New fed courthouse passes blast tests

The Lloyd D. George Federal Courthouse passed an explosive test with flying colors, the General Services Administration was to announce this morning.

The new courthouse, expected to be completed next spring, is one of the first federal buildings to be erected since the adoption of the new blast-resistance standards in the wake of the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City.

Federal officials were to gather at the construction site at Las Vegas Boulevard South and Clark Avenue to announce that the courthouse's outer wall system exceeded the standards in tests done last fall at the Department of Defense's Large Blast Thermal Simulator in White Sands, N.M.

The test on the exterior wall "gives us a level of confidence that the new standards will help preserve lives and protect federal workers and visitors inside the building," Mary Filippini, GSA spokeswoman in San Francisco, said. "At the same time, the standards do not prohibit us from creating an aesthetically pleasing building under the GSA Design Excellence program."

The exterior wall will be made of glass and finely detailed aluminum panels with sun screens attached.

A full-scale section was tested on the new blast-resistance standards, which are designed to protect people from flying glass fragments and debris and to ensure that the outside of the building remains intact in an explosion.

The new building will also include other security-conscious standards for federal buildings, including hardening of basement and dock areas and restricted access to areas in and around the building.

When complete, the new building will be more than twice the height of the nearby Foley federal building, which will continue to be used as a bankruptcy court and for other purposes when the new structure is completed.

The $90 million, 185-foot-high, beige-colored limestone and precast structure will contain 407,000 square feet, rise 8 stories and contain 10 courtrooms and judicial chambers for the U.S. District Court and the U.S. magistrate.

It will have a raised plaza that forms an open space covered by a metal canopy supported by a 160-foot column. In the plaza will be a three-story public rotunda with a glazed roof that provides secured entry to the building.

Construction began in October 1997.

Filippini said since the 1995 explosion in Oklahoma City, the GSA has spent more than $1.2 billion on security in federal buildings and courthouses.

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