New Montgomery Municipal Court Almost Finished

Construction continues as the city gets closer to unveiling its new municipal justice center.

The new building will feature two courtrooms instead of just one.
That should mean shorter dockets and wait times.

“I’ve been working on this personally for about 8 years. We’ve come to a couple of points where we thought something was going to happen then something would derail it to the point a lot of the employees didn’t really think this was going to happen and now they have to believe it,” said Ken Nixon.

Nixon is the court administrator for the Montgomery Municipal Court.

He says this move will make a huge difference for people coming to pay tickets or going through criminal court.

His office is going from 7,000 square feet to about 25,000 square feet.

Nixon says the city outgrew the old building a long time ago.

The traffic through the municipal complex depends a lot on how many tickets Montgomery police write.

“It could be as few as 3,000 per month, it’s been as high as 10,000 a month, so that dictates a lot of the traffic through the pay windows and the courts. Criminal misdemeanors, it’s pretty steady, we average about 7,000 a year,” said Nixon.

The new building features three different floors and much more office space for employees and citizens.

There’s even a private room for depositions instead of just an open hallway.

Residents won’t have long to wait either.

“We’re looking at about 6 weeks, maybe 8 weeks and we should be definitely before the end of the year.”