Arizona Contractor & Community Winter 2015 V4 I4 | Seite 70

T

Images courtesy of author

he cornerstone of the Yavapai
County Courthouse was placed on
October 19, 1916. Imbedded in the
stone was a copper box that served as a
time capsule to be opened in 100 years.
In preparation for the capsule’s unveiling
at the Centennial celebration, the Yavapai
County
Board
of
Supervisors
commissioned Otwell Associates Architects
to direct a three-year $5.6 million
rehabilitation of the structure in 2012. The
project was completed this year and
resulted in an enhanced appearance and
environment for one of Prescott’s most
famous buildings.
The granite neo-classical structure is
Yavapai County’s third courthouse. The
first was a simple frame structure on North
Cortez Street, created after Prescott was
named by President Abraham Lincoln as
the Arizona Territorial Capital in 1863. The
second courthouse was a Victorian brick
design built on the Courthouse Plaza in
1878, a year before Doc Holliday and Big
Nose Kate came through town on their way

seventy

Architect’s Perspective:
Rehabilitation of the
Yavapai County Courthouse
William Otwell, AIA
to Tombstone. Because of its isolated
location and brick construction, it survived
the fire of 1900, which destroyed all but
three nearby buildings.
The current courthouse had its
beginnings when the Board of Supervisors
received 26 entries in a design competition
for a new facility in 1915. The chosen
submittal was created by architect William
Bowman of Denver and built for $250,000.
The second courthouse
was razed to make room for
the current structure in
1916. Gravel walkways,
trees, and a bandstand
were added to the
Courthouse Plaza, which
was laid out by Robert
Groom in 1864.
This
landscape design still exists
today with the walkways
rendered in concrete poured in the 1930s.
The courthouse has withstood the test
of time. When the author moved to
Prescott in 1974, it housed the entire
Yavapai County government, including the
Sheriff’s office and jail on the top floor.
The building’s original drawings have
survived and are unusually detailed. They
reveal the specifics of the poured concrete

structure, clad with nine inches of native
granite, glazed terra cotta facing at the
upper parapet, and steel frame roof
trusses topped with precast concrete slabs
for the roof deck.
In 2002, the Board of Supervisors
commissioned my firm to prepare a
Building Condition Assessment Report on
the courthouse. The report analyzes the
structure and various systems within the
building,
with
recommendations
for
treatment
and
rehabilitation.
Six years later, the City
of Prescott planning staff
used the report as part of
its submission to the
American
Planning
Association’s
inaugural
“Top Ten Public Spaces in
America” program. The Courthouse Plaza
was listed in the top ten along with Central
Park in New York City, Union Station in
Washington, D.C., and the Santa Monica
Pier in California.
The three-year rehabilitation of the
Courthouse faced many challenges. So as
not to interfere with the court’s activities
involving more than 100 judges and staff,
all work was performed after hours, on
weekends, and during the summer. The
latter allowed for maximum daylight and
avoided freeze-thaw conditions during
construction.
Phase one involved infrastructure,
including reconstruction of the sewer
system and rerouting of the storm water
runoff from the sanitary sewer to city
streets, as Prescott lacks a storm sewer
system. This work was designed by
Kelley/Wise Engin