A Welcoming Beacon

When it’s lit up at night, the Dan M. Russell Jr. United States Federal Courthouse in Gulfport, Miss., looks like a welcoming beacon, brighter even than the casinos that dot the landscape further down the coastline. That description was offered by architect Robert Kliment, the project’s lead designer and a partner at R.M. Kliment & Frances Halsband Architects. The eight-story courthouse is sited just yards from the Gulf of Mexico, but the beacon signals more of a change to Gulfport’s central business district than having anything to do with the harbor located just opposite the building.

The $52 million courthouse was a General Services Administration (GSA) project, built through its Design Excellence in Public Architecture program. The idea was to create a modern, signature building in Gulfport’s central business district-the GSA stipulates the project has to be located within the central business district-that would influence future development.

"We figure the GSA was hoping, and I feel we’ve achieved this, that the placement of the building will encourage the professionalization of the area. Lawyer’s offices and those kinds of things will follow the courthouse," says Kliment. "We see positive consequences on the central business district."

"What we were primarily interested in was bringing the 21st century to downtown Gulfport," says Judge Walter J. Gex III, the chief district judge and the chair of the courthouse building committee. "The real purpose is to upgrade and jump start the redevelopment of the central business district, which it’s done."

Courthouse Site

Located on the edge of the business district, in what Kliment calls an up-and-coming area, the 220,600-square-foot courthouse is bordered on the east by a densely landscaped neighborhood of small, low-rise houses built in the 1920s and 30s, which is inline to become a historic district. "On the west side is a car dealership and it’s not very nice right now," says Kliment, but two blocks further west, toward the center of the business district, on the same street that runs in front of the courthouse, is the town hall, the fire station, and the police station. The new courthouse sits on a civic street. The water views are on the building’s south side.

"I’m sitting here in my chambers looking out over the yacht club harbor and out to the Barrier Islands. I can see probably from the middle of Ship Island, which is some six to eight miles out, all the way to the western border of Mississippi," enthuses Judge Gex. "It’s awesome."

It was never guaranteed, however, that the new courthouse would use this choice site. When asked about the site selection process, Judge Gex doesn’t hold back when he responds, "Oh, God. It was awful." Robert Kliment is more diplomatic. "I wouldn’t say it was a problem, I’d say it wasn’t completely clear at the beginning."

Site selection was the GSA’s responsibility and they seriously considered three different sites. "All three sites required different designs so that’s what’s so frustrating, particularly for the architects," says Judge Gex. "And, it’s extremely difficult for the peer review committee because at each stage the architect has to present it to the committee, which we were part of, and the committee would have to approve the design, and then it would have to go to the GSA for final approval. There are just so many approvals you have to get and, until the final stamp is put on it in [Washington] D.C., it doesn’t mean a thing," Judge Gex explains.

Once the final site was selected, it presented the architects with another challenge: an abandoned school occupied the site and because it was a historical structure, it could not be torn down. Not that the architects wanted to. Integrating the school building into the final design was a "no-brainer" according to Kliment. "The school had a lot of historical significance and was really quite a beautiful building. It represented a very good example of 1920s architecture," he says. Additionally, a lot of people involved in the courthouse project once attended the old high school or had family members who did. Judge Dan M. Russell Jr., after whom the courthouse is named and still an active judge, attended that high school in the 1930s, Kliment reports.

Design and Construction

Reusing the high school significantly altered the courthouse plan, which was to have been a single, taller tower that housed all agencies and courts. "It became an integral part of the project," says Kliment of the old high school. "A consequence of the GSA finding this site was that we could use the high school as an element of the design. The high school sort of forms a courthouse square that comes off the street. On the east side you have the full elevation of the old school and ahead of you you have the elevation of the new building. They work against each other to form a public space," explains Kliment. "It’s a very elegant site plan because of the way it connects to the main street and down to the harbor. The preservation of the high school and its relationship to the courthouse makes all that click into place."

The school’s structure was sound so most changes were cosmetic, including new windows based on the school’s original drawings. The interior was gutted and the central assembly hall was taken out to create an atrium. Housed within the building are the U.S. Attorney’s office and the U.S. Probation office, two departments that have a lot of off-the-street traffic.

In contrast to the high school’s red brick walls, the courthouse tower has a beige precast concrete exterior that’s punctuated by large expanses of glass.

"I would say [the building] is a very clear expression of its function and program," says Kliment. "By that, I mean the basic block of the building is very simple and very secure looking, very stable. It looks like a solid element," he says. "The exceptions to that are the glazed areas. The glazed areas are in the court’s waiting areas, the judges chambers have folded out bay windows, and the jury deliberation rooms on the north side have projecting bay windows," Kliment says. "The courthouse represents security and it also represents the transparency of the principle components of the judicial system, which are the public, the judges, the jury, and the courtrooms," he says. "They erupt out of that basic, secure block."

The building’s abundant glazing does more than just frame views, they fill the interior with natural light.

"We had this idea that there had to be natural light in every space that the justice system engaged the public," explains Kliment.

All courtrooms have clerestory windows opening to light-filled hallways, and the courtrooms on the tower’s top-most floor, occupied by the senior district judge and the senior magistrate judge, have skylights.

It might seem unusual to have a district court occupy the same floor as a magistrate court, but the building’s layout is, according to Kliment, counter to any courthouse he’s aware of.

"For a number of reasons-formal, functional, structural, economic-we suggested that instead of having all the district courts on top and the bankruptcy and magistrate courts below them, that they might want to consider having a district court on the same floor as the magistrate court so that one is bigger than the other," Kliment explains. "The stacking of the floor plan works out better because you have the same plan stacked four times as opposed to two big floors and two smaller floors."

Because the layout was so different from what the GSA typically sees, the department gave the committee extra time to "sleep" on the idea, but the response was overwhelmingly positive. "The judges felt it was a good reflection of the way they worked with each other, mainly that they’re all one communicating family," explains Kilment. Courtrooms, finished in either mahogany or pecan woods, currently occupy floors five through eight, but to accommodate future expansion, the fourth floor is designed to convert into courtroom space-the building is also designed to accommodate additional expansion on its north side. The U.S. Marshals Service is the third floor’s principle occupant but the circuit library and GSA are also located there. Bankruptcy has the second floor.

The first floor, with the public entrance and lobby, is designed to be a welcoming space, but it’s also a secure one. A columned entrance portico juts out from the main building and acts as the "free zone," meaning that there’s no building above it; the tower’s eight floors are stepped back and included within the secure zone. If someone wanted to do damage to the building above, that person would have to get past all the security equipment further in the building’s interior. Kliment refers to the "free zone" as expendable, sacrificial space.

Making the entrance and lobby area welcoming is the fact that the security equipment is installed behind architectural security screens, designed by New York artist Michelle Oka Doner. The GSA budgets money for an Art in Architecture program, allowing the commissioning of courthouse artwork. Kliment chose Michelle Oka Doner because he liked her use of texture and finished screen made with castings. "We liked the idea of having this screen that is transparent but stops people; it doesn’t block the view and is quite beautiful to look at and absorbs the magnetometers as an element in the opening in the gate," says Kliment. The artist also added a seafoam green wave pattern to the terrazzo floors to add texture to an otherwise plain floor and to further connect the building to the Gulf waters.

Budget Considerations

As with many civic projects, the finished building written about here started out differently, trying to conform to the GSA’s original $36 million budget.

"Most architects know the benchmark funding is low and they know the GSA it going to pound the architect for the best job they can get," says Judge Gex. "They design a magnificent facility, put it out to bid, and it comes back 20 percent over budget. Then you have to start whittling."

The team started to value engineer the building, taking out things where there’s a comparable method or product that’s less expensive. Of course, when you start taking items away, it’s hard to then add items from the committee’s "wish list." The team went back to the GSA, telling them they can build the courthouse at a certain budget, but to get the best-designed 21st century courthouse they wanted, they required additional funding.

"We were completely funded when we went back and asked for the wish-list items," says Judge Gex. "We really spent an awful lot of time and effort value engineering and we cut back substantially and made a good faith effort to try and come within budget," he says. "I think they felt we had done our due diligence and we really needed to be funded correctly."

Some of the 12 or so wish list items included a larger granite skirt around the base of the building-it was value engineered down to a three-foot high skirt that Judge Gex thought looked like a hangnail on the eight-story tower. They were also able to laser cut simple designs into the I beams to make them appear more architectural. A lot of the landscaping that was value engineered out was added back in. "A great deal were functional, not just pretty items or show-and-tell," Judge Gex says of the wish-list items. "They were things that we wanted because they added to the building."

Worth the Wait

The courthouse project was a long time in the making, Judge Gex says it was almost 11 years since he first met with the GSA until he walked into the courthouse. The first "full steam ahead" meeting, as he calls it, was in 1996, but there were still delays along the way. "You do all the work, you get right up to the point and they don’t fund you or they stop funding courthouses for a two-year period. That’s like running all day and getting shot at sundown," Judge Gex says. Despite the delays, the doors opened on November 15, 2003, and Judge Gex is thrilled about the finished courthouse. "It’s unbelievable. I will be in this structure until I die-that’s how I feel about it. It’s a pleasure to come to work."

PROJECT DATA

Dan M. Russell Jr. United States Federal Courthouse,
Gulfport, Miss.

Owner: U.S. General Services Administration
Architect: R.M. Kliment & Frances Halsband Architects in joint venture with Canizaro Cawthon Davis

Structural Engineer: Spencer-Engineers Inc.
Mechanical Engineer: Eldridge & Associates PA
Electrical Engineer: Watkins & O’Gwynn PA
General Contractor: Roy Anderson Corp.
Construction Manager: Jacobs Facilities Inc.
Detention Equipment Contractor: The G-S Company
Lighting Designer: Oxford Lighting

Consultant
Acoustician: Shen Milsom & Wilke
Court Consultant: Ricci Greene

Associates
Civil Engineers: Brown & Mitchell Inc.
Geotechnical Engineering: Ware Lind Furlow/Aquaterra Engineering
Security: Kroll Security Services Group
Blast Consultants: Weidlinger Associates, Consulting Engineers
HazMat Abatement: Environmental Management Plus Inc.
Landscape Architect: Weatherford/McDade Ltd.
Signage/Wayfinding: 212.Harakawa Inc.
Curtainwall: R.A. Heintges Architects Consultants
 

PRODUCT DATA

Card Access: ADT
CCTV: ADT
Custom Stainless Equipment: The G-S Company
Detention Accessories: The G-S Company
Intercom: ADT
Person Card System: ADT
Pneumatic Tube System: ComCo
Sally Port/Doors: Independent Steel
Security Ceiling System: Environmental Interiors
Security Cell Doors: The G-S Company
Security Cell Lighting: Kenall
Security Glazing: Globe
Security Locks: Folger-Adams
Security Penal Plumbing: Acorn
Security Screens: The G-S Company
Security Systems: ADT
Security Windows: Independent Steel