The criminal justice facilities market has been growing the past several years. One of the projects constructed by Sundt recently earned recognition from the only national organization that defines, teaches and promotes best practices in design-build.
The John M. Roll United States Courthouse in downtown Yuma, Arizona earned a Design-Build Institute of America National Merit Award in the Federal, County, State, Municipal category earlier this month. Members of the judging panel were impressed with the project team’s ability to achieve cost, schedule and quality goals, while demonstrating unique applications of design-build best practices.
The two-story, 57,000-square-foot building includes two courtrooms, judges’ chambers, detention cells and administrative areas for the United States federal courts and U.S. Marshals Service. Sandstone and masonry cover the building’s exterior, and a “living wall” of vines supported by steel trellises provides a natural shade barrier. An expansive photovoltaic canopy covering the building’s entrance invokes the feeling of a front porch and generates electricity for the facility.
The courthouse, completed in spring 2013, is named in honor of a federal judge who was killed in the January 2011 attack on former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson.