ASHLAND — A planned second administration building has sparked Ashland County to begin planning renovations to its nearly 100-year-old courthouse.
The Ashland County Board of Commissioners on Thursday approved and entered into a $24,500 agreement with VSWC Architects to begin planning courthouse renovations. The agreement is being paid for from the county’s capital projects fund.
Commissioners are also working with VSWC in the administration building project, along with Wooster-based Campbell Construction.
MORE ON THE SECOND ADMINISTRATION BUILDING
Ashland County Commissioner Denny Bittle said the timing for renovations to the courthouse is aligned to the completion of the county’s second administration building.
Bittle said commissioners will work with the Ashland County Common Pleas Court judges throughout the process to hopefully have a renovation plan finalized by the time the new administration building is finished — estimated to be March 2027.
“We’re trying to be proactive and be able to start that project and at least have some cost estimates of what that remodeling will be,” Bittle said. “But it will probably take us a year to meet with the judges (and work through the process).
“Really we’re expecting to take six months to eight months for that process, to give us a really good idea of the cost and making sure the judges are really happy, as best they can, with that project,” he said.
Commissioner James Justice said he doesn’t expect the county to borrow money to complete the renovations.
Bittle said he expects most of renovations to take place on the first floor, as well as the basement. He said one of the biggest challenges in the building is the lack of space for attorneys to speak with their clients privately.
“There’s no private place in that whole (courthouse) for an attorney to meet a client before (a hearing). That will be fixed as part of this renovation,” Bittle said.
Courthouse to keep front entrance closed
Courthouse renovations will not include reopening the front entrance of the building, which faces 2nd Street. That entrance has been closed for about two years upon the request of the court.
Anyone entering the courthouse must use the 3rd Street entrance in the rear of the building in order to be screened for security purposes — including court staff.
While a necessary precaution, this process slows down members of the public coming to the courthouse to visit offices such the county auditor, treasurer, recorder or the tax map office, Bittle said.
Each of those offices previously listed will be relocated to the new administration building.
“It’s very restricted for all of the activity that is in that courthouse now,” he said.
Another reason it’s unlikely the front entrance will ever be used again is the inability to make the entrance ADA compliant.
Justice and Bittle said designs have been reviewed in the past to see proposed routes for a ramp up to the front entrance — but those plans involved running a ramp around the whole building or nearly all the way to Cottage Street on the southwest corner of the grounds.
“They didn’t think of that when they built that 100 years ago. That wasn’t a concern,” Bittle said. “But we’ve looked at even coming from the east side (of the building), that entrance, but there’s just no way to make that handicap accessible.”