This new annex and new west entrance buildings were an addition to the existing Lee County Courthouse. These buildings were a combined total of more than 37000 square foot additions for this beautiful historic courthouse. This courthouse is sitting on a three-acre site in the downtown historical district of Opelika Alabama. This site included the demolition of an existing house and a portion of the existing courthouse to make room for the new buildings. A large site work package which included parking lot demolition, relocating existing utilities to the existing courthouse and demolition of large retaining walls. The new annex building is a three-story building with a parking garage on the basement floor and two administrative floors above it. This building consisted of a main three-story structural steel skeletons with metal studs with brick veneer and cast stone making up the exterior walls. Poured concrete elevated floors. It has ample record storage for archived municipal and county records. It has a large public lobby on the main floor with spacious counters for the clerical staff to facilitate various kinds of assistance for the county residents. Also, it has numerous office spaces around the perimeter of the main floor with plenty of windows for natural lighting. These spaces around the exterior of this floor is a series of private office spaces for the supervisory staff to conduct their everyday business activities for the county residents. New banks of restrooms were also included that are ADA compliant. It has security, fire alarm and fire suppression systems installed throughout the building. The third floor is mostly dedicated to the departments of the Appraisal, Revenue, Mappers and record keeping staff. The building has concrete stair shafts on each end of the building, also has elevators for each floor. This building is adjoined to the new west entrance by a connector building. This is a one-story building for ingress and egress between the new buildings. The west entrance is a mirror image of the existing east entrance. It has a grand staircase from the first floor to the second floor as an optional mean of accessing the second floor. It also has an elevator installed for easy access to the upper floors. At the main entrance, there are four 30 foot fiberglass columns with their capitol and bases sitting along a forty-foot wide front porch. This new west entrance façade consisted of precast stone, brick veneer and a pre-finished aluminum soffit system to match the east entrance. There was a dedicated vehicle inspection canopy also constructed on this site for accessibility of the staff as swell as the patrons. New parking lots were also constructed at this site, as well as new retaining walls for the elevation changes. There was a large l irrigation and landscaping package included in this project to blend it in with the surrounding properties as well.
