NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas – Comal County is investing millions of dollars into renovating buildings to make room for its growing community.
“About 20 years ago, we were less than 80,000 in Comal County and today we’re at over 165,000,” said Comal County Judge Sherman Krause. “So, we’ve more than doubled in population.”
One of the projected in the renovation effort, the county’s courthouse annex about $12 million. Krause said there will be a total of four courtrooms in the facility and additional office space.
“We have office space for the district court staff, as well as office suits for our district judges,” Krause said.
According to Krause, the project is expected to be complete by the summer.
“In talking with people that were here when this was first completed and the county moved into it, they said that the county will never fill it up and here we are renovating it, trying to provide for additional space and additional courtroom,” Krause said.
The owner of Naeglin’s Bakery in New Braunfels, Ross Granzin, said he has also noticed a lot of people moving to the area.
“We’re busy all year round, so it’s nice,” Granzin said.
Krause said the land annex was also renovated to provide three county court-at-law courtrooms, judge suites and office space for county court-at-law staff, district attorney and county clerk.
In total, the project cost about $14 million and they moved into the building last summer.
Additionally, Krause said, county leaders completed construction of a new jail last year that cost approximately $70 million, which increased inmate capacity from 337 to 582.
Krause said work is currently being done to convert the old jail space into the sheriff’s office. The cost for the project is expected to be between $12-13 million and should be completed by next summer.