Officials choose design for $3.4M courthouse

Commissioners approved the $150,000 property purchase Wednesday.
By NORMAN LEIGH
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
LISBON -- Columbiana County officials have chosen a colonial design for a new county municipal courthouse that's expected to cost about $3.4 million.
Architectural drawings for the nearly 22,600-square-foot brick building were displayed Wednesday during the county commissioners' weekly meeting.
During the session, commissioners approved the $150,000 purchase agreement for the 3-acre site on which the one-story structure is to be built. The location is just north of Saltwell Road in Center Township.
County officials are seeking to have the property annexed into Lisbon so the building can receive village water and sewer.
Design
The building, designed by Hanahan, Strollo & amp; Associates, Columbiana, includes two courtrooms, offices and space for the county clerk of courts' title department, which will move from its storefront location on South Market Street.
Drive-through windows will be included in the building to make paying fines more convenient.
In front of the building will be a parking lot with 60 spaces allocated for the public.
Security arrangements include special holding rooms for prisoners, and a vehicle door in the back of the building so that prisoners can be driven inside.
Construction could start as early as fall and be completed by December 2004, Terry McCoy, senior vice president at Hanahan, Strollo said.
The new courthouse will allow the municipal court to combine operations now housed in three storefront courts in Salem, Lisbon and East Palestine.
The new arrangement is expected to be more efficient and cost-effective, county officials have said.
The new courthouse will not replace the county's 19th century courthouse in downtown Lisbon. That historical building houses the county's common pleas court, and the offices of commissioners and other county departments.
To pay for the new courthouse, the county is relying on fees paid by defendants in criminal and traffic cases.
"The people who use it are going to be the ones who pay for it," said Judge Mark Frost, one of the municipal court judges. The other is Judge Robert Roberts.