AUGUSTA -- A new home for Kennebec County Superior Court is in the offing.

It will take in the Southern Kennebec District Court, more commonly known as Augusta District Court, as well as family court, and connect to the existing 1830 courthouse via a glassed-in walkway.

After more than a decade of talk about problems, particularly safety issues and handicapped accessibility, leaders say there will be money in the next biennial budget to build a new courthouse and solve those problems.

Leigh Saufley, chief justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, and Maine Senate President Elizabeth Mitchell, D-Vassalboro, who shepherded a bill to make the funding possible, outlined the plans Tuesday in a small conference room at Augusta District Court.

The plans call for a new court building on Winthrop Street, where Crisis & Counseling offices are now. The building will have a single, public entrance that can be staffed by a security team, and will be entirely handicapped accessible.

The glassed-in walkway will allow access to the large, ornately wood-paneled, second-story courtroom, which will also be brought up to standards required by the Americans With Disabilities Act.

The price tag is just over $55 million, with plans to be formalized in late spring 2010, and the building completed in 2013, Saufley said. The amount includes all the consolidation work and temporary space for courts and personnel while construction is under way.

"We think we're going to do this frugally and efficiently and (keep it) green, and we expect the burden to taxpayers to be reduced," she said. A new combined courthouse was constructed in Bangor on time and within budget, she said.

Saufley said a new courthouse for Kennebec County was on the list of her predecessor, Daniel Wathen, and was immediately on hers. She said the administrators are trying to respect the history of the superior court in Augusta where judges have sat in session for more than a century and a half.

While revered, it presents problems with access. The large courtroom has elevator access on one side and a steep flight of stairs on the other. People in wheelchairs who want to reach the small courtroom must traverse the large court room and use a small ramp to climb one stair.

The building also has a number of doors to the outside, making security almost impossible.

"It's the second most dangerous courtroom in the entire state," Saufley said. The first, she said, is in Piscataquis County and is being addressed now. "The people of Dover-Foxcroft received justice in a living room that was overcrowded and difficult to access," she said.

The solution to some of the courts' woes came after judiciary, legislative, county and local officials worked together ranking the need in the various courts.

"A bipartisan group of legislators from around the state gathered to talk about what our citizens deserve when their lives are falling apart and they need justice," Saufley said.

Augusta District Court, which sits next to Memorial Park and a traffic rotary, has its own security issues, scant conference space, a portable building on one side, and a windowless basement courtroom.

"If your proceeding's in a basement, something's grossly wrong," Saufley said, just prior to leading a tour through a maze of doors to view that room, judges' chambers and small conference rooms.

James T. Glessner, state court administrator, said the timing is right to do the court construction project.

"The interest rates are low, there are people needing work, and we can pay for this over an extended period of time," he said.

Glessner said parking will be available on site, possibly with employee parking under the building as in Bangor, and nearby. Court administrators have already talked to city officials on that issue, he said.

Kennebec County Administrator Robert Devlin said officials soon will be looking at architectural drawings and estimates. Along with the superior court, the courthouse contains county functions such as probate court and clerks. It also houses the district attorney's office.

Mitchell's bill was designed "to consolidate and modernize Maine courts," and outlined more problems with the Augusta courts:

"They both fail to provide adequate separation between the public, staff, and prisoners, and both fail to provide central holding cells and rooms for prisoners brought into the courts. The (Augusta) District Court was not designed as a court. There is no fire protection system: no sprinklers, no fire alarms, and there may even be asbestos in the building."

Her proposal helped provide the funding by raising the debt ceiling of the Maine Governmental Facilities Authority from $128 million to $189 million.

"The money will actually come out of the next biennial judicial budget," Mitchell said, adding that the Maine Bond Bank will issue the bonds.

The funding also includes an amount to be recouped from the sale of the Augusta District Court property.

Betty Adams -- 621-5631

badams@centralmaine.com