Officials break ground on Bergen County Justice Center complex in HackensackWednesday September 4, 2013, 5:57 PM
BY JOHN C. ENSSLIN
STAFF WRITER
The Record
Bergen County officials broke ground Wednesday on a new justice center complex in Hackensack that will be the largest public works project in the county’s history with an estimated cost of nearly $115 million.
Bergen County officials break ground on the new justice center next to the old county courthouse. Bergen County Executive Kathleen Donovan, center with shovel. MICHAEL KARAS / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Bergen County officials break ground on the new justice center next to the old county courthouse. Bergen County Executive Kathleen Donovan, center with shovel.
When the entire project is completed in the winter of 2015, it will feature a new six-story building next to the old county jail on what had been a parking lot. That building will house the offices of the prosecutor, sheriff and probation department.
A two-story walkway will connect the new building with the existing 101-year-old County Courthouse, which will undergo a major renovation and will have more room once the sheriff and prosecutor move out.
There also will be a new parking garage with 500 spaces and a covered top deck with a solar array.
“This project has been near and dear to my heart,” said Bergen County Assignment Judge Peter Doyne, who said getting a new courthouse has been his top priority for several years.
During that time, Doyne said he took many county officials on a walking tour of the old building to show them how overcrowded, antiquated and inefficient the facility had become.
Doyne said he was pleased that the project had bipartisan support with all seven freeholders and County Executive Kathleen Donovan supporting it.
“The people of Bergen County deserve a world class facility,” Donovan said after she and a group of officials tossed ceremonial shovels-full of dirt onto the now stripped bare former parking lot.
“One hundred years from now, when a whole new generation of our grandchildren are here, they’re going to say this is a good thing that we did today,” she added.
Donovan thanked several officials for helping with the project, including County Prosecutor John Molinelli, who contributed $7 million in forfeiture funds from his office to get the project started.
Molinelli said the building will be a tribute to the law enforcement officers and prosecutors who handled the cases that led to the seizure of those funds from drug dealers and gang members.
He recalled being in awe of the courthouse as a teenager when his mother used to drop him off to watch trials. But as a prosecutor, Molinelli said he realized how the building had fallen into disrepair.
Public Works Director Joseph Crifasi kidded Molinelli about his contribution to the building’s design, noting that it was the prosecutor’s urging that led to the walkway connecting the two buildings.
Crifisi said the building will have several other unique features. The county fuel pump station will be moved from the parking lot to the former Goldberg slipper factory site on River Street across from the County Jail.
In its place will be a generator plant that will be more efficient that the current building’s power source and will ensure that the county complex does not have to shut down during power outages as it did after Superstorm Sandy.
He said the new complex will also feature a pedestrian alley called “Jail Place” between the old jail and the justice center building. The name is taken from a street name found on old maps of the area.
Email: ensslin@northjersey.com
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