The local government in Augusta County has scheduled a ribbon cutting for Wednesday, June 3, to mark the opening of the new Augusta County Courthouse in Verona.
The ribbon cutting is at 4 p.m. An open house will give you the chance to tour designated public areas of the facility until 7 p.m.
The 124,000-square-foot courthouse was approved in a 2022 referendum in which voters were given one of two choices – build a new courthouse in Verona at a cost of $80 million, or a new one in Staunton, the county seat, for $104 million.
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The 2022 vote came after a 2016 referendum asked voters to approve building a new courthouse in Verona at a cost of $45 million, yes or no.
That one failed by a more than two-to-one margin.
Given the choice between the two price points, the voters, in 2022, sided with the relatively cheaper option.
The county was under a standing court order to address space and safety issues at the historic Augusta County Courthouse, which opened in 1901, in Downtown Staunton, and is tiny, by modern standards, with 20,298 square feet of working space.
After the failed 2016 referendum, county leaders, trying to get ahead of the court order that would later force their hand, tried for years, without success, to work with the City of Staunton to come to a cost-effective solution to the space and safety concerns at the landlocked current courthouse location that got more obvious as time went on.
After those efforts failed to get anywhere, the Augusta County Board of Supervisors asked for help from the General Assembly to get approval for another referendum.
With the backing of two now-retired members of the General Assembly – John Avoli, a former Staunton mayor, and Emmett Hanger, a longtime local state senator – legislation authorizing a referendum passed the General Assembly and was signed into law by Glenn Youngkin in the spring of 2022.
The vote to move the courthouse also moves the county seat inside the actual boundaries of Augusta County for the first time in the county’s 288-year history.
Virginia is the only state in the nation in which cities and counties are independent of each other.
It is common to think of Staunton and Waynesboro as being “in” Augusta County, but, no.
The new building, surprisingly, came in well under budget – $67 million.
The facility will house all three Augusta County courts and court clerk offices — the Circuit Court, General District Court, and Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court — along with the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office, Victim Witness Advocacy program, Court Service Unit, and magistrate’s office.
Augusta County courts will begin operations in the new courthouse on Monday, June 15.
To accommodate the transition, court facilities in downtown Staunton and Verona will be closed the week of June 8-12.
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Chris Graham
