The courts may have been pleased — and the leaders of the local court system were certainly pleased — when Alamance County Commissioners on Monday approved a long-planned expansion of the county’s main criminal court building.

During a regularly scheduled evening meeting, the county Board of Trustees agreed to move forward with a plan to renovate and expand the Judge JB Allen, Jr. Courthouse – at an estimated cost of $37 million to county taxpayers.

This project, which the Commissioners ultimately approved by a 4:1 majority, is a significantly watered-down version of a much more ambitious proposal that was first presented to the Commissioners two years ago.

Commissioners initially rejected that plan because it was estimated to cost $99 million. They were also hesitant to approve a “right-scale” alternative that would still have cost the county between $60 and $70 million.

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Under the current $37 million proposal, the county would spend $10 million to renovate the current criminal court facility. In the meantime, it would begin construction on a three-story building with four additional courtrooms and 9,000 square feet of office space in an area west of the existing building that currently occupies a parking lot.

Once that facility is completed, the county may be able to reclaim parts or all of the civil courthouse building that currently adjoins its headquarters – although some of the commissioners expressed concern about the potential loss of the three courtrooms in the civil courthouse to the court system.

In the end, a majority of commissioners agreed to move forward with the project, ending a debate about the space needs of the local court system that had dragged on for more than two years.

“This is a reasonable response to a necessary request,” said Commissioner Craig Turner, summing up the prevailing mood on the board. “It’s something we’ve been putting off for two years. I don’t like spending additional revenue, but I don’t see a way out.”

To cover the expected cost of this project, commissioners had already set aside $10 million from the county’s capital reserves. During their discussion Monday, they agreed to add another $5 million from those reserves, leaving another $22 million to be financed through a 20-year bank loan.

The county finance department estimates that the county will need to implement a property tax increase of .89 cents over two years to repay this loan. This projected tax increase is about one-fifth of a cent less than the finance department’s original projection assuming the county would only contribute $10 million from its capital reserves for this project. Despite some measured objections from staff, Turner pushed for the addition of an additional $5 million from the capital reserves to reduce the overall impact of the proposed bank loan on the property tax rate.

A majority of commissioners approved the $37 million proposal Monday, preferring a competing two-story option that would cost an estimated $28 million. Commissioners had already considered both options at a meeting earlier this month, but that ended without a final decision on the court system’s long-term space needs.

Commissioners had also flirted with other proposals during that earlier meeting that would have required them to give some of the county’s offices in Graham to the court system and house its operations in county-owned buildings in Burlington or in privately owned buildings that would have to be purchased.

Commissioners did not consider any of those space-displacement options on Monday, nor were they ultimately willing to accept a two-story expansion — despite reducing costs by $9 million and reducing the expected tax impact of the bank loan to about half a cent on the tax rate.

John Paisley Jr., chairman of the Alamance County District Commission, was particularly critical of the two-story variant, despite the associated cost savings for taxpayers.

“I’m trying to save taxpayers’ money,” Paisley explained before making a motion in favor of the three-story option. “But at the same time, when it’s necessary, you have to spend money… and the longer we delay that decision, the more it’s going to cost us.”

Paisley’s motion was ultimately seconded by Turner before passing on a 4-1 vote, with the additional support of Commissioners Bill Lashley and Steve Carter, vice chairman of the Alamance County Commissioners. Commissioner Pam Thompson cast the lone dissenting vote, for reasons she did not elaborate on at the time.

This move by the county board ultimately resulted in a favorable ruling by Tom Lambeth, the outgoing senior judge in the county’s Supreme Court.

“We want to thank you all because this is much needed and you have had the foresight to do this,” Lambeth said, before adding a few words about his impending departure from the Supreme Court bench. “I retire in six weeks – on October 1st – so this will be an addition that I cannot enjoy except as a tax-paying citizen.”