Cortez: I have good news about the new Hidalgo County Courthouse

MCALLEN, Texas – Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez has given an update on when the new county courthouse will be ready to use.

Speaking at a luncheon hosted by the McAllen Citizens League, Cortez said he had good news to report.

“Good news. The courthouse construction is completed,” Cortez said, to applause from the audience.

He then spoke about some of legal aspects surrounding who was to blame for the lengthy delay in the courthouse’s completion.

“You know, everybody has an opinion on what should have been done, how to do it, or whatever. We have some lawyers in the room. We even have a justice here,” Cortez said, referring to 13th Court of Appeals Justice Aaron Peña.

“We deal with a contract. And the contract gives the duties each party has. And if there is a violation of that duty then the contract says what action you take.”

Cortez said there should have been enough checks and balances in place for the project to have been completed on time.

“So, what we have here is, we have a design by an architect. Based on the design we hired the contractor. The contractor then would hire a subcontractor to do the work. Then the county hired a project manager to supervise everything,” Cortez said.

“You would think that with all of those precautions taken, the architect checking the contractor, the contractor checking the subcontractor, the project manager, checking this, checking that out, whatever, that no problems would happen. Well, they did.”

And then there was the coronavirus pandemic.

“In the middle of all of that we had the pandemic. We had fuel shortages. We had people that could come to work, that couldn’t come to work. So, it took longer,” Cortez said.

“People ask me, well, how much did it cost because it took longer. Again, I am in front of some legal people here.”

The possibility of legal action would be looked at later, Cortez said.

“If anybody owes the county a duty that was violated, and if that duty that was violated costs us financial harm, then we have a duty to pursue that and get compensated for that. But that is something to be determined later.”

Cortez continued: “But the good news is, it is completed. We have some minor issues to remove. We believe the City of Edinburg will give us a certificate of occupancy as early as next week. We have a very large detention center at the bottom. And the jail standards board has to come and approve it. Once they approve it, we start moving in. We are already preparing to move in.”

Cortez then asked Carlos Sanchez, the Hidalgo County public affairs division director, to play a video about the new courthouse. When the video had ended, Cortez asked: “Well, was it worth the wait?” Yes, was the response, from some members of the audience.

“It really is something very impressive. Justices, I hope you enjoy it,” Cortez said.

In the Q&A there were a couple of questions about the new courthouse. One person asked how much of a cost overrun was incurred. Cortez said he could not answer that at this stage. Another member of the audience asked if there would be adequate parking space outside the courthouse.

“Parking is always going to be an issue and a problem,” Cortez responded. “But we are going to tear down the old courthouse and put some places to park in there. And we gave some land to the City of Edinburg. They will be building a parking garage (there). But parking is always going to be problem.”

Other subjects covered by Cortez in his speech to the citizens league included drainage, the scarcity of water, the county jail, and economic development.

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