Annex undergoes expansion, renovation

GONZALES — Ascension Parish Clerk of Court Kermit “Hart” Bourque is overseeing a 1,000-square-foot expansion and renovation of his office’s Criminal Department at the courthouse annex in Gonzales, officials said.

Work on the nearly $391,500 project on Irma Boulevard began in mid-December, officials said.

Contractors have steel beams up and poured concrete for the slab this past week. The renovation will follow the expansion, officials said.

The expansion is the seventh addition of Clerk of Court office space during Bourque’s tenure since he was elected to his first term in 1963, the longtime clerk said.

Bridget Hanna, chief deputy clerk, said the Criminal Department office has 14 minute clerks working on the east bank to keep up with court at the annex.

All but one of the parish’s courtrooms are on the east bank of Ascension Parish.

The 2,000-square-foot department in Gonzales does not house paper records; those are held on the west bank.

But Hanna said there are no more desks available for employees in the department, which is located across a covered breezeway from the main annex building.

“They’re pretty much on top of each other in there,” Hanna said.

She said the expansion would make room for 11 new work stations for future growth while the renovation will improve the employee kitchen area, among other things.

Hanna said there are no plans to add personnel, but emphasized the Criminal Department is the clerk’s largest.

Hanna said civil suits historically had been the largest.

“That shows you how much more court we have,” Hanna said, “that we needed all those employees for that.”

Bourque said the last expansion was built in 2007 when he began using the Louisiana National Guard Armory in Donaldsonville.

The armory, which is across the street from the Ascension Parish Courthouse in Donaldsonville, contains a long, former shooting range converted for archives storage, Bourque said.

He said that when he started out in 1964, he had one small office on the west bank and no money in the checking account. He said he had to borrow $3,000 from the then-parish Police Jury to get started.

The Clerk’s Office, which supports itself with recording and other fees, is paying for the new expansion and renovation project without any new debt, Bourque said.

He said he tries to run his office like a business; it ended fiscal 2010 with a $5.9 million fund balance, the latest annual audit says.

He said he has not gotten assistance from parish government for the project.

Once finished, the building will become, by law, parish government property.

Guy Hopkins Construction Co. Inc. of Baton Rouge beat seven other companies for the project with the low bid of $391,470.

The highest bid was $434,000, clerk officials said.

The architect is Bani, Carville & Brown Architects Inc., Hanna said.

The single-story addition will have the same red brick façade as the existing courthouse annex, Hanna said.

The expansion extends into a grassy area between the two sides of the annex building, which has a roughly U-shaped layout.