Chunky, leaky federal courthouse in Fort Lauderdale undergoing $865,000 makeover to fix cracks, flaking concrete
No, the blocky modernist Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale isn’t falling down, even though it looks like a maze of scaffolding is supporting the columns that hold up the front.
The building at 299 East Broward Blvd., which was constructed during the early 1980s and has been plagued by flooding and lack of space, is undergoing $865,000 in upkeep “to address various concrete maintenance repairs, indicative of the building’s age and construction,” said William Powell spokesman for the U.S. General Services Administration, which oversees all federal construction and repair projects in the country.
The scaffolding is temporary “to facilitate the repairs,” he said.
The building consists of reinforced concrete framing, masonry partition walls and an aluminum and glass storefront system as its exterior envelope.
Powell said the project’s “substantial completion” is scheduled for May 2022.
“There have not been any impacts to court operations at this time,” he said,
But visitors do have to squeeze their way through narrow temporary passageways to make their way up the steps and into the courthouse.
Few members of the legal community who toil in the building are fans of the structure.
Critics have long argued It lacks sufficient space for court business, with much of the square footage allocated to a courtyard and an oft-malfunctioning fountain in the front. The basement is also subject to flooding during South Florida’s rainy season.
“Everybody remembers that video of it raining in Judge [Lurana] Snow’s courtroom,” Laurel M. Isicoff, chief of the Southern District of Florida’s U.S. Bankruptcy Court, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel in January. “Because of mold problems we’ve had times where the district court clerk’s office has been in the bankruptcy court clerk’s office.”
If a repair bill approaching $1 million sounds expensive, it’s probably a small price to buy time between now and 2026, when a new federal courthouse is scheduled to open its doors on the south side of the New River.
After years of lobbying by South Florida area public and private sector officials, Congress allocated $191 million for new digs in 2018.
For the tab, taxpayers would get the following, according to a GSA website:
Twelve courtrooms and 17 judges’ chambers
Space for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, which is based in Atlanta and covers Florida, Georgia and Alabama.
Space for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court. Two of the Southern District’s bankruptcy judges preside in Fort Lauderdale
Offices for the U.S. Marshals Service, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the U.S. Probation Office
No word of a fountain, though.
