NOT SO FAST ON THE DEFIANCE COURTHOUSE

A deci­sion on whether or not to pro­ceed any fur­ther with the pro­posed ren­o­va­tion of Defi­ance County’s cour­t­house has been delayed.

Offi­cials had planned to decide dur­ing county com­mis­sion­ers meet­ing Thurs­day on whether to allow a Colum­bus archi­tec­tural firm to con­tinue with the project. That deci­sion was to have been based on floor plan revi­sions made in the last two weeks by the design firm for the building’s sec­ond and third floors.

But those sug­ges­tions did not sat­isfy county offi­cials, so more time will be allot­ted to come up with an accept­able plan.

Some con­cerns focused on the sec­ond and third floors where the juvenile/probate court and the com­mon pleas court, respec­tively, will be located.

The cen­ter of the con­cern revolves around the fact that bring­ing inmates to a hear­ing room for video arraign­ments on the sec­ond floor would still require that they cross a pub­lic cor­ri­dor.

Another issue with the sec­ond floor is that — like the first floor, but unlike the third floor — it has load-bearing wall­sthat reduce the floor plan options.

The esti­mated project cost when com­pleted is right around $4.6 million.