Will the site be approved? Design work approved for new Rochester District Court

ROCHESTER — A state finance committee has given the green light to pursue the next steps toward building a new district courthouse in the city.

The Rochester District Court, currently located at 76 North Main St., built in 1913, is too small to handle its volume of cases, which can create safety issues when the court lobby is overcrowded. The site, originally a post office, also has limited access for people in wheelchairs and no public parking.

A site for the new court has been identified on Rochester Hill Road. Michael Scala, economic development director for the city, said Rochester is in negotiations with the state to locate the court on a city-owned piece of land that is about three acres.

Previous story: New site sought for larger Rochester District Court

"They have authorization to do the design work," Scala said. "The city still holds the land. This will not come up until the next biennium budget so we have time. As it gets closer, we will begin discussion. There are a number of ways this could be handled, a sale, a swap and others. When we reach a plan, I will bring it to the City Council. While we are not quite sure what the structure of the deal will look like, we support the need for a new district court."

On Nov. 9, the state Capital Budget Overview Committee approved the Department of Administrative Services’ request to proceed with the $1.16 million appropriation for the new Rochester Circuit Court replacement engineering. The appropriation was approved earlier this year by the legislature.

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This current appropriation is for the design and engineering only. There will be a separate fiscal year 2024/25 capital budget project request to fund the construction of the new courthouse.

A spokesperson for the court system said that in order to comply with capital budget law, the Department of Administrative Services requested the Division of Public Works and Construction to perform a site assessment of the parcel of land, to evaluate the suitability of the land. The report, issued by the Division of Public Works and Construction, and provided to the Capital Budget Overview Committee, deemed the site to be appropriate to build the court house.

The Division of Public Works and Construction will lead the design and engineering phase for the new Rochester Circuit Court. This phase, expected to commence in early 2022, will yield building elevations, floor plans, full construction documents and a construction estimate for the new courthouse.

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Once built, the new courthouse will be more than twice the size of the existing historic building.

"We are looking for the design of a 24,000-square-foot building," said Sarah Lineberry, administrator of the bureau of courts for the state of New Hampshire. "Currently our space is 11,000 square feet."

Current court is too small

Deficiencies at the current court in Rochester would be upgraded in a new facility.

Court officials say the current location, at 76 North Main St., in a building built more than a century ago as a post office, is too small to meet today's busy needs. The court took over the building in 1992, after the post office was relocated.

"We cannot conduct family court proceedings here any longer," said Circuit Court Clerk Cheryll Andrews, in an earlier interview. "Those are sent to Dover. If the cases are connected to a domestic violence case, that is still heard here. It gets very confusing for families. The lobby is a big safety issue for us."

Lineberry said when a full court day is in session, the lobby of the building is full to overflowing, with lines going out the door as people check in. There are only two courtrooms, and few office spaces.

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When asked for some numbers to show how busy the Rochester court is, Andrews said that because of the pandemic new filings varied in 2020 so to give a better representation, she offered figures of the total of new filings for 2019.

New cases filed at the 7th Circuit Court – Rochester in 2019 totaled 4,968. Of those, 4,295 cases were filed in the District Division, 673 were filed in the Family Division.

"If there were enough space, 639 more cases would have been filed at this location, in the Family Division, as well," said Andrews.

Judge Susan Ashley has been sitting at Rochester District Court since 2007.

"I love it here," she said. "But, we do not have the space we need for family court, and we do not have enough courtroom space. I think our family cases can be very confusing for the public, because of the way we need to handle them. People end up seeing more than one judge, one here (me) and another in Dover. The continuity of the case can be tricky."

Anyone familiar with North Main Street knows parking is a premium. For the court, it's more than that.

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"We have no public parking lot," said Andrews. "We have limited space for staff, for police, for security. Look at the front steps. They do not allow for handicap access."

A person with a handicap must go around the building to the one ground level door down a small alley. From there, one elevator accesses the upstairs court. On the other side of the building are a set of stairs that lead nowhere, up to what was once obviously a door but is now blocked.

The criminal courtroom might see 25 or more cases a day. A second, smaller courtroom is used for non-criminal cases. Both rooms are small when compared to other state courts.

The wish list for a new courthouse

Asked their wish list for a new court would be, Lineberry said they would have three, maybe four courtrooms, and those would meet all state and federal standards for use.

"Everything would be handicapped accessible," she said. "We would have a sally port to bring in people, and a cell block to hold them when needed."

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Andrews said they would have a lobby where people felt safe. She said a lot of cases, like guardianship of minors, civil cases and small claims, are e-filed now and they would like to have more technology than the three computer stations they can now offer the public.

Andrews said they currently lease space for family services cases in Dover, noting again how inefficient that is for families.

"Our operational efficiency is a challenge overall," Lineberry said. "We do not have a conference room by the courtroom so clients can meet with their attorney. We have some space downstairs we can use, but we also use that for files. There are paper files we cannot destroy and they have to be kept somewhere."

This article originally appeared on Fosters Daily Democrat: Design work approved for new Rochester NH District Court