million for the project, including $25 million in bonds and $3.8 million in expenses added after groundbreaking took place in 2024.

Added costs came from design changes and the need for extra reinforcement in the building’s foundation. Old village water and sewer lines, unearthed in unexpected locations, also had to be addressed. And there was soil contamination from oil at the old jail that was not discovered until excavation began. Hundreds of yards of dirt were taken out and properly disposed.

“It looks like a finished building with a handful of small exceptions,” Freemann told county lawmakers Monday. “It is rolling along well but we have a few hiccups. The biggest one is gas and electric.”

The electricity issue stems from a transformer on property next to the First Reformed Church, he noted.

“It was discovered that that transformer and primary wire coming in wasn’t big enough to feed your building when Central Hudson finally got out there to take a look at it,” Freemann said. “So, we had to get them involved. And when you get them involved, everything takes quite a bit longer than anticipated.”

As for natural gas service, Freemann said engineers unfortunately never confirmed with Central Hudson if the pipe they planned to hook into in front of the courthouse was big enough to handle what was needed for the justice center.

“They’re going to be digging down Main Street to make the final connection from the building to do the increased gas capacity that you need for the building,” he explained, adding that permits are in place and the timeline is two to six weeks.

“Knowing how old villages are, I wouldn’t be shocked that we find things as we go and they’re taking care of it. Central Hudson had gave us the price to do it, so it is done as far as that goes. But they are a little concerned about what they might find coming down Main Street,” Freemann said.

The courthouse has been open throughout the entire construction period, however Freemann said they have run into issues connecting to the old part of the 1910 structure.

“Every time we cut into a wall there, we find that nothing is quite like we expected because there are really no actual drawings from when that was built,” he explained. “So, you actually cut into the wall to set a beam and then find out that it was fairly poorly laid red brick that wasn’t structural. Of course, we had to redo that.”

The justice center project was necessitated, county officials determined, by a need for more room within the public defender and district attorney’s offices, currently squeezed for space in the county office building on Main Street and still growing.

They are joined by the New York State Office of Court Administration (OCA) that contributed $5 million to the initial cost in addition to paying a $140,000 annual lease.

And Freemann said there have been a number of new requests from OCA that is “going to drive us a little bit past the early April deadline that we had shot for originally.”

“There are some additional doors. There’s some reconstruction work that they have requested, secure entrances, things like that that were not in the original plan but are going to need to be done,” he said. “And some camera and security work that they asked for late in the game.”

“The [OCA] folks who looked over everything during the planning and initial construction of this have all retired. So, everybody we are dealing with now is new and now they are getting their first look at what we have and desiring some changes,” Freemann explained.

Legislator Matt Luvera (R-Catskill) asked who was footing the bill for the state’s change orders.

“They are paying for it,” emphasized Greene County Administrator Shaun Groden, referring to OCA.

“The only real problem for you folks is it is a time issue,” said Freemann, noting that the special secure doors, for example, “are not something you can buy at Home Depot.”

“You call the manufacturer and they’re like, “Yeah, 12 weeks you can have them.’ Twelve weeks,” he said.

Legislator Michael Bulich (R-Catskill) inquired whether Freemann could decline any of OCA’s new requests.

“Some things that when we walked through with them and they were like, ‘We want,” we were like, ‘No, you can’t at this stage.’ It would be such a disruption that it would be months after we’re supposed to be done that we would still be playing around,” Freemann said

“And it is not like their requests are crazy. So far, we’ve been able to do most of the things they’ve asked for,” he added.

Still, Freemann said, they are still anticipating “getting out of there with everything inside the building by the end of April.”

“But then we’ll do the outside. We still have sidewalks and some paving, but we do have to wait for weather and blacktop plants to open legitimately to do that work,” he added.

Freemann said sometime next month he and Groden will discuss which offices can move into the justice center and when, and when the county can secure a temporary certificate of occupancy.