Stockton Courthouse Fails Inspection Over Hallway Fire Standards
STOCKTON (CBS13) — It's been in the making for years, and now there's another setback for the opening of Stockton's new courthouse.
The project failed a recent inspection by the state fire marshal, who deemed that part of the construction was not up to fire safety standards.
The 13-story building is about 80 percent complete, so to hear there is a delay is disappointing to a lot of people, but what was found inside has to be fixed for safety.
"It was devastating to me, it was devastating to my whole court, devastating to everyone building the building for us," said Judge Robin Appel who serves as chairman of the courts' facilities. The fire marshal's latest inspection fail is a blow to the Downtown Stockton project nearly a decade in the making.
"We've been through several reviews from the fire marshall and others didn't expect this," she said.
According to the office of the fire marshal, they have inspectors out daily to make sure everything is being built up to code for the 306,000 square-foot building. In late February, they found some issues in a field inspection.
The entryway corridors didn't make the cut. They must be able to withstand a fire for at least one hour to allow occupants enough time to evacuate, and first responders enough time to get people out. Inspectors say they couldn't identify the problem sooner.
The fix comes with an increase in projected costs and a delay, but the fire marshall isn't expecting it to be major.
"There'll be additional costs and time to build those solutions, but I don't believe they'll be substantial in nature," he said.
For now, it's a waiting game to see what the costs will be, or which solution will remedy the problem.
The courthouse was expected to open in December, but that has been pushed back to an undetermined date.
