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Patrick moving to sell courthouse in East Cambridge
Governor Patrick is quietly seeking authorization to sell State-owned courthouse properties in Worcester, Salem, Cambridge, and Lowell. No specific properties are named, but in each city the main targets are clear. One is the high-rise Edward J. Sullivan Courthouse in East Cambridge
Sullivan Courthouse (East Cambridge) and the New Hancock (Back Bay, Boston) seen from East Somerville [photo: Eli Beckerman]
The Sullivan Courthouse has been undergoing a lengthy rehab and asbestos removal job.
The administration reckons the forty-year-old courthouse will fetch a good price from some developer. The proceeeds probably won’t cover the cost of replacement buildings, but someone always makes money on such transactions.
The Governor’s legislation was filed in the form of an “outside section” tacked on to a pending $2-billion-plus bond bill. This is a favorite tactic for “slipping things through” with a minumum of debate.
Middlesex Clerk of Courts Michael Sullivan hopes to see the building that was named after his uncle returned to the uses for which it was built.
“I would like to see the courts stay in Cambridge for a variety of reasons,” he says. Rather than dispersing the courts’ functions into several communities, he thinks it makes more sense to consolidate them and make them more user-friendly.
“I would hope that we are able to create a real judicial center,” says Sullivan, returning to a theme he developed while serving as mayor on the Cambridge city council.
Often attorneys and citizens must appear in different courts on related business. They should not have to drive between various towns for this business. Various economies of scale—such as entryway security—are lost when courts are located in several structures.
With the Sheriff's office and jail gone, Sullivan envisages bringing Probate over from Cambridge Street and relocating the District Court from the upper to the lower floors.
Sheriff James DiPaola has already been shopping around for sites for new and expanded county jails—notably in East Somerville.
The Middlesex Superior Court was moved this month to rented quarters—far from the maddening crowd of low income people and minorities—off the highway in Woburn.
Michael Sullivan hopes this relocation will be a temporary one. “When people on the South Shore want a cup of coffee, they get into their cars. It’s not like that in Cambridge, Somerville, or Medford. We like to walk to the corner for our coffee.”