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Moffat County Courthouse nears completion, with a move-in plan in place

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An aerial photo shows the Moffat County Courthouse during construction in 2022-23. The project is nearly complete and county officials expect to move into the building in April.
Moffat County/Courtesy photo

The Moffat County Courthouse remodeling project is almost complete, and county officials are expected to move into the building in April.

Roy Tipton, director of Development Services for Moffat County, reported on Tuesday, Feb. 14, that the contract on the Moffat County Courthouse at 1198 W. Victory Way in Craig is 95.8% complete. 

Once the county obtains a temporary certificate of occupancy, which is expected to happen Feb. 28, all of the nonessential furniture and fixtures — including county records — can be moved into the new location. Tipton said the move will be done entirely in-house, and the county facilities department is preparing to move county offices on the second week of April. 

However, the move will require many county services to temporarily go offline. As a result, county officials expect county administrative offices, including all offices in the existing courthouse, public health, veteran’s services, the department of human services, the CSU extension office and the Tucker Street clinic, to be closed from April 10-15. 

Even though the courthouse will be closed to the public, Moffat County commissioners will hold their regular meeting on April 11 in the main floor conference room of the current courthouse. Tipton said the commissioner meeting will still offer remote access for the public as well.  

Also, county employees will still show up and work a regular schedule, though part of their jobs that week will be to get their offices moved into the new location. All county offices are expected to reopen to the public on April 17 at the new courthouse.

“When we show up to work that day on (April 10), we are going to start moving servers over,” Tipton said. “That means we won’t have phones or email. There won’t be any communications. There won’t be voicemail either.” 

Offices that require 24-hour coverage, such as emergency services or the department of human services, will have phone calls forwarded to a cell phone. But that won’t be possible for all of the county offices, according to Tipton. 

Originally, Tipton said he’d hoped to have the servers up and running at both locations during the move, but that’s not the way it ended up working out. 

“The only way to do it is to shut down for that week,” Tipton explained.

Additionally, Moffat County Combined Courts will remain open and operational at the current courthouse from April 10-13. There will still be court security, and court and judicial services, but there won’t be any jury trials that week. 

Judicial services will be closed from April 14-18 to complete the move. Court services will reopen in the new courthouse building on April 19. 

The judicial services and the department of human services are both on state servers, so it’s not just county servers and equipment that are involved in the move, Tipton said. 

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Tipton also provided several photos of the interior and exterior of the new courthouse, showing progress that has been made over the last year during the renovation.

The county is going to stop exterior work on the building once the building is in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The rest of the exterior work will have to wait until a spring thaw. 

County commissioners have also approved an emergency evacuation plan for the new courthouse. The plan was presented by Todd Wheeler for the Moffat County Office of Emergency Management. The plan includes evacuation maps of the new floor plan, as well as procedures for department heads to account for staff during an emergency. 

In other business:

  • During public comment, several community members expressed concerns about junk and rubbish land use ordinances that were recently introduced to the Moffat County Planning and and Zoning Commission. 
  • Moffat County Commissioner Melody Villard was selected to participate in the Building Resilient Economies in Coal Communities initiative through the National Association of Counties. The Coal Communities Commitment Coalition consists of two parts, and one is meant to offer technical assistance to help with workforce training, agriculture and small business training. The 20 coalition members will travel several times in the next two years to other coal-impacted communities to share experiences and learn.
  • Candace Miller presented results for a request for proposal to replace the electric security gate at the Moffat County Airport. Ivory Tip Fencing was the sole bidder at $46,922, which commissioners approved. Commissioner Tony Bohrer excused himself from the discussion because his company submitted the bid. 
  • Candace Miller presented responses for a request for proposals to replace a mower for the Moffat County Facilities Department. There were two responses. One was from Severson Supply Co. for $15,251 and the other was from Colorado Golf and Turf for $18,713. County commissioners approved the bid from Severson Supply Co.

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