PROJECT PROFILE
Johnson County Courthouse
Location: Olathe, KS
General Contractor: JE Dunn
Johnson County, Kansas, includes 20 cities, six public school districts and seven townships. It covers 477 square miles and is the most populous county in the state of Kansas. In fact, the population has increased ten fold over the last 69 years. In 1952 when the first official Johnson County courthouse was built, the facility had two courtrooms, a jail and three judges. Two building wings were added in 1954 and 1968 along with an eight-story tower in 1975. Fast forward to 2016 and this powerhouse county was ready for, and in need of, a new courthouse.
Following approval of a 10-year, quarter-cent, public safety sales tax by Johnson County voters, construction of the new $193 million, 356,831 sq. ft. courthouse began in mid 2018. JE Dunn was the design builder for the new courthouse to serve all functions of the Tenth Judicial District Court, District Attorney and supporting spaces. The Tenth Judicial District Court includes Criminal, Civil, Family, Veteran’s, Probate and CINC courts along with High-Volume Traffic and Small Claims.
“We had what I called a ‘Door & Hardware Summit’ with American Direct where we had detailed conversations about each door opening. We would discuss whether the door would need card access, did it need a kick plate, should it have an alarm if it opened, and other technicalities critical to function.”
– Alan Moore, JE Dunn
Read the entire article from issue #30 of Total Access Magazine
