Site work is underway for a new justice center west of Buckeye Road.
The size of the Town of Minden will increase by around 57 acres, thanks to the construction of a new justice center north of town.
The $50 million project located off Buckeye Road is under construction, but in order to conduct district court there, the site must be annexed into the town.
“The district court must hold court in the county seat, which is Minden, and needs to be in Minden as a matter of law,” county attorney Zach Wadlé said on Thursday.
County commissioners approved a resolution to add the site to Minden, but like everything to do with the justice center, that’s just a step in a longer journey.
Wadlé said the county will next present the proposal to the Minden Town Board to update them on the project. Then an ordinance would be introduced to county commissioners for a first and second reading before it would be complete.
According to the resolution, the site meets the legal definition of adjacent, though it doesn’t actually abut the town.
Some plan to upgrade the Judicial & Law Enforcement Center has been in the works for nearly a decade. The current home for the courts and the Sheriff’s Office is more than 40 years old.
Occupants of the present judicial center raised the need for an expanded facility in 2015. The jail had just undergone a $4 million renovation, but the space reserved for the courts hadn’t changed significantly in decades.