{"id":1387909,"date":"2025-02-04T04:50:18","date_gmt":"2025-02-04T10:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=1387909"},"modified":"2025-02-05T08:54:25","modified_gmt":"2025-02-05T14:54:25","slug":"van-zandt-co-leaders-plan-to-move-out-of-old-courthouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=1387909","title":{"rendered":"Van Zandt Co. leaders plan to move out of old courthouse"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"EDOM \u2013 Van Zandt County leaders held a townhall to inform residents of their future plans to move out of the current courthouse building. On Monday night, according to our news partner KETK, dozens of residents were able to hear two plans for the county. The first proposed project is to completely move their courthouse operations to a building downtown. The second proposed project is to build a brand-new jail and Sheriff\u2019s office. The county\u2019s current courthouse was built in 1937 and is need of major renovations.<\/p>\n

County Commissioner Brandon Barton said documents and the amount of people living in Van Zandt County has outgrown the 88-year-old building. <\/p>\n

\u201cFrom 2010 to 2020, the county grew at 25% and they\u2019re projecting that for the future also,\u201d said Van Zandt Co. Precinct 4 county commissioner, Brandon Barton said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had water problems, we\u2019ve had leak problems, the walls in the courthouse are crumbling. We\u2019ve run out of space, we have no more room,\u201d Barton said.<\/p>\n

Instead of building a new courthouse from scratch, Barton said purchasing the Paul Michael Company furniture store for $4.2 million is a better alternative.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe found a 100,000 square-foot building there in downtown Canton and we think it\u2019d be a good location and only 73,000 feet would be used at first, so we\u2019ll have 27,000 feet for future expansion,\u201d Barton said.<\/p>\n

The building will be renovated to be the new courthouse. It will cost an additional $19 million to restructure the furniture store into a functioning courthouse. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s estimated that it\u2019ll cost about $19 million to get it like a courthouse. The construction inside as far as security, offices, building, so you combine that it\u2019ll be $24 million. I don\u2019t know where else you can find that, you can\u2019t build one. If you bought that in today\u2019s world you\u2019ll be talking about $100 million,\u201d Barton said.<\/p>\n

The second project is to build a new county jail and sheriff\u2019s office for a combined total of $145 million.<\/p>\n

The 124,814-square-foot jail is estimated to cost $125 million and the sheriff\u2019s office is estimated at $20 million.<\/p>\n

Barton said their current jail should have 198 beds, but they only have 140 beds total. The new proposed jail would be budgeted for 350 beds.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have 140-bed jail. This current bond project is for 350 beds, which would increase the number of inmates that we can take in and also it would decrease the outsourcing that we have we currently have to do with other inmates,\u201d Van Zandt Co. Sheriff Kevin Bridger said. <\/p>\n

Bridger said inmates would be transferred to other agencies like the Henderson County and Kaufman.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis will increase the number of inmates that we can take in and also it would decrease the outsourcing that we have we currently have to do with other inmates,\u201d Bridger said.<\/p>\n

He added the jail is not properly maintained. The jail was built in the 1990\u2019s and the roof leaks, the foundation shifts and there are a lot of structural issues with the jail itself. <\/p>\n

Barton said the jail isn\u2019t built for the type of prisoners they have now. He said now they have a lot of mental patients and more female inmates.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn today\u2019s world, when that was built, it was a different type of prisoner back there and we\u2019re having problems with mental patients now. A lot of females, which we didn\u2019t have that problem in the nineties,\u201d Barton said.<\/p>\n

The 29,144-square-foot sheriff\u2019s office would give all of their divisions adequate space for deputies. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe just converted some space, essentially an oversized closet to an office as well, just to make more space available,\u201d Bridger said.<\/p>\n

The courthouse is under a certificate of obligation which means it would not require voter approval. The citizens can vote if 5% of the public files a petition to do so.<\/p>\n

The jail and sheriff\u2019s office project will be a bond election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EDOM \u2013 Van Zandt County leaders held a townhall to inform residents of their future plans to move out of the current courthouse building. On Monday night, according to our news partner KETK, dozens of residents were able to hear two plans for the county. The first proposed project is to completely move their courthouse … Continue reading Van Zandt Co. leaders plan to move out of old courthouse<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1387911,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2025\/02\/2025-02-04_044931-199x200.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1387909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news-archive-archives"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-10 15:05:06","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2025\/02\/2025-02-04_044931-199x200.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1387909"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387909\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1387912,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387909\/revisions\/1387912"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1387911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1387909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1387909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1387909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}