Hall of Justice construction begins; county plans emergency-generator transfer switch and department moves

Savannah Clement, Public Services, updated the County Commissioners' workshop that construction at the Hall of Justice has entered the active phase and several county departments will relocate for the duration of the project.
Clement said "we are officially in construction in the building now. So today was day 1 of actually being in the basement, and starting construction," and that the Department of Emergency Management (DEM) has already moved. She said the clerk's office — identified as “one of our largest departments” — will move out for the project's duration and will not return to its space until May or earlier of next year; superior court administration will move to the first floor. Clement said staff met with court representatives to coordinate moves and communications.
Clement also told commissioners the county needs to install a new transfer switch for the Hall of Justice emergency panel that powers 911, records, the sheriff's 24-hour emergency divisions and other critical systems. She said the transfer-switch work will require a generator-powered items power outage and that staff anticipates scheduling the work in December when there are more shutdown days and lower activity. "It will only be power off to our emergency generator powered items," she said; staff plans a communications campaign about the outage.
Clement described other logistics: staff will label and map power sources to avoid unintentional outages (she described an earlier instance where a cafe and a third-floor jail heating/cooling unit were on the same panel), and departments are expressing interest in temporary “hoteling” space in an annex building; Clement said the county is pausing moves into the annex for now and tentatively recommending no moves before June 2026 while the project continues.
Why it matters: The moves and the planned transfer-switch work affect essential services (911, sheriff operations, court functions) and require coordination with IT and emergency management to maintain communications and continuity. The county will notify staff and the public as plans solidify.
Discussion vs. direction vs. decision: The workshop heard a status update (discussion), staff described required engineering work and a proposed December outage window (direction/implementation planning), and commissioners gave no formal vote. Staff said they will coordinate Alertus/IT for employee emergency communications and that they will limit move-in to the annex until the project end date the board sets.
Ending: Clement said staff will continue coordination with IT and DEM, will pursue labeling of power sources to avoid future surprises, and will return with further scheduling and communications as the project progresses.