Construction continuing on courthouse in Winston County

WINSTON COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI)- A makeover at the Winston County Courthouse is coming to fruition. Everyday crews are closer to the new annex building behind the county jail.

Right now it’s still just a big construction zone right here at the Winston County Courthouse, but some of the projects that are underway could be done as soon as Thanksgiving.

“If you started from the annex building on this has been going on for about five or six years,” said Board of Supervisors President, Luke Parkes.

Roughly six years with a construction site in the heart of Louisville. Three projects are in the works. Repairs to the Winston County Jail, a new annex building, and work to fix a flooding problem in the front of the courthouse.

“We’re going to have to do something to stop the water from coming into the courthouse. It’s seeping down through the ground, seeping through the brick and concrete blocks to the basement floor,” said Parkes.

The basement houses different court records. Winston County Board of Supervisors President, Luke Parkes says there have been up to three inches of water in the basement.

“We’ve run soil test and we’ve got to try and get the water of the courthouse.”

As for the jail, you may remember when a piece of one side of a brick wall collapsed. That’s since been repaired, but they’re also going to add a new roof and replaced the older antennas on the roof. The annex building behind the jail is an extension of the courthouse.

“The sheriff’s office will move in there, civil defense, fire coordinator, the board of supervisors will meet in there.”
Parkes says they’ve simply just run out of room in the courthouse. A chunk of the funding is coming from federal and state money. Without it, the projects wouldn’t be possible.

“Without these grants, the federal and state grant? We couldn’t do it. It’d be too much of a burden on the taxpayers to build a new annex building.”

The bidding process on the front lawn construction is expected to start soon.

For the new annex building, taxpayers are only paying 12.5% of the cost while the rest is covered by federal and state money.