court consolidation

Indianapolis-based design firm Performance Services has been chosen to build the consolidated Elkhart County Courts facility. The County Commissioners approved the partnership at their biweekly meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 19.

Last week, the county’s Technical Review Committee interviewed project teams and ranked them using factors like local participation and courthouse facility experience. Out of three finalists, Performance Services scored the highest.

The consolidation of the Elkhart County Courts is moving closer to reality, with three teams under consideration for the project’s final design and build.

The county’s Technical Review Committee interviewed the three teams on Jan. 12 and assigned each proposal a qualitative score. Those scores were based on factors like local participation, courthouse facility experience, and schedule management.

After contentious lengthy debate Saturday morning, the Elkhart County Council voted to move forward with consolidating the county's courts at a single location and that would remove the presence of the courts from the downtown areas in Elkhart and Goshen. Several of the council members abstained from voting altogether.