By Douglas R. Sweeney

Elected officials of Rockbridge County and the City of Lexington want six more months to go back to the drawing board on the proposed county courthouse.

Meeting in a special joint session Thursday under intense pressure from a grass-roots rebellion, the county Board of Supervisors and Lexington City Council agreed to ask for a six-month extension on the court-imposed deadline that mandates construction begin by June 20.

It is not known how the state court will respond to such a request, nor whether the elected officials face sanctions should they fail to meet the terms of the legal settlement requiring a June 20 groundbreaking.

Members of the two bodies want the extension, they said, because the extra time will let them explore more options, including two that were proposed at the Thursday meeting.

The first option is to hire an architect with a sense of Lexington’s heritage who will help the current architectural firm, BCWH, modify its design for the site at the corner of Randolph and Nelson streets to make it more appropriate for the city. City Attorney Larry Mann said this will slow the project down “no more than a couple of months.”

Supervisor Carroll R. Comstock supported this proposal. “I think we have a design now that is workable,” he said.

The second option was to ask BCWH to redo the plans for the Randolph-Nelson site without consideration for a separate parking deck. BCWH was forced to keep the deck separate in its original design because of a payment agreement between the city and county: Lexington would pay for the parking deck and Rockbridge County would pay for the actual courthouse.

The City Council members and the Rockbridge supervisors think that if this financial agreement is eliminated, BCWH may be able to create a more appropriate and inexpensive design. This option, however, will take more time and money.

The city and county have already spent nearly $3.5 million on the project. A new design could add more than $1 million, according to Tom Higgins, the county engineer and project manager for the planned courthouse.

The decision to request a deadline extension follows several weeks of council meetings and work sessions dealing with the impending deadline as opposition to the modern design grew louder and louder.

The city council, for example, held a work session on Jan. 31 to discuss the city’s Architectural Review Board’s rejection of the proposed design. The council, along with the city manager, seemed at the time to agree that the proposed Randolph-Nelson site was part of the problem.

Initially, the city and county wanted to renovate the courthouse at its current location, Courthouse Square on Main Street. In the past year, however, the county and city have turned their attention to a site on the corner of Randolph and Nelson streets.

“We need to seriously look at the Main Street site again,” said City Council Member Tim Golden. The council had abandoned this idea almost a year ago after the General Assembly approved the Randolph-Nelson site for construction.

The council met again on Feb. 2 with BCWH architect Chuck Wray, who has been working on the Randolph-Nelson Street project from the beginning. Members of the council suggested several ideas for the two proposed sites, including eliminating a courtroom and moving the entire first floor underground. Wray was not dismissive of these suggestions but emphasized that it would take at least nine months before the plans could be modified.

Present at both the Jan. 31 and the Feb. 2 meetings was Peter Hansen, who with his wife Marjorie has formed Lexington Legacy, a petition drive opposing the Randolph-Nelson site design. The couple has circulated a petition that has more than 600 signatures of people who disapprove of Wray’s architectural design.

Most of the group’s attention has been focused on the Randolph-Nelson site design and not on the Courthouse Square proposal. Now that the latter option is being reconsidered, Hansen may have found a design to support. “I would rather see the Main Street renovation proposal,” Hansen said.

Although Lexington Legacy has gained a great deal of support, it has no real power to stop whichever design the elected officials choose.

The courthouse situation will be discussed further on Feb. 16 during the Lexington City Council’s regular meeting.

Produced by Washington and Lee journalism students.

Lead supervisor:      Prof. Claudette Artwick

Reporting supervisor: Prof. Doug Cumming

Editing supervisor:  Prof. Pamela Luecke

Technical supervisor:  Michael Todd