When Hidalgo County decided they needed to renovate their existing courthouse building, their primary concern was where could they find adequate interim space for their day to day operations. Located in the downtown section of Edinburg, Texas, the renovation was expected to take 18-24 months. In addition to the space required for five courtrooms, offices for the judges the court staff and reporters, they also needed space for jury rooms, private attorney conferences, and foyers for public entrances. Since the sally port and holding cell facilities for the prisoners brought to court were also at this location, a perimeter security system would have been extremely expensive and time consuming to replicate at another site. So to minimize the expense and potential for costly delays, Hidalgo County made the decision to install over 14,000 square feet of modular buildings in a parking lot adjacent to the existing courthouse.
This includes five courtrooms totaling over 13,000 square feet, and a separate facility for use as a district clerk’s office. The interior finishes of each facility will utilize vinyl covered sheetrock, suspended ceilings, and a combination of carpet and tile flooring. The primary exterior finish will incorporate an earth tone synthetic stucco and a 44 inch metal fascia, giving the buildings the look and feel of permanent facilities while still designed to be relocatable.
Once the decision to use modular construction was made, selecting Ramtech to do the design, manufacture, and installation of all the required modular buildings was easy, since Hidalgo’s requirements could not be satisfied with simple standard modular buildings. And, they will be completed much faster and for less money than site constructed buildings. As the largest supplier of commercial modular buildings in Texas, Ramtech has more than 30 years of experience and has successfully completed over 3000 projects. Many of our modular buildings can also be purchased through several state and municipal purchasing cooperatives including the Texas BuyBoard and the Houston-Galveston Area Council HGACBuy programs. More information on our product offerings and work with government agencies can be found on our government website at www.ramtechgsa.com.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Bill Barron works in Business Development for Ramtech Building Systems, Inc. He has worked at Ramtech for over 20 years serving the Education, Healthcare, and Government Markets.
