Cleburne Times Review
413th District Court Judge Bill Bosworth and Alan Magee, president of Magee Architects, spoke on the subject.
The Guinn houses district courts, county courts at law and other county offices.
The Johnson County Commissioners Court purchased the building, the former home of Cleburne High School, in 2001.
After renovations were completed, many county offices relocated to the Guinn during the renovation of the Johnson County Courthouse.
The courts and several other county offices remained at the Guinn after the courthouse renovations were complete.
The next challenge involves planning for the future expansion of area court operations and keeping those operations centrally located, Bosworth said.
“We want to make sure the growth [of the court system] makes sense and that we can keep the court system in its current location for the next 30 or so years,” Bosworth said.
Magee agreed.
“When we designed the Guinn in 2001, it presented an opportunity to save one of the old landmarks in town,” Magee said. “As the county becomes more urbanized, and with the coming of Texas 121, it means more people moving in, which means there will be a need for more courts in the future. For that reason, we wanted to look at ideas that will allow the county to centralize the court system and allow it to remain downtown.”
Space remains available in the Guinn for expansion should more courts be needed in the short term, Magee said.
The goal now is to determine the needs of the court system in 20 to 25 years, he said.
Johnson County officials hope to avoid outgrowing their court facilities and being stuck with no room to expand, Bosworth said, a situation he said has forced other counties to have to start over and move, or split up, their court buildings.
To that end, the county has purchased adjacent land around the Guinn. Several buildings and homes have been demolished and space cleared.
Although the county has no immediate plans to build, the recently acquired land provides space to grow when the need arises, Magee said.
“We’re also looking into the green aspect, looking at, over the next 15 years or so, adding walking trails and trees to tie the area into the Buffalo Creek area and similar plans being discussed for downtown Cleburne,” he said.
The county already owns the land, Bosworth said.
Royalty money from mineral leases that the county has an interest in, not taxpayer money, paid for the land, Commissioner John Matthews said in a phone interview on Friday.
Bosworth said paying for future projects will be a decision of the commissioner’s court.
“There’s no construction or buildings planned right now, and probably won’t be for 15 or 20 years. The important thing now is that we have the room to grow for when we need it down the road,” he said.
Magee presented a mock-up display of future possible buildings and an overview of Guinn Justice Center campus possibilities.
The next project, something county commissioners have discussed for some time, involves securing a new location for the Johnson County Adult Probation offices, Bosworth said.
Probation officials are housed in multiple locations, all of which are overcrowded, Bosworth said.
Commissioners have long wished to move probation staff from their main location on South Main Street in downtown Cleburne and sell that building to put it back on the tax rolls.
One possibility under consideration is a building owned by Cleburne ISD known as the Brown Gym, which is located near the Guinn Justice Center property.
A final decision on where to locate the new probation office has not been determined.
Salaries for probation officers derive from state funding and from fees collected from probationers, Bosworth said.
Individual counties are charged with the cost of providing them a building and utilities.