Plans for a new Catonsville District courthouse include eight courtrooms – more than double the number in the existing Walker Avenue building.
Preliminary plans for the $50 million building and a parking garage for 425 cars were outlined at a Tuesday night public meeting and weren't embraced by all.
Some of the 30 people who attended the briefing voiced concerns about increased traffic.
"It's going to be horrible," said Alice Lepson of Catonsville, whose porch looks onto the property, at the Rolling Crossroads Professional Park near North Rolling and Johnnycake roads.
"We didn't have a choice," Lepson said of the project. "It was given to us."
The Walker Avenue building, opened in 1982, is no longer adequate for a growing population, according to District Court Chief Judge John Morrissey. Baltimore County has grown from 665,000 people in 1980 to more than 831,000 in 2015, according to U.S. Census data.
It's also outdated, he added, noting the garage at the courthouse's back entrance cannot fit police vans. The new courthouse would have a sally port, a secure garagelike entry into the building.
The property for the new 130,000-square-foot building was chosen because it was already zoned commercial and the state didn't want to have to condemn nearby property, said Nelson Reichart, deputy secretary of the Maryland Department of General Services, which manages state buildings and projects.
The state allocated $28 million in this budget year for work, said state Del. Charles Sydnor, D- District 44B. A $10 million parking garage will be built on the site.
Project manager Barry Miller said bids for the project and are due Sept. 26. He anticipates construction, which will take about two years, will start early next year.
Baltimore County has two other district court buildings, one in the county seat of Towson and the other in Essex.