A new Annex building and new West Entrance were an addition to the existing Lee County Courthouse. These buildings were a combined total of over 37,000 square feet in additions for this beautiful Historic courthouse. The courthouse is sitting on a three-acre site in the downtown Historical District of Opelika Alabama.
Site work included the demolition of an existing house and a portion of the existing courthouse to make room for the new buildings. A large sitework package 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. All phases of work for this project were completed while keeping the existing courthouse facility in use.
The Annex building construction consisted of concrete foundations, structural steel skeleton, metal studs, brick veneer, cast stone and EIFS finishing the exterior walls. Elevated floors and two stair towers were constructed of poured concrete. Interior construction includes a large record storage area for archived municipal and county records. It has a large public lobby on the main floor with Carlan counters, TIie and Terrazzo floors, Ornate Millwork and trim throughout for the clerical staff and county residents. Also, it has numerous office spaces around the perimeter of the main floor with aluminum storefront to provide abundant natural lighting. The space around the exterior of this floor consists of private offices for the supervisory staff to conduct their everyday business activities. The third floor is mostly dedicated to the departments of Appraisal, Revenue, Area Mapping, and record-keeping staff with similar finishes throughout. New Security, Fire Alarm and Fire Suppression systems were installed throughout all buildings.
The new West Entrance is adjoined to the new Annex building 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 stair from the first floor to the second floor as an optional means of accessing the second floor. It also has an elevator installed for easy access for the upper floors. At the main entrance, there are four 30-foot fiberglass columns with their capital and bases sitting along a forty-foot-wide front porch. This new West Entrance fa ade consisted of precast stone, brick veneer and a pre-finished aluminum soffit system to match the east entrance.
New sidewalks with ramps at entrances including almost 700 feet of powder coated fence and handrails were also included to achieve ADA compliance. There was a dedicated vehicle inspection canopy also constructed on this site for accessibility of the staff as well 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 landscaping package also included in this project to blend it In with the surrounding properties as well.
