Colorado Supreme Court Gets Grand New Home

DENVER (CN) - The Colorado Supreme Court will reopen Wednesday in a new downtown building flanked by the public library and the city's top art museum.

The Ralph L. Carr Colorado Judicial Center will also house the Colorado Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court Law Library.

The complex is named for Colorado's 29th governor, who served from 1939 to 1943. He made headlines then for opposing the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

The attorney general's office will move into the 697,767-square-foot neoclassical behemoth in January. Court administrators say the building has an expected life of 100 years.

The courthouse building occupies 204,800 square feet of the complex. Administrators and staffers will occupy a 491,000-square-foot, 12-story adjacent building that also houses a 2,000-square-foot data center and an 11,500-square-foot conference center.

Another 3,800 square-feet will contain an "educational civics learning center, which will be open to the public to learn about the Colorado and federal court systems," Colorado's Judicial Branch said in a statement.

The state Senate in 2008 approved $258 million for judicial branch construction after two studies reported "severely inadequate" conditions at venues scattered throughout downtown.

The Colorado Supreme Court has operated out of temporary housing in a nearby office building since early 2010.

Construction was financed in part using Build America Bonds, federal subsidies rolled out as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The project created 3,000 jobs and was paid for through court fees and reallocated rent revenue from state agencies that otherwise would have been paid to private sector office buildings, court administrators said in a fact sheet.

The center was designed by Fentress Architects, which also drew the plans for the well-known "peaked roof" at Denver International Airport's Jeppesen Terminal.

It exceeds energy efficiency standards by 30 percent and includes a green roof to filter rain water, and a "daylight harvesting illumination system," court administrators said.

Deadlines for filings in the state Supreme Court or Court of Appeals on Dec. 17 and 18 have been automatically extended to Dec. 19.

The new address for the Office of the State Court Administrator is 1300 Broadway, Suite 1200, Denver, CO 80203. The new phone number for the Office of the State Court Administrator will be 720-625-5000.

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