Groundbreaking Set for West Valley Courthouse

Groundbreaking for a long-awaited county courthouse will take place Thursday morning, county officials have announced.

The $59-million Municipal Court building was planned in the early 1990s, but fiscal woes ground the project to a halt. It will go up on a vacant nine-acre parcel at Winnetka Avenue and Plummer Street and is set to open in October 2001.

County officials said the building--the third municipal courthouse in the San Fernando Valley and the first on its west side--will get 500,000 visitors each year.

“We’re really very excited because this takes a lot of the pressure off of the surrounding courthouses,” said Jean Huston, justice deputy for county Supervisor Mike Antonovich.

Fred Gaines, president of the San Fernando Valley Bar Assn., said he was elated by the groundbreaking.

“It’s long overdue,” Gaines said. “The courts in the Valley are in great need of additional facilities, and this is going to be right in the middle of a Valley area that had no other facilities.”

Antonovich had voiced some opposition to the Chatsworth site in the past, mainly because he wanted the county to first build a facility in Lancaster. But Huston said Antonovich and Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky--a longtime proponent of the Chatsworth courthouse since much of his constituency is in the West Valley area--worked together on the project.

She said Antonovich remains steadfast in his demand for a courthouse in the Antelope Valley.

The building will hold 10 courtrooms on four levels, three of them above ground, with parking for 750 cars.