More than two decades after the federal government identified the need for a new federal courthouse in Chattanooga, the U.S. General Services Administration is soliciting proposals for sites to build an estimated $218 million building to replace the aging Joel Solomon building across from Miller Park in downtown Chattanooga.
The General Services Administration is seeking expressions of interest this month from those willing to sell parcels of 2 to 5 acres in the city of Chattanooga to accommodate the development of a 186,000-square-foot building to house the U.S. District Court and Chattanooga Bankruptcy Court, along with facilities for the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the U.S. Marshals Service Office, among other federal agencies.
Congress provided $94.5 million last year for site design and construction of a new federal courthouse in Chattanooga, but more than twice that amount will be needed to complete the proposed project. Proposals to provide over $186 million for the project did move out of a Senate appropriations panel in each of the past two fiscal years, but the Chattanooga courthouse is yet to receive full funding.
The General Services Administration, which constructs and maintains most federal buildings, put a new Chattanooga courthouse on its long-term construction plan in 1999, and Chattanooga has moved up to No. 2 on the government’s priority list, behind only Hartford, Connecticut. In its notice to solicit property offers for a site for the new courthouse in Chattanooga, the administration said the existing federal building on Georgia Avenue, which was erected in 1933, fails to meet prisoner, courtroom and safety standards.
“Because of inadequacies in the existing building’s configuration and size, judges, prisoners and the public must use the same public elevators and corridors,” General Services said in a report on the Solomon office building. “There are not enough courtroom holding cells. The prisoner access route to one of the magistrate judge courtrooms passes through the magistrate judge’s chambers. Further, the building lacks a prisoner sally port, adequate setbacks or perimeter barriers.”