Maricopa County Courthouse

About this property

The Maricopa County Courthouse and Old Phoenix City Hall, also known as the County-City Administration Building, is a historic structure in downtown Phoenix, Arizona. The structure consists of two buildings in a conjoined layout sharing the same architecture. === The need for a new courthouse and city hall === The Maricopa County Courthouse and Phoenix City Hall was a joint effort of Maricopa County and the City of Phoenix, a "monumentally scaled" building taking up a full city block downtown. As city and county government matured, officials realized that a building of sufficient size was necessary to house county and city functions in an expanding Phoenix and Maricopa County. Maricopa County's facilities were an imposing two-story brick building in Block 76 of the townsite, completed in 1884; meanwhile, the original 1889 Phoenix city hall, which was designed by James M. Creighton and doubled as territorial capital until 1901, was also becoming too cramped for continued use. On April 28, 1927, the county board of supervisors passed a resolution stating that the current courthouse and jail were no longer adequate for their needs. Additional space was needed for county departments, and adding to the 1884 structure would result in significant fire hazards. The board of supervisors called an election on May 21, 1927, to issue $750,000 in bonds to construct a new building on the Block 76 site; the citizens of Maricopa County approved the bonds by a margin of 3,489 to 780. On June 15, the board proceeded to begin the process of selecting an architect. When the bonds went to bid on July 18, nine investment firms and banks sought them, with Valley Bank and Trust of Phoenix being the winner. Meanwhile, Phoenix, whose growth in the 1920s had led to at least eight new high-rise buildings downtown, saw an opportunity in the new county courthouse project to get a city hall. A group of reform-minded citizens led the charge to combine the two projects; in early 1927, Judge Frank O. Smith spoke twice to the city commission on behalf of a group in the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce. Days after his second speech, the board of supervisors sent the city a letter expressing a desire to collaborate on a shared building. With approval from both the board and the mayor and continued pressure from Judge Smith and the chamber of commerce, the ball began to roll. In June, the property was assessed, and after that, the board of supervisors accepted a bid from the city to acquire the western third of the property for Phoenix's city hall. On July 8, the city commission passed an ordinance calling for a special bond election to raise $450,000 to acquire the western third (valued at $150,000) and to build the new city hall. The election, held on August 16, saw Phoenicians vote 460 to 164 in favor of the proposal.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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