Medford resident and retired lawyer tells City Council members that it’s ‘crazy to get rid of a good building’

Downtown Medford’s historic 1915 federal courthouse is up for sale, and a new courthouse is scheduled to be built next year.

On May 1, the U.S. General Services Administration website listed the existing James A. Redden U.S. Courthouse at 310 W. Sixth St. as available for “accelerated disposition,” a federal process that includes the sale of properties.

On the GSA website, parties interested in the building can email their offers to accelerated.disposals@gsa.gov.

The Redden courthouse, named after a former judge, is a 34,272-square-foot, three-story brick and granite building, according to Jackson County records. The new courthouse that would be built elsewhere in Medford would be 40,035 square feet.

The GSA, however, lists the old courthouse as having 29,834 square feet of “rentable” area, which is the amount of space available in a commercial building that can be rented out and excludes common areas such as lobbies, hallways or bathrooms.

Medford resident Bill Dames, a retired lawyer, urged the Medford City Council Wednesday to oppose the sale of the courthouse.

“It’s crazy to get rid of a good building that’s functioned well and was designed to be a court,” he said. “It’s detrimental to this city to sell an asset like that and not have it owned by the federal government.”

He said that while the building should be retained as a courthouse, the probation office could be moved to a different building to provide more space.

A new federal courthouse in Medford has been in the planning stages for a while, though no construction documents have yet been submitted to the city of Medford, officials said.

Washington-based Easterly Government Properties Inc. didn’t disclose the location of the new courthouse in Medford.

The new building, according to Easterly, will be two stories and designed to meet energy efficient standards.

It will house both the district and federal magistrate courtrooms with offices for both U.S. senators from Oregon, the U.S. Marshals Service, a probation office and the U.S. Attorneys Office.

Easterly will provide the building to the federal government through a 20-year, non-cancelable lease.

Darrell Crate, president and chief executive officer of Easterly Government Properties, said in a prepared statement, “this lease award highlights our competitive advantage to develop as the government increasingly relies on leasing as a source of taxpayer efficiency going forward.”

The location of the new building and the cost of construction wasn’t provided in an email request from the Rogue Valley Times to New York-based Avenue Z, a marketing firm that works for Easterly.

U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, indicated he intends to move his Medford office into the new building but vowed to “watchdog” every step to ensure it’s in the best interest of U.S. taxpayers paying for a courthouse that’s vital to a functional court system essential for justice and successful law enforcement throughout Southern Oregon.

“Given (President) Donald Trump’s checkered legacy in the private sector of multiple bankruptcies and real estate deals gone awry, forgive me if I’m more than a little skeptical about any of his administrations plans such as disposing of a significant public asset in Oregon like a federal courthouse before even breaking ground on a new one,” Wyden said in an email response.

George Kramer, a local historian who has been involved with renovation projects at the courthouse, said he remembers a rededication ceremony for the remodeled courtroom back in the 1990s.

Kramer also was consulted for renovation work needed to bring the stairwell up to current code.

When the blade sign was being installed on the corner of the restored Holly Theatre more than a decade ago, he remembers asking the courthouse guards if he could go up on the roof to take some photos.

The guards declined, but offered to use Kramer’s camera to take the photos themselves from the courthouse roof.

Kramer said he doesn’t know much about the federal sale of the courthouse.

“I can’t imagine the feds would want to give it away,” he said.

Over the years, he has seen other courthouses repurposed.

“Most commonly, they get purchased to become attorneys’ offices,” he said.

After the Redden courthouse was first built, it also served as the post office.

A similar building was constructed in Pendleton, also for use as a post office and courthouse.

Reach writer Damian Mann at dmannnews@gmail.com