Justice center building earns award

The Sweetwater County Justice Center was recently selected for a design award for its innovative and functional design.

The justice center was designed to house two Third Circuit Courts, the Sweetwater County Sheriff's Department, Sweetwater County attorney's department and the Wyoming public defenders' offices.

"It brought everything into one location," Sweetwater County Facilities Director Chuck Radosevich said.

The success of the justice center has earned a BEST Award from the International Interior Design Association Intermountain Chapter in the "Serve" category. BEST stands for "Brilliantly Executed Spaces and Thinking."

Radosevich said this was a way to fit as many county services as possible in one facility. In order to make something like this happen all of the key players, including the judges, attorneys and deputies had to unify.

"Everybody worked together," Radosevich said. "To me, it was the largest group effort."

The justice center was also recognized for its design, which utilized locally-sourced, beetle-kill pine throughout the facility. The exterior brick cladding echoes the nearby buttes and mesas and Wyoming snow fences were reused as board framework for the concrete site walls, which will help protect the facility from a car attack, a press release states.

EDA of Salt Lake City designed the justice center and it was constructed by Groathouse Construction of Cody. Several Sweetwater County contractors contributed to the success of the project.

"There was some stiff competition, but I think this project really merited the award," EDA architect Tom Brennan said.

He said there were a lot more entrants in this particular category than in year's past and the competition for the award was tough. EDA had worked on other projects for the county and was ready for the challenge.

One of the biggest challenges of the project was involving all of the stakeholders and ensuring their needs were met.

"They saw the larger vision and worked together in a fantastic fashion," Brennan said. "This entire group really understood they needed to pull together or nothing was going to happen."

Brennan said one of the stakeholders were the Sweetwater County Commissioners who worked to make the project a reality.

Commission Chairman Wally Johnson said the project started a long time ago when the Wyoming Chief Justice at the time was visiting the county and told county representatives the current facilities were inadequate for the county court's needs. The planning for the project began and eventually EDA was selected as the architect.

"They've done prior work for us and I knew they would do a good job," Johnson said. "I'm extremely pleased with the final project. I think it's the best in Wyoming."

Johnson said this is a facility the county can really be proud of. Not only is it beautiful, but functional. Its opening took pressure off of the Sweetwater County Courthouse and Third District Courts so that building could undergo needed renovations to address the employees' needs.

"I'm extremely proud of it," he said "I was just part of the team to help get it done."