A New Look at the New Jury Plaza recently opened Harris County

HOUSTON, TX (August 8, 2011) Dreading your next jury summons? Most Houstonians do, according to Hon. Chris Daniel, Harris County District Clerk, mostly because of the inconvenience. But Daniel believes that the new Jury Assembly Building is a big step in improving the jury selection process and overall jury duty experience for Harris County residents. Hoar Construction built this unique facility, which welcomed the first prospective jurors on July 5th.

The 33,000 square-foot Jury Assembly Building consumes an entire city block and connects to the four surrounding courthouse buildings and new parking structure via a secure pedestrian tunnel system. The new steel and concrete structure is 85 percent below grade, but maximizes natural light, so the four underground jury assembly rooms are surprisingly illuminated. Project Architect Jeff Bricker of Page Southerland Page described the glass structure and glowing, backlit glass walls as symbolic of “transparency in the judicial system”. Jurors can enter through the glass pavilion at street level, which is surrounded by a beautifully landscaped park, or from the tunnel. The new green space above the jury plaza doubles as a site for approved public events and activities.

Harris County believes the new jury plaza will even improve the long waits that potential jurors experience. The security process has been sped-up with security checkpoints at each of the juror entrances. Inside the jury plaza, prospective jurors enjoy new amenities such as free high-speed wireless internet access and a café.

Building an underground facility in the middle of downtown Houston that is part of the sixth largest judicial complex in America has special challenges. Building below-grade in Houston’s high water table essentially involves putting a bubble around the facility. At the Jury Assembly Building, Hoar wrapped the bottom, top and sides of the building in three separate layers of waterproofing. Several street and sidewalk closures required careful coordination with the City of Houston and Metro to maintain safe pedestrian traffic and special events such as the NCAA Final Four Weekend event.

“Site access and staging is very difficult on this extremely small site. Hoar Construction has done an excellent job in coordinating deliveries, site access/staging, and subcontractor scheduling,” Peter McDaniel, Manager of Construction for Harris County Public Infrastructure Department said. “The team was genuinely concerned about the success of this project no matter what challenges they encountered.”

Hoar crews had to creatively yet safely devise new ways to work underground and lower building materials into the jobsite. It took 12 full eight-hour days to lower enough drywall into the pit to complete the project. Hoar had to relocate the underground piping for the air conditioning system, which involved a scheduled shut-down of the Harris County Central Plant. Because the plant powers (and cools) several courthouses and the downtown jail, Hoar had to plan and schedule installation of temporary spot coolers for employees and inmates during shut-downs of the surrounding buildings.

Hoar recently topped out on Royce and Pam Money Student Recreation and Wellness Center, Abilene Christian University; Fleming Teaching Laboratory, University of Houston and Bringle Lake Village student housing facility, Texas A&M University – Texarkana. Other Hoar projects underway across Texas include Hendrick Medical Center, Abilene; HealthSouth, Cypress; and River Oaks Medical Center, Houston.