News

City OKs conditional rezoning for judicial center

Rendering shows the four-story courthouse addition that’s part of the $154 million judicial center including a jail expansion. The columned front is centered on Third Avenue East, making the building visible from Main Street. A step design keeps the front portion closer in size to the existing 1995 courthouse. [FENTRESS ARCHITECTS]

By Bill Moss, Published: April 9, 2025

Hendersonville City Council members set aside misgivings about the building height and insisted on a sidewalk that’s not in current plans before voting unanimously to authorize Henderson County’s new $154 million judicial center.

The council motion included a condition that the county add a sidewalk along the railroad right-of-way for pedestrian access to the new four-story courthouse addition. County commissioners are expected to take up the city’s request during their regular mid-month meeting on April 16.

The condition reads: “The project shall extend their sidewalks along Fourth Avenue within the railroad right-of-way up to their their property line. The sidewalk will maintain the same ‘park street’ design of an 8-foot-wide concrete sidewalk and 2-foot wide planting strip like the existing sidewalk along the property frontage on Fourth Avenue.”

“It seems like a relatively minor concession considering that we would be going 50 percent beyond our maximum height limit if we say yes to this,” Mayor Barbara Volk said. “That’s a pretty big concession. So I think a little consideration for a sidewalk — we’d like them to think seriously about that, as our ask.”

Council members heard a detailed description of the judicial center before voting on the conditional-use zoning application.

Steven White, who grew up in Chapel Hill and graduated from N.C. State University, is a principal and Washington, D.C., studio director for Fentress Architects, the designer of the additions. White “views each project as a chance to blend history, community and sustainability and to shape an urban landscape that enriches both people and the environment,” the firm’s website says.

White described the security, functionality and esthetic of the courthouse.

“In the new courthouse, we have complete physical separation between the movement of the staff and the judges” and between the public and staff, he said. “The only place where those two come together is in rooms like courtrooms or clerks’ transaction counters and so forth. Prisoners from the jail are coming from a tunnel and they have completely segregated circulation for security purposes.”

Although it’s two blocks from Main Street, the new courthouse will nonetheless become a new presence downtown by virtue of its size and orientation.

“The main entrance is directly centered on Third Avenue, which creates a visual connection from Main Street,” White said. “We also have sited this first floor so that it is a gentle rise from Grove (because) it always feels better when you come up to a building.”

“As we know, this is a large building,” White continued. “We have seven courtrooms in this new courthouse” and because courtrooms have 12-foot ceilings, the structure needs 16 feet floor-to-floor to accommodate superstructure and mechanical equipment. Architects “stepped the building strategically” so that the “main columnar element is actually very close in height to the 1995 building.” Two more steps of 30-40 feet “get to that full height of the building.”

Tallest building downtown

At 93 feet, the new courthouse would be 43 feet higher than the maximum allowed in the Planned Institutional Development zoning district, and also would be taller than the 75-foot First Citizens Bank and 70-foot Skyland Hotel (although Main Street is 21 feet higher than the courthouse site). The courthouse property is outside the city’s downtown height limit of 64 feet.

The new courthouse will have a drop-off area and secure entrance for the public on North Grove Street. Parking will be in a large surface lot on the north side of the building. The courthouse addition contains seven courtrooms for District and Superior court and other judicial proceedings, improved security for judges and staff and segregated access corridors for jail inmates. [FENTRESS ARCHITECTS}“The height is a concern,” council member Lyndsey Simpson said. “I understand the need for the space in the building, and I understand why it’s being done. I guess my concern is, does it open us up for a precedent of allowing other buildings of this size?”

City Attorney Angie Beeker responded that it does not.

“It is not a legally binding precedent because this is a legislative decision that you’re making,” she said.

Is parking adequate?

Responding to a question from the council, Assistant County Manager Christopher Todd said commissioners had rejected the idea of a parking deck.

“As far as the parking deck, that certainly was a conversation that was had publicly amongst the board,” Todd said. “The cost of that parking deck pushed the cost of the project into a place the Board of Commissioners felt (was) unacceptable at the time. … Publicly, the question was asked and answered: When this building opens, will it have sufficient parking? And the answer to that is yes.”

No cost-benefit analysis supported parking deck construction “when the surface parking could meet the need in the initial years of that building and most certainly for some years to come,” he added. “The Board of Commissioners at this time decided that would be a ‘Board of Commissioners tomorrow’ question that they would wrestle with.”

Mayor pro tem Jennifer Hensley asked whether an outdoor handicapped-access elevator would remain. That led to the revelation that the design calls for the removal of the existing front steps of the 1995 courthouse.

“The simple answer to your question actually is, No, it will be removed,” Todd said of the non-working elevator. “The more complex answer to your question is, actually the staircase in its entirety is intended to be removed. We want there to be a focal point and an entry point to this building. The removal of the stairs is two-fold. It removes confusion about where the front door of the building will be, as well as gets rid of a security concern that we’ve had. There will be balcony space that will be preserved up there.”

The exterior will be precast concrete panels made to “depict Indiana limestone,” said White, the architect. “The existing courthouse also is a precast concrete in more of a gray-granite tone. We’re specifically differentiating because we feel strongly that if we were to try to match it exactly it would somehow be slightly off, or maybe (look like) the building’s dirty.” Other exterior elements include dark bronze metal panels and “insulated high-performing glass.”