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This fall, Hamilton County will break ground on a $65 million expansion to its Government and Judicial Center, a renovation that follows years of preparation and delays driven by shifting needs and increased expenses.
The Hamilton County Government and Judicial Center, which is located just off the main square in downtown Noblesville, is home to several county government agencies, including the county clerk’s office, the elections office, the prosecuting attorney’s office and the courts.
While operating in the current building is feasible, it’s not ideal, and county officials are hoping that the upcoming expansion will allow judicial officers and support staff to operate more efficiently as more judges come on board to handle an increasing caseload from a growing population.
“Right now we’re all over the place, and we’re just trying to make it happen with the caseload at the court system, but we also support all county government there at the building,” said County Commissioner Michael Hubbs.
Expansion features
The process of pursuing an expansion to the center began around the time the center was built in 1992, The Indiana Lawyer reported in 2018. At the time, the county had purchased land directly west of the building with growth in mind, then-county attorney Mike Howard said.
The 200,000-square-foot building was expected to meet the county’s needs for 20 years, at which point it would need to grow.
In 2018, the county council approved funding for the project, which was expected to cost around $24 million. County officials expected the renovations to be completed in fall 2019.
But as the construction process began, the county quickly ran into cost issues, county commissioner Mark Heirbrandt said.
“Some of the prices got so escalated and so far out of range that we all decided that maybe we need to pull back a little bit on this,” he said.
As prices soared, especially around the COVID-19 pandemic, the county instead chose to pursue temporary accommodation, like renovating some of the existing spaces in the judicial center.
Now, the upcoming work will add another 130,000 square feet to the building and include an expanded lower level and three total stories. As it stands today, the back of the center opens to a large concrete social area, and beyond that, the Hamilton County Fallen Firefighters Memorial and the White River.
Heirbrandt said the renovation will replace the concrete social area and expand out to the memorial park.
Seven more courtrooms will be built in the center as well as a separate elevator to allow the sheriff’s office to move defendants through custody, Hubbs said. Additionally, a dedicated voting area will be constructed with its own separate entrance.
“Right now, when you vote, everybody has got to go in through the same door, and this expansion will allow us to really bifurcate and allow the courts a little more autonomy to operate with their duties,” he said.
A groundbreaking ceremony is expected to take place this fall, and the entire project will take around two years to complete. Crews must remove extensive amounts of concrete that make up the center’s underground parking lot, “before we even start going vertical,” Hubbs said.
County growth
Heirbrandt said the upcoming project is solely driven by the need to support the center’s judicial staff and their workloads.
“We have some of the highest caseloads of any county in the entire state,” he said. “And so, we are trying to get to a place where we can accommodate, and these new judges that are going to be coming in and make sure that they’ve got space.”
According to the Indiana Judicial Branch’s 2024 Weighted Caseload Measures, which compares trial court caseloads across the state, Hamilton County is experiencing the second highest need for judicial officers, meaning the county needs additional judicial officers more severely than 90 other counties in the state.
The county has an average of 12.3 regularly assigned judges serving the court but needs around 17 judges to accommodate the number of new cases that are filed in the county during a given calendar year. Only Vigo County has a greater need.
To accommodate the high caseload, the Indiana General Assembly passed legislation this spring to add two superior courts and two magistrate judges to the county’s existing staff.
The newest magistrate judges, Karen Morris and Sarah Shields, were robed in a joint ceremony on July 8, the Hamilton County Reporter reported. The judges will preside over both civil and criminal matters, including adoptions, divorces, tort claims and probation violations.
The new superior court judges will be elected in 2026.
“…At the end of the day, it’s going to help me move a lot more stuff through, and I won’t have as many frustrated people in my courtroom,” Hamilton Superior Court No. 2. Judge Jon Brown told The Lawyer earlier this year when discussing the new legislation.
The increase in judicial staff reflects a growing county.
According to recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Indiana Business Research Center, Hamilton County saw a 9.3% population growth between 2020 and 2024, marking it the second fastest growing county in Indiana.
The data anticipates the county’s population to grow from 379,704 to 417,426 by 2030.
The judicial center’s expansion should help staff accommodate that expected growth in the years to come and ease the burden of their current workload.
“We have a lot of intermingling between the judiciary of the county and other citizens who are there for other matters, so, everybody’s all in one area,” Hubbs said. “The expansion will allow us to really provide dedicated space to the courts and also the offices that support them.”•
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