Chief Justice Brian D. Boatright called himself “the wow guy” – meaning, as he walked around the brand new Moffat County Courthouse on Friday, he repeatedly said, “Wow, this is so nice.”

“I really think that this building is gonna be a game changer around the state in terms of how we look at what we do with different justice centers and courthouses in the future,” Boatright said. “This is really gonna be a model for innovation and creativity.”

The Judicial Department held a brief ceremony to celebrate the opening of the new courthouse, which represented a dramatic departure from the old 1917 building. The facility, which also houses county offices, is inside an abandoned Kmart store in Craig.

Repurposing the Kmart was half as expensive as attempting to restore the 105-year-old former courthouse, The Craig Press reported last year. U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet helped secure more than $4 million in federal funding toward the project.

Chief Judge Michael A. O’Hara III of the 14th Judicial District – which encompasses Moffat, Routt and Grand counties in northwest Colorado – said that when he started as a judge two decades ago, all three counties’ courthouses dated to the early 20th century. The path to a new courthouse in Moffat County, which handled more than 2,000 cases last year, was not easy, O’Hara explained.

“To say that there was no money was really an understatement for a long time, and no way to make this happen,” he said.

However, O’Hara thanked the board of county commissioners for doing something that was “not only unusual, but was pretty brave. That is, to dedicate public funding for the purchase of this old building that was sitting here for a long time in its prior life form.”

Boatright and other high-ranking members of the judicial branch traveled from Denver to Craig for the ceremony. Joining him were Justice Melissa Hart; former Justice Rebecca Love Kourlis, who was the chief judge in the 14th Judicial District before her tenure on the Supreme Court; Court of Appeals Judge Lino S. Lipinsky de Orlov; and, state court administrator Steven Vasconcellos.

The chief justice said that he was shown the initial blueprints of the plan to turn the Kmart into a courthouse.

“I was like, ‘What? What are they gonna do?’ And then once I saw what the blueprints were it started to make complete sense,” he said. “Kudos to you guys for being innovative and creative and saying, ‘Why not?’ in terms of exploring things.”

Boatright added that the renovations made the building seem open, airy and “what a justice center should look like.” He also observed the building felt safe to those who work inside and for jurors who are summoned for trials.

“This is really gonna be a model for future renovations,” he said.

His comments resembled those made earlier this week by Hart, who spoke at a lawyers’ luncheon in Denver. She warned that there were many access-to-justice barriers in Colorado, but not every problem was legal in nature.

“We make our courts very imposing. We want to appear ‘above’ in many ways. We don’t build our courts the way you would build a daycare center. We’re not trying to be inviting,” Hart said. “We should probably think about that.”

Along those lines, Moffat County Commissioner Melody Villard praised the project for converting an empty shell of a big box store into a secure facility.

“We didn’t just repurpose a building. We built a community within this building,” she said.

District Court Judge Sandra H. Gardner, who is retiring at the end of 2023 after nearly 17 years on the bench, described the major deficiencies of the century-old former courthouse. There was a rat above the ceiling tiles and a bat on the top floor. The infrastructure was crumbling. One time, when Gardner turned on an electronic recorder before taking a jury verdict, the lights shut down and the trial had to finish in near-dark.

“Look around at what we have,” she said. “The Internet access is key. This ceremony today’s actually being live streamed. … This is what we could not do in the old courthouse.”

Gardner closed with a story of a young lawyer who appeared before her in the 1917 building. Referring to the condition of the courthouse, the lawyer wondered, “Have the people of Moffat County no pride?”

“I said, ‘Yes, the people of Moffat County have pride. The question you should be asking is this: Do they have the vision and the will to build a new courthouse?'” Gardner described. “The proud community of Moffat County did find the will and the vision for a new courthouse.”