Mayor Sylvester Turner, along with The Houston Municipal Courts, is proud to announce the opening of two new courtrooms during a Ribbon Cutting Ceremony on Monday, August 5, 2019 at 11:00 a.m. inside the Herbert W. Gee Municipal Courthouse located at 1400 Lubbock Street, Courtroom 26. The new courtrooms were built in collaboration with our General Services Department for $1.49M. In addition to the added courtroom space, the project also included the rehabilitation of the lobby elevators for $490K.
“Houstonians are likely to encounter the judicial system at the Municipal Court level more often than any other court. We are excited to be able to improve our facility to accommodate our citizens in a more efficient manner,” stated Judge J. Elaine Marshall, Director and Presiding Judge of the Municipal Courts Department. “We are grateful to Mayor Turner for strategizing and providing positive solutions to meet the evolving needs of the Houston Municipal Courts to better serve our citizens,” said Judge Marshall.
Due to Hurricane Harvey, The Herbert W. Gee Municipal Courthouse lost its basement area, 5 full-service courts, the main lobby elevators, as well as several work areas including the Parking Adjudication Hearing Offices and cashier windows. The Herbert W. Gee Municipal Courthouse location was temporarily closed to the public from August 26, 2017 through September 18, 2017. The other satellite court locations resumed operation on September 5, 2017. As a result of the loss of courtrooms and other key court functions in the basement, day and evening dockets had to be combined into existing courtrooms on the second floor in order to maintain normal court operations. In 2018, The Houston Municipal Courts handled close to an average of 1 million cases, which resulted in severe overcrowding for citizens and court staff. The opening of these two new courts allows us to provide additional space to ease the overcrowded conditions we have shared for almost 2 years.
For more information regarding the Ribbon Cutting Ceremony, contact the Department’s Assistant Public Information Officer, Jose Soto at [email protected]. For additional information about Municipal Courts, please visit the website at www.houstontx.gov/courts, or call the Houston Helpline at 3-1-1 or 713.837.0311 if outside of Houston.