“Usually when
you open a new
building, you’ve
got a year of
working the bugs
out. We’ve been
sitting here pretty
good, and it’s been
six months.”
– Mike Kutcher, Jackson
County Maintenance
Supervisor
4│ TRENDS
persons and the judge, the judge’s
office staff, and maintenance staff,”
Waldera said.
“It was a situation where, if we had
an unruly person, it would bring harm
and risk to bystanders,” he said. “We
wanted to eliminate that.”
Design puts safety first
In response, Ayres designed a
125-foot-long secure transfer
corridor that avoids all unnecessary
interactions.
“The only people with access are
the bailiffs transporting detainees
down there, and then we designed
for a couple of prisoner holding
rooms feeding into each courtroom,”
said Ayres’ Steve Hoecherl, project
architect. “Through the process with
this addition, we solved security
measures of prisoner transfer from
the jail to the courts and helped
improve the old way of doing things.”
During the entire process, the design
team and county officials consulted
frequently and modified plans
accordingly.
“We had an ongoing process as we
were doing this design. It was like, ‘If
we could address this,’ ‘If we could
address that’ ” Hoecherl said. “We
started out with the courtroom but
picked off a few other things too.”
It was discussions like this that led to
the addition of a security checkpoint
area in the public lobby.
“There’s a station now for a security
officer to have a glass viewing area
of the lobby,” Hoecherl said. “That
got added into the project along the
way.”
For Waldera, the biggest benefit
of all is in the improved security
– something he hopes residents
county-wide and beyond recognize.