I have been reading the various
information and opinions about what to do about the County Courthouse in
Staunton. There has been a lot of talk in the News Leader, on Facebook, and
around the community. From what I have seen, the back and forth between Augusta
County and the City of Staunton have appeared to be filled with facts and data,
but there also seem to be other things under that surface: an odd mixture of
resentments, competition, envy, even some macho posturing. I’ve been here 16
years but I have a feeling that some of this goes back a lot further than that.
The problem is, this issue is too serious to be just a pawn in those kinds of
silly games.
There is no doubt that the Courthouse
complex as it is can’t work for much longer. It’s overcrowded and hasn’t been
maintained or upgraded properly for years. But it’s equally true that the
Courthouse isn’t just a building. It is something much more, something that
contains powerful cultural, historical, and architectural symbolism for the
city, the county, and the region. This kind of symbolism can’t just be moved.
It is integral with its surroundings, its place.
The courts have been in this location
since the beginning of Staunton’s settlement in the eighteenth century. The
city has grown around it since that time, with more than one version occupying
the site. The current Circuit Courthouse was designed by T. J. Collins and is
114 years old. The District Courts building across the street is also
architecturally significant, though it too has been neglected and damaged by
poor maintenance choices. The courts are a part of the life of downtown
Staunton with a web of law offices and other businesses that are connected to
them in many different ways. The fact that the buildings are being used for what
they were meant for is critical to their impact and their meaning.
If the courts are pulled out of downtown,
what is left will be a few pretty structures, but the heart and the life of
them will be damaged forever, and what was lost will not be replicated in
Verona. Think about what the Government Center is like when you go there now.
Is there any heart and soul? There are functional generic spaces with no
cultural or architectural significance whatsoever. This is the future for the
courts if they are moved there. The project will go to the lowest bidder and
the result will be utterly forgettable. No one will come to Verona to see the
architecture of the courthouse. The money will never be spent to create
something of that caliber. Even if it was, there isn’t any context to the site
to support it. Something as architecturally significant as the existing
courthouse would be utterly out o place at the Government Center.
That web of life that exists in downtown
Staunton will not be replicated in Verona either. It is possible that some
legal offices might move, but the restaurants and other businesses that thrive
in part due to the patronage of those offices downtown won’t move-they can’t
survive on that traffic alone. So the result will be that Verona and the county
won’t gain much business from the move, and back in downtown Staunton, those
businesses may lose some of their income and be weaker as a result. This is bad
news for everyone.
These buildings are also part of the
attraction of Staunton and Augusta County to people from elsewhere who come to
visit, and who come to live here. The architecture of the courthouse has a life
and story attached to it that transcends its walls. Living in this environment
every day we may forget how rare and beautiful our small town is. But outsiders
notice. The value of our city – its attractiveness as a get-away destination, a
fine maybe-I-could-build-my-life/business-here small town is fragile unless we
do what we can to preserve its soul. The courthouse is the heart of not just
Staunton but the county as well. The two aren’t really separate. They share the
same history and culture.
I don’t reserve my comments just for the
county. Clearly having the courts in Staunton is a benefit, both from a
standpoint of history, architecture, and business. Keeping it there is an
investment in my view just as important as or even more important than other
investments the city makes, such as getting the Stonewall Jackson Conference
Center open downtown, or re-doing the streetscape, or any others one can think
of. I for one, think it is worth the City chipping in some amount of money to
keep it downtown. Sure, 50% is probably asking a bit much, but perhaps 15-20%
is worth it.
So why can’t the county take the original
reply to their offer by the city as an opening negotiation, and come back with
another counter offer? Why does there have to be a forced rush to move the
courts? And why can’t the city come back then with their offer? Perhaps with
some real money to invest, in something critical to downtown? We just get over the
posturing and just sit down and reach a mutual solution. Keep the heart beating
in downtown Staunton. Do it together for all of us, in Staunton and Augusta
County.
Michael C. Brown / Architect
Staunton, VA
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