Courtroom renovations complete at Olmsted County Government Center

(ABC 6 News) – On Friday, members of the Olmsted County community came together to show the completed renovations at the Olmsted County Government Center.

These renovations took place on the east side of the fifth floor.

It’s a part of the county’s long term goals of enhancing the facilities to accommodate the community’s growing justice space needs.

ABC 6 News got a tour and to see what a juror will go through.

There’s an assembly room and deliberation room.

It’s all connected right to the new courtroom that will accommodate felony cases.

Before this new space, jurors would meet in one of the buildings courtrooms spaces.

Alex Schrader, the capital projects supervisor with Olmsted County, says what’s been done will help the overall workflow.

“With population growing, we were seeing an increase in court filings, that really started the project to look at the government center as a justice tower and we knew that adding a felony sized courtroom would be important to be able to serve the county and the district,” Schrader said.

What was completed wasn’t the only project being done here.

Back in February, Dodge and Olmsted County Community Corrections unveiled a new space a part of this government center expansion. The teams who works there now aims to rehabilitate people who have committed crimes.

Both projects total $4.8 million.

Now that the fifth floor is open, this is the last piece of the puzzle needed to complete the government center project.