By Jess Huff, The Texas Tribune.

ROCKPORT — For years, Aransas County officials wanted to knock down and rebuild their courthouse. Then Hurricane Harvey hit.

The storm made landfall here on Aug. 25, 2017, and devastated southeastern Texas. The destruction stretched from this coastal beach town of 11,000 people to Houston and beyond, making it the state’s most expensive natural disaster at the time.

The storm damaged the roof of the courthouse that served as the county’s headquarters since 1956 . Other problems, including an extensive amount of asbestos, made the building unsalvageable.

Eight years later, the county is still without a functioning courthouse. Officials hope to move into the new building by Christmas.

“We're near the finish line and look hopeful to be in that building here soon,” County Judge Ray Garza , who has led the county since 2023, said at a recent county commissioners meeting.

The rebuilding of the courthouse has been contentious from the start. The path here included two fraught elections — in which the project's price tag and management cost the former county’s chief executive his job. The county has sued its insurance company over delayed payments. The architectural firm and construction company have hurled accusations of malfeasance at each other. And the county is approaching mediation with the construction company to determine how to complete the job.

The final price tag for taxpayers is unknown.

The county owes at least $13.3 million in bonds, according to state data. The county is waiting for the results of a lawsuit to learn whether insurance will cover another $9 million of the project that was paid for using a federal loan. And the county is still negotiating changes to the building that could cost another million dollars.

Garza, who ousted four-term incumbent Burt Mills to lead Aransas, has spent the majority of his time in office trying to understand how the design and the construction went so wrong.

The courthouse is one-third of Celebration Plaza, a new town square for Rockport that includes City Hall and a community center. The city began moving into its new headquarters in June. A short walk from the Rockport Harbor and streets lined with seashell shops, art galleries, and restaurants, the plaza stands in contrast to the simple homes and storefronts that surround it.

Residents have colloquially dubbed the plaza the “Taj Mahal” because of its perceived extravagance.

“It looks nice, but there's a lot of mistakes,” Garza said.

The mistakes that kept the county away included a lack of insulation that resulted in condensation puddling in the courthouse, courtrooms that impaired the judges' views, and jail cells that didn't meet state standards.

“When I took over, there was a set of plans that I believe were the final plans,” Garza, a Republican, said. “I don’t know who approved them. I’ve asked.”

Voters say no to big price tag

Trouble rebuilding the courthouse started when it became clear that insurance would not cover all of the costs of Harvey’s destruction.

“As it turns out, there really wasn't very much insurance, and there really isn't very much grant money,” recalled Wendy Laubach, a former county commissioner. “So we were going to have to — depending on how much it's gonna cost — fill the whole gap with tax money of some kind.”

It was July 2020, and commissioners were debating how to proceed. There was a discussion over a two-story building. And then a three-story building. The cost jumped from $14 million to $24 million.

“All of a sudden, we’re talking about borrowing more, and it will be great,” Laubach said. “It'll be a big, fancy courthouse, and everybody will love it. And that alarmed the public.”

Residents revolted and began gathering signatures to force a countywide vote. Within days more than 1,300 residents signed the petition. Commissioners, attuned to the outrage, ordered an election without verifying the signatures.

Jeff Hutt, a self-proclaimed taxpayer advocate, was one of several community members who opposed the construction of the courthouse.

“Some people didn't like the price tag,” Hutt said. “Some didn't like the design. Some people didn't like the location. There were myriad reasons people didn't vote for it.”

Patti McLead, the owner of Songbird Chic, a small downtown boutique, supported the plan to build a new courthouse when it was originally proposed. She felt the three-story building was unnecessary, but she voted for the proposal.

“We had to have it done, we needed one,” she said.

Her side lost. In November, 53% of voters opposed the county taking on new debt to build the courthouse.

Mills, the county judge since 2007, acknowledged the will of the voters. But he said the county needed a home. The government had been working out of a converted ACE Hardware store. He proposed the county build a more modest courthouse using a tax mechanism that residents couldn’t block.

Mills — whose grandfather was a county commissioner when the 1956 courthouse was built — did not respond to repeated requests for comment by The Texas Tribune.

Laubach voted against Mills’ workaround that December. However, she eventually began to vote with the rest of the commissioners on issues related to the courthouse because the county needed to move forward, and she was trying to do the best she could with what she had. The county wasn’t going to be able to rent indefinitely.

“It seemed to me the best deal I thought we were going to be able to get,” she said, referring to the scaled-down plans.

The process to hire a design firm and draw plans was just as fraught, Laubach said. She felt she never had enough information. She never knew how the county decided how big the courthouse should be to meet their needs. If an analysis occurred with input from other county departments, she never saw it.

The county hired PGAL , an international firm that also designed Houston’s Holocaust Museum expansion. The firm was also commissioned to design Rockport’s City Hall. The firm did not respond to requests for comment.

“For some reason, there have just been years of problems with the construction, which I have never been able to understand,” Laubach said. “All I could ever really gather was, somehow, the county wanted one thing and the contractor was doing another. And then there was supposed to be this construction management agent, and there's an insurance company, and none of the bills seem to be getting paid.”

The commissioners voted unanimously on the plans for the courthouse on May 10, 2021.

A new county judge, more delays 

By the time the county broke ground on the new courthouse in April 2022, Mills had lost the March primary election against Garza and would soon move on from his job as county judge.

Garza ran on a platform based on transparency and fiscal responsibility. And with no Democratic opponent, sailed through the November general election.

The original completion date for the courthouse was September 2023 . But when Garza, a homebuilder before he ran for office, first set foot on the construction site, he saw problems.

No one ordered the elevator. Condensation built up in the building, especially when it rained, due to a lack of insulation — a so-called cost-saving measure. A courtroom vestibule took up much-needed space.

“We need to just get rid of this vestibule, and just have a door,” he said. “It’s huge. You could fit 20 seats in there. But it was too late.”

Every change he suggested resulted in new analyses that, if and when approved, cost the county more.

Over the next year, the county would sue its insurance company to pay out what was owed for the storm damage. The lawsuit alleges the county has not yet received millions of dollars it is owed. The insurance company, Endurance American Specialty, declined to comment, as did Llyod’s of London, which was also named in the suit.

And in June of 2024, the county took several key projects – like the installation of fire suppression systems – out of Teal’s purview. Their goal was to be able to seek bids from other companies to try and save money. Then the windows Teal installed failed, bringing the construction company back to the courthouse. The county is working on a new work order with Teal to resolve the other issues, such as the holding cell doors and the fire suppression system.

Teal Construction declined to comment for this article, referring the Tribune to previous statements.

"It is not uncommon for projects of this size and complexity to experience delays due to owner changes, design changes, and supply chain interruptions of which this project has had plenty," the company said in 2024 . "There have been disagreements on the cost and time associated with these changes, but Teal Construction remains committed to providing the county with a quality building that will serve the citizens well for years to come."

Moving ahead 

In Garza’s eyes, there are three big things left to fix.

The courtrooms must be fixed. Judges can’t see the tables in front of their desks because the custom woodwork obstructs their views. Jail holding cell doors open the wrong way and aren't made of steel as they should be. And the clerks’ offices need dry fire suppression equipment.

“Right now, the clerks can't move, and they won't move,” Garza said. “They refuse to move into their offices until those are fixed.”

Earlier this month, the Aransas County commissioners agreed to pay Broaddus and Associates, Inc — a construction management company — an additional $50,000 to help the county finish the courthouse this year.

The city and county previously paid Broaddus $140,000 for quality assurance, $24,000 for the shared Celebration Plaza space, $300,000 for site inspections and reports, and another $60,000 for those reports for the plaza, Commissioner Pat Rousseau said at a commissioners court meeting.

“That is all over half a million dollars just between those two (projects),” said Rousseau, the lone commissioner on the five-member board to vote against the additional money. “Yet we're still looking at problems which were not picked up on… I just don't feel like we have received that level of service.”

Garza is ready to move beyond the courthouse fiasco. He wants to turn his full attention to job creation. Rockport has a new education center to consider, as well as development along an unused strip of land adjacent to downtown. Eventually, he'd like to bring more manufacturing jobs — maybe a pillow factory, like the one he used to drive by in South Carolina, or a toy factory.

Before that can happen, however, the county must resolve its lawsuit and finish negotiations with Teal Construction — and move into the new courthouse.

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