On Tuesday, June 22, the Charlotte County Board of County Commissioners offered a special commendation to Sweet Sparkman Architecture and Interiors, Ajax Building Company, DLR Group and their partners for their award-winning renovation and addition of the Charlotte County Justice Center.

Sweet Sparkman Architecture and Interiors partner Todd Sweet, AIA, LEED AP, and architect Karl Bernhard AIA, NCARB, were in attendance for the brief commendation ceremony.

The Justice Center Renovation-Addition project earned top honors at the 2021 Florida GulfCoast Excellence in Construction competition in May, taking home an Eagle Award for the project.

Presented by The Associated Builders and Contractors, the prestigious Eagle Award honors exceptional construction projects based on factors such as vision, innovation, execution, safety, personnel management, quality control, complexity, and degree of difficulty.

The Charlotte County Justice Center certainly exemplified these goals.

For the renovation and remodel of the Justice Center, Sweet Sparkman worked with Ajax Building Company and its team of subcontractors, and partners at the Charlotte County Government. Through a unified effort, the project team worked steadily to meet Charlotte County’s changing needs for the structure through efficient design, construction, and critical technology / safety upgrades.

The Center, initially completed in 1999, comprises a five-story building interconnected with a three-story building totaling 197,131 sq. ft. This project involved the renovation of the existing building to solve short-term space needs and the addition of new courtrooms, with expanded and reconfigured offices for the State Attorney, Public Defender, and Clerk of Court on the current footprint, and the creation of a new secure entry pavilion. The $20 million project, done in conjunction with DLR Group, also incorporated LEED “green” building concepts and Building Information Modeling.  

As the county noted on Facebook, this complex project was completed in “21 phases, over the course of three years, all within a fully operational, occupied, and secured building.”

It also should be noted that the schedule fell within a global pandemic, adding unprecedented layers of complexity.

So, congratulations to Todd, Karl, and everyone involved in bringing much-needed improvements to the Charlotte County Justice Center.