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Date: 4/13/2022
SPRINGFIELD – After years during which local justice officials detailed the health problems posed by the Roderick Ireland Courthouse, the Executive Office of the Trial Court is undertaking a feasibility study for a new courthouse.
In a letter dated April 4, Carol Gladstone, commissioner of Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance (DCAMM), notified the Trial Court of the intent of studying the possibility of building a new courthouse.
Gladstone wrote, “DCAMM is procuring an architect to design plans for the comprehensive rehabilitation and renovation of building systems and interior spaces in the existing Roderick Ireland Courthouse as laid out in the building conditions assessment report released on February 24, 2022. Responses to the [request for proposals] are due to the Designer Select Board by April 13, 2022.
“To ensure that any decision regarding next steps for the Court Complex is thoroughly vetted, in addition to the two projects laid out above, DCAMM plans to procure a consultant to undertake a site assessment and feasibility study of constructing a new Court Complex.
“The site assessment and feasibility study will be conducted in two parts. First, DCAMM, in partnership with the Trial Court, will conduct a site assessment to compile and review both private and public owned sites within the jurisdiction of the Court Complex. From the list of possible sites identified in the assessment, the Trial Court and DCAMM will select a preferred site. Once a preferred site is selected DCAMM will conduct a feasibility/testing study of the preferred site.
“The first step in starting the site assessment and feasibility study is for the Trial Court to identify the criteria for the site evaluation. After development of the criteria, DCAMM’s consultant will begin the site assessment.”
According to Chris Lisinski of the State House News Service, “Gov. Charlie Baker last month said he was concerned about the courthouse – named for retired Supreme Judicial Court Justice and Springfield native Roderick Ireland, who was the top court’s first African-American chief justice – but stopped short of calling for its closure.”
The news was greeted by Hampden Country Nick Cocci who issued the following statement: “I am pleased that the commonwealth is taking the first step toward consideration of a new courthouse in Springfield. I am hopeful that as the process unfolds, it will make as much fiscal sense as it does common sense to construct a new building that provides a healthy environment for the pursuit of justice in Western Massachusetts.”
Robert Rizzuto, senior public information officer for the Hampden County Sheriff’s Department, explained to Reminder Publishing how the department is handling court appearances. “The Hampden County Sheriff’s Office is conducting all court proceedings remotely unless the court orders a justice-involved individual to appear in person. If that is the case, we have an arrangement with the judges where we bring the person straight to the courtroom for their hearing and remove them from the building immediately afterward unless, of course, they are released by the court. The process is set up to limit the time our inmates and staff spend in the building while still ensuring that the pursuit of justice continues uninterrupted. We have an understanding that under no circumstances will someone in our custody be brought to the court lock-up in the basement where the same cancer-causing mold was found that also exists in high concentrations in the former chambers of the late judges Robert Kumor and William Boyle,” he said.
James Lydon of the Hampden County District Attorney office told Reminder Publishing, “The DA began a process, after he evacuated his staff late last summer, to move all of his staff permanently to office space in Tower Square. That process is just about finished. Members of the office continue to go to the courthouse to meet our obligations to the public and criminal justice, no one is present in the courthouse on a full-time basis.”