Douglas County Courthouse moving some operations to new justice center

OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) - Employees at the Douglas County Courthouse are making the move across the street to the new Douglas County Justice Center -- the path to a new and improved workplace.

A skywalk connects the new justice center to the historic courthouse. Court reporter Denise Winters says she’s moving out of a workspace that’s not ideal.

“The offices are small, we don’t have a lot of room,” she said. “There’s six judges on the floor now, so this is going to be a great move for us over here.”

The Douglas County Attorney’s office is already packed up and shut down. Their old spot in the courthouse has nothing left but a note on the door, the first to move its operations to the new justice center.

Douglas County Commissioner Mary Ann Borgeson is a member of the Justice Center Development Corporation. She says the move will take some stress away from the historic courthouse.

“We don’t know for sure that it’s going to ‘free up a lot of space,’ but it will allow us to utilize space that was held by the public defender and county attorney in a different way,” Borgeson said. “There will be space made available, but the building commission is really working right now to see what the current needs are once those offices move out and how to rearrange.”

Borgeson says more judges, attorneys and clients will continue to increase the courthouse’s population, and officials will have to decide what comes next.

“Do we need another type of expansion, another building, or do we need a whole new courthouse,” Borgeson said. “That they’re looking at. It’s out there. We’ve already had a meeting about it, but it was just to present it to us. We still have to keep and maintain, and maintaining older buildings costs more, especially when you’re trying to renovate. We’ll continue to do that, as well as talk about what our future needs are.”

The future for Winters and others on the move means finally having the room to do their jobs without having to make do.

“This is awesome, it’s a beautiful building,” Winters said. “The amenities that are here, conference rooms for attorneys to be working with their clients, family team meeting, caseworkers having chats with parents’ kids. It’s a great facility over here.”

The new justice center isn’t open to the public just yet. The project is on time and on budget, and most of the move should be complete by next month.

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