Supervisors Cut Tens of Millions From Courthouse Project Budget

Conceptual rendering of new courthouse and historic courthouse with new entrance on MacArthur Square.

Milwaukee County supervisors voted Thursday to reduce the budget for a massive $857 million project that would build a new county criminal courthouse.

Supervisors approved an amendment sponsored by Sup. Shawn Rolland that cuts $45.7 million from the project budget during a joint meeting of the board’s committees on Finance and Community and Economic Development. The committee then recommended approval of a county debt issuance to pay for the massive public works project.

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley‘s administration is planning to replace the aging, dilapidated Safety Building, 821 W. State St., a project county officials have been delaying since the 1980s. Aaron Hertzberg, director of the Department of Administrative Services (DAS), has led the Crowley administration’s planning for the project. He said a new courthouse would address this longstanding challenge, while also allowing safer, more efficient operations for the county court system.

The plan is to tear down the Safety Building, which currently houses criminal courts for the Milwaukee County Circuit Court system, and build a new, modern courthouse in its place. The project budget also includes spending for improvements to the historic courthouse, the adjacent neoclassical structure at 901 N. 9th St. The new building would also expand the circuit court system’s problem-solving courts, which work with defendants to address the underlying issues, like substance abuse or mental health.

“Part of this was listening to the community, and their ask was how can we do things better, not just brick and mortar, but how can we expand and do things better?” Chief Judge Carl Ashley said. “Problem solving-courts, evidence-based, it’s the future.”

Rolland’s amendment targets plans to construct a large glass entryway on the east side of the historic courthouse, overlooking MacArthur Square. Removing the entranceway element eliminates about 5% of the total project cost, reducing it to about $812 million.

Rolland supports the courthouse project. The nearly 100-year-old Safety Building is in poor condition; it was also never built to serve as a criminal courthouse. County and court officials have noted that the courtrooms and hallways are too small and do not allow for separation of defendants and victims’ families, creating opportunities for outbursts of violence and conflict. The building’s design slows down the court system, as it complicates the movement of defendants.

“We have to make the courthouse complex better, faster safer, and we have to be fiscally responsible,” Rolland told Urban Milwaukee before the committee voted. “In my view, we should be in the business of building a better courthouse and not a more expensive front door.”

The administration plans to borrow for most of the project costs, issuing debt in 2027 and 2028. In 2025, the state provided $20 million in annual funding for the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) highway patrol. The funds free up existing property tax funds, which are being repurposed to cover courthouse costs. Even so, the administration estimates borrowing costs for an $897 million debt issuance (the pre-amendment figure) will be about $621 million, raising the total project cost well above $1 billion. To pay back the debt, the county would need to steadily raise property taxes until they hit a rate equivalent to about $137 annually for a $250,000 house, according to the administration’s estimates.

Before supervisors approved Rolland’s amendment, the committee took up a motion by Sup. Justin Bielinski to delay the vote on approval of the project until December. The motion failed, with only supervisors Bielinski and Juan Miguel Martinez voting for it. Later, when the committee took up approval, Bielinski and Martinez voted against it.

Sup. Sky Capriolo also introduced an amendment cutting the new entranceway, but also reserving $20 million from the entranceway project to pay for additional improvements at the county jail. The committee did not end up voting on the amendment, but Sup. Steve Taylor, who chairs the committee, suggested Capriolo could ask the administration to prepare a report on potential jail projects and the board could add those specific projects to the debt issuance later.

Bielinski, who voted against approving the borrowing for the project, expressed concerns about the cost of the project, and said the board should wait until after the fall election to make a decision. Crowley, who is running for governor against U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, could be expected to try to provide state resources for the project if elected governor, Bielinski said.

The county selected its contractor through a qualification-based bid, and the project cost estimates were developed with support from the selected contractor, Gilbane Cullen, said Sean Hayes, director of facilities management. The final project cost will be negotiated with Gilbane Cullen, a partnership of Gilbane Building Co. and JP Cullen, later, once the subcontractor bids start coming in for the project, Hertzberg said.

Considering the cost of the project and the need to raise property taxes, Sup. Anne O’Connor said the administration should work to communicate the need for a new courthouse to the public, adding, “I can’t blame previous administrations and boards for kicking the can, because this is gonna this is gonna be a big deal.”

Bielinski said he held a town hall where opposition to the project at its current cost was universal. Rolland said he has heard from constituents that the conditions in jury deliberation rooms are “completely unacceptable” given the gravity of decisions made there. Capriolo encouraged her colleagues to “bite the bullet” and stop putting the project off.

Sup. Felesia Martin agreed, “We must buck up and not put our personal comfort ahead of what is morally right… it is an ethical issue. It’s also a moral issue, and we have a responsibility to actually do what we’ve been hired to do, make those hard decisions, and this is one, for me, is a no-brainer.” 

Finance Committee members Taylor, Rolland, Capriolo, O’Connor and Willie Johnson, Jr. voted to recommend approval of the project after reducing the budget. The full board will vote on it for final approval on Oct. 1.

Justice System Leaders Support Courthouse Project

A handful of current and former justice system leaders attended the committee meeting Thursday to offer support for the courthouse project. One after another, they spoke about the inefficiencies, indignities and even dangers they have witnessed or experienced working in the Safety Building, and the discussions about a replacement going back decades.

Former Milwaukee County Chief Judge Jeffrey Kremers told supervisors he thought the Safety Building was “kind of cool and romantic and gritty” when he first encountered it more than 50 years ago as a young attorney. “We’re way past gritty,” he said. Safety concerns in the hallways and the small courtrooms create another challenge for people hoping to access the justice system, he said.

“The environment that we provide in this structure is so critical to the ability to provide fair justice to our citizens,” Kremers said.

Lisa Procaccio, vice president of the Milwaukee Bar Association, said the lack of meeting space has forced her to hold important client discussions with paperwork spread over the top of a garbage can.

“Some of the most important decisions that a person can make were made on top of a garbage can,” she said. “Victims, defendants, families, the community — they all deserve better. It’s truly an indignity for the community.”

Attorney Stacie Rosenzweig said lawyers have an ethical obligation to protect client confidences and also communicate everything they need to know for their case. “We can’t deal with those competing interests in the Safety Building. We’re expected to have difficult, extraordinarily personal conversations with our clients, and we have to do that out in the open.”

Village of River Hills Police Chief Mike Gaynor, representing the Milwaukee County Law Enforcement Executive Association, said the organization supports the project. “From our standpoint, the current building has workflow issues. It has safety issues not only for staff but for the victims that we send down,” Gaynor said

Sheriff Denita Ball said the current building forces the MCSO to bring defendants from the jail through the public hallways past witnesses and potential jurors.

The District Attorney’s Office is located in the Safety Building and Chief Deputy DA Jeffrey Altenburg said the offices provide a horrible working environment for DA staff, with office temperatures that drop to 37 degrees in the winter and rise as high as 90 degrees in the summer.

Hector Hernandez, chief program officer with Sojourner Family Peace Center, said the current building creates a difficult environment for victims of domestic abuse who are often already nervous about coming to the courthouse. The building can be difficult to navigate, he said, and “brings significant concerns about encountering their abusers, other abusers, families, relatives, or friends.”

Safety Building

Conceptual Design Renderings

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