New London Federal Courthouse & Renovation of Historic Federal Courthouse

London, Kentucky

The Project consists of the design and construction of a new 88,970 square foot standalone judicial facility to meet the current and future program needs of the court system. The site is in downtown London, two blocks south of the existing Courthouse and directly across from the London Federal Courthouse, which CMW also designed. Due to the size of the site, site development included a limited amount of on-site parking for court staff and the public. A vehicle drop-off area at Main Street was provided to allow public transportation and private vehicles to unload passengers before moving on to park. Additional parking is available to court staff and the public off-site adjacent to and near the new facility in the downtown area. The building is set back and raised slightly above the public street to provide a public plaza fore-court to the building which is paved and landscaped. This provides the court with a symbolic approach and furnishes protection from vehicle intrusion. The lower level secured parking, the first floor secure prisoner vehicular sally port, the first floor loading dock and facility garbage collection can each be accessed from Broad Street at the rear of the building. The basic court floor and the organization of the court sets (paired courtrooms supported by detainee transport, court floor holding cells and attorney conference rooms) generate the basic structure for the building. A two court per floor configuration provides the best balance of circulation and floor plate size to fit the site. The building is organized using the basic tenet of modern justice facilities: complete separation of judges, detainees and the public until their circulation paths come together in the courtrooms. Two typical courtrooms and two ADR rooms are located on Level 2; one courtroom and two hearing rooms on Level 3; and two typical courtrooms on Level 4. However, because Levels 2, 3, and 4 have identical floor plates with detainee service cores int