MARTINSVILLE — Remnants of its history remain tucked in nooks and crannies throughout the 169-year-old courthouse, but after a handful of renovations, many are now hidden by insulation, drywall and drop ceilings.
An old cast-iron jail cell — thought to temporarily house inmates of yesteryear on site for court hearings — is now covered by pink insulation.
The outside of a narrow sunken window has been blocked in by a prior renovation, but the heavy, interior iron door — a relic from the “days of posses” — still swings into place.
Large blocks of limestone, bricked in on both sides, are temporarily exposed until the new drywall is put into place. But they will continue to support the two-and-a-half story Italianate-style building whose construction started in 1857 and finished two years later.
The narrow back stairwell in the private judges’ chambers still functions, and will remain in place — albeit with some minor wood repair and a new paint job — amid the new $25 million renovation and addition that started last year.
While the county’s court system has now moved to the new judicial campus, the historic courthouse will remain — albeit in repurposed fashion.
A number of county offices will ultimately call it home, including the assessor’s office, the county surveyor, the planning office, the county treasurer, auditor and recording, as well as the Purdue Extension Office and the Morgan County Soil and Water Conservation District.
But they’ll have to wait another year for the building to be finished.
While much of the second floor has been drywalled, most of the ceilings show exposed HVAC and electrical systems that still need to be finished up. And the first floor is mostly aluminum-framed walls that still need plenty more work before the final inspections.
The courthouse square has been a bustle of activity going back to last summer. Stone masons have been hard at work doing point-and-tuck restoration on the clocktower, and the new 5,000-square-foot addition — which will entail a new ADA-compliant elevator system and restrooms on both floors — has taken shape block by block and brick by brick on the north side of the building.
Will Tiebout, a project manager with Meyer Najem that’s overseeing the construction, said last Friday that he expects the exterior work on the building to finish up in the next few weeks. That means that much of the equipment and materials that have been piled high on site for months will be going away, paving the way for work to begin on the community greenspace that surrounds the building.
New stormwater infrastructure will first get laid and tapped into the sewer system, then the greenspace will begin to take shape. The ground will be getting graded, sidewalks will be constructed, and finishing touches will be installed. The final step will be the landscaping — the plants, the stone borders, the steps, the archway, the Civil War cannons and historic monuments (temporarily housed elsewhere at the moment).
By fall, Tiebout expects most of the grounds to be completed, since winter would otherwise impede those efforts. As for the building itself, Tiebout expects the interior to be ready for the county offices to call it home by the first quarter of 2027.
At that point, Meyer Najem will turn its attention to the county’s current administration building, which is slated to receive a $17 million renovation of its own.
The construction projects are all part of the $72 million bond the county took out to complete a combined four projects in downtown Martinsville, including construction of the new parking lot, the new judicial campus, courthouse remodel, and admin remodel.
