by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
Contrary to rumors circulating about the completion of the new United States Courthouse at Jacksonville, the opening of the $78 million building is on schedule. As in exactly on schedule.
“It’s been pretty crazy and we are trying to get things done,” said Brain Murray, project manager for Beers Skansa, the construction manager and general contractor of facility. “Our scheduled opening date is still Sept. 20 and we will have tenants moving in at the end of October.”
Murray believes that because the process of moving 11 federal judges and their staff along with several other legal entities, mountains of files and other equipment will take time has spurred rumors that the courthouse won’t be delivered on time. The fact that the new courthouse will also house the U.S. Clerk of the Court, the U.S. Marshal’s Office, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the U.S. Probation Office and many other federal agencies has only helped to fuel the rumor that the courthouse is behind
schedule.
The reality is, there are numerous factors that have to be considered by each judge and attorney in the building before they can simply pack up boxes and waltz across the street.
“There are a lot of systems that have to be brought up to speed,” said Murray, adding that Sept. 20 has been the projected completion date of the 15-story building since ground was broken on Sept. 19, 1999. “That’s still what we are planning on. We may have some odds and ends to finish up, like touch up paint here and there. We could conceivably have a couple of people in here by the end of October.”
Construction-wise, Murray estimated that 90 percent of the current work is going on inside. With the exception of landscaping and minor aesthetic work, the exterior of the building is complete. Overall, Murray said the building is 87 percent done and about half of the interior work is finished.
As far as who moves in and when, Murray said that’s out of his hands and his company has no influence on those decisions.
“It all revolves around their schedules,” said Murray, referring to the federal judges, who may opt to move after current trials are over or recess long enough to make the move. Regardless, there may be some who don’t relocate until January 2003, but that doesn’t mean the courthouse won’t completed long before.”
Before taking on the project here in Jacksonville, Murray helped oversee construction of the new federal courthouse in Knoxville. The personnel there faced a similar dilemma about when to move, but handled it in a very different manner.
“They occupied the entire building within seven days,” said Murray. “It is a little smaller than this building, but they have the same number of agencies.”
Interestingly, the events of Sept. 11 have played virtually no role in the construction process and haven’t prompted any new security measures that could potentially delay the completion of the courthouse. Murray said the General Services Administration learned so much after the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995 that anti-terrorist security standards were instituted long before construction on the Jacksonville facility began, meaning the building was designed with every high-tech security device available in place.
“That is going on. This is the second courthouse we [Beers] have built with the new regulations,” said Murray. “The other is in Las Vegas.”
Murray said Becky Case of the GSA is handling the coordination efforts for the move. Case, who is based out of the GSA office in Orlando, was in Jacksonville Tuesday but couldn’t be reached to verify a moving schedule.