Staff Writer
The City of Jacksonville wants to move beyond the days of electrical cords taped to the floors and walls of courtrooms at the Duval County Courthouse during high profile cases. It wants to remove these unsightly webs by building a better system in the new building.
“We called this meeting to see what needs can be met to accommodate media coverage at the new courthouse,” said Misty Skipper, director of communications for the City. “These accommodations will depend on cost and the budget.”
One of the questions concerned cameras in the courtroom and whether or not all courtrooms would be camera-ready for broadcast purposes.
“The judges don’t want all the courtrooms to have cameras in them,” said Dave Schneider, courthouse project manager.
With 51 courtrooms planned for the new courthouse, that also would eat into the budget.
The rooms range in size. The largest will be about 2,400 square feet with two jury boxes. There will be two of the largest courtrooms, which could be used for murder trials or condemnation hearings. They also will be the ceremonial courtrooms for investitures and retirements.
The medium courtroom will occupy about 1,800 square feet and serve Circuit Court. There will be 10 medium courtrooms.
County Court will be served by the small courtrooms which are about 1,650 square feet and contain a jury box for eight people. There will be 39 small courtrooms, which combines for a total of 51 courtrooms.
Other questions revolved around connectivity and the reliability of wireless systems for broadcast purposes. Some were worried that the bandwidth of wireless systems would be stressed if multiple users tried to stream live video and audio from the site. Fiber optic line was suggested to address those concerns.
“We are far from a final design, so we will take this information and try to incorporate it into the plans.” said Skipper. “We certainly would like to see what we have the capability to accommodate, but we will not exceed available funding.”
The City also has other projects to provide examples. The Bryan Simpson U.S. Courthouse, Clay County Courthouse expansion and Nassau County Courthouse have all been completed within the past decade.
356-2466