Ribbon cutting set for new Morgan County judicial building
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Officials in Morgan County will cut the ribbon Wednesday on the new, $46 million judicial building in downtown Martinsville.
The building, which is part of a larger, $72 million Judicial Campus development, will replace the current Morgan County Courthouse, which was built in 1857 and will be renovated for use by county administrative staff.
Morgan County Commissioner Don Adams says the new building will help the county consolidate many of its operations under one roof.
“We’ll have everything in this one building,” Adams told Inside INdiana Business. “[It] will be a kind of a one-stop service for judicial things—probation, the prosecutor and the courts that we have at present, but there’s room for growth.”
The three-story, nearly 72,000-square-foot building has courtrooms to serve one circuit court, three superior courts and two hearing courts. The project also included a 202-space parking lot.
Adams said the building was constructed with room for growth, which was a lesson learned from the existing building, in which the county ran out of space decades ago.
“Some people say the can’s been kicked down the road too far, and it’s time to address it, and we did,” he said. “And we’ve got, I think, a great facility.”
The county says all employees and offices in the existing courthouse will move to the new building by the end of July. At that time, renovations to the original courthouse will begin and continue until late 2026.
Adams said the effort will be a complete renovation. Since the original courthouse was last added onto in in 1975, there are a lot of issues to be addressed.
“We’ve got some good plans on how we’re going to take care of [the building] but make sure it’s healthy and for everybody,” he said. “It wasn’t even ADA-compliant. So we’re taking care of all the needs, as well as is redoing a lot of things [like] water, electricity. It’s pretty well going to be gutted and then redone.”
The ribbon-cutting ceremony is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday and will include remarks from Indiana Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith, Indiana Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray and Indiana State Treasurer Daniel Elliott.