County Offices Up and Running in Temple Court Building

What began years ago as a dream, is now about realized, as the Temple Court Building and Courthouse Annex are almost fully occupied by county officials, helping better serve the county judicial system.

“I remember sitting across the street years ago with former Commissioner Chris Exarchos in the old Brockerhoff building across the street and looking over here at the old bank and Chris says, ‘That’s it! That’s the new space for the county courts!’ I wasn’t sure it could be done, but that was a nice dream,” said Commissioner Steven Dershem. “Now, here we are with these two old historic buildings up and serving the county.”

The annex opened in 2005 with a new courtroom in the old bank. Moving safes out of the building was a huge issue, said Dershem.

Now, the renovations to the Temple Court Building are complete and the addition of a new entrance and hallway connects the Temple Court building to the Courthouse Annex. The court administration now has the room it needs while keeping Bellefonte’s past alive.

The historic buildings are located on Allegheny and High streets, directly across from the courthouse, allowing for a campus-style county courthouse operation.

At a cost of $6.3 million, the renovation to Temple Court was completed in March 2017. A fire that destroyed the Hotel Do De and Garman Theatre in 2012 allowed the county to buy a parcel of land behind the building and construct the connecting hallway and entrance. This allowed for one secure entrance into the annex and Temple Court.

Built in 1894, the Temple Court building consisted of a storefront on the bottom floor and offices on the top three floors that held various businesses through the years. The storefront was home to the popular “National Store” for 51 years until 1992. The renovations kept the historic feel of the building by exposing some of the old bricks and keeping certain details in the interior, while also providing modern updates, said Dershem.

“What we have now is beautiful blending of Bellefonte’s history with an updated new space that will serve this community into the future,” said Dershem.

The district attorney’s office moved to the third and fourth floor of the building in September, and the public defender’s office has occupied the second floor since December. The move across the street from the courthouse has given the offices much needed space.

“It’s great. We have the space we need now. We have offices where we can get together and lay a whole case out and really get to work,” said District Attorney Bernie Cantorna. He said space was lacking next door and the new space will help the office work better.

The distance from the courthouse won’t cause any issues, said Cantorna, because it is a short walk and one of the courtrooms is located in the new building.

A view of the Centre County Courthouse from the new hallway connecting the Courthouse Annex to the newly Renovated Temple Court building.

Down below, at the public defender’s office, Penn State law student Chris Villarreal has been working as an intern at the office throughout the move. He said the move has been helpful to serving the public. 

“It’s been amazing. Before we were in a very confined office. There were three interns and two supervisors all in one small space, without computers and without access to the Internet individually,” he said. “Now we have access to a law library, we have desk space, we have access to a private meeting room, so this has been an essential upgrade for us. Without it we were struggling to get the work done to help our clients. So it was a necessary update, and we are grateful for it.”

While the district attorney and public defenders offices are all set up, Centre County Adult Probation is still in the process of moving some of their special service offices over to the new building, said county administrator Margaret Gray. She has been working to figure out how to best use the new space to fit the counties needs. Probation was at first expected to move all of their offices over to the new building, but Gray said they outgrew the space, and it was determined that they would better serve the county by remaining mostly in the old courthouse. A few special services of probation will be moving over to the new building in the next couple of weeks.

“It has been a challenge to figure out how to best use the space,” said Gray. “But a good challenge, an exciting challenge. With all this nice, new space, we will be able to serve the community better now and in the future.”