At a Glance:

Sector:  Justice

Location:  Ellicott City, Maryland

Delivery:  Public-Private Partnership | Availability Payment

Scale:  237,000 SF Facility +  691-Space Parking Garage

Certification:  LEED Gold

Result:  Delivered Early and Under Budget | 6 Major Industry Awards

The Situation

Howard County had been trying to replace its 175-year-old courthouse for decades. The building was historic and couldn't keep up: not enough space, outdated security, aging systems. Everyone agreed it needed to happen. It just kept not happening.

The challenge was less about what to build and more about how to get it done on budget, on schedule, without disrupting active court operations, and through a model that would guarantee the long-term performance and reliability of the facility. This was set to be the largest capital project the county had ever undertaken, and its first public-private partnership. It took vision and commitment from Howard County's leadership to move a project of this complexity forward, and a development partner willing to take on the full scope of responsibility. After years of working to find the right fit, the county selected Edgemoor.

How The Deal Was Structured

Together with Howard County, we structured a single agreement that bundled design, financing, construction, and long-term maintenance under one team, accountable for all of it.

The model was built around performance-based payments. Rather than paying a lump sum upfront for construction, the county would make payments over time, tied directly to how well the building performed. If systems underperformed, if maintenance fell short, if the facility wasn't meeting its standards, payments would be reduced. This structure transferred all the risk from the county and its taxpayers to Edgemoor as the developer. And not for a year or two, but for years after opening.

This was the first availability-payment courthouse partnership of its kind outside California. For Howard County, it meant something surprisingly rare in public infrastructure: genuine cost certainty and a development partner with real skin in the game over the long haul.

Every material, every system, every design decision was evaluated with long-term performance in mind. Not whether it met a basic spec requirement on day one, but how it would hold up for the people using it years down the road.

Concept Development Stage

The first step on the project was to spend time in the existing courthouse. The Edgemoor team spent months observing how the building actually functioned day to day, how people moved through the space, where the bottlenecks were, what worked and what didn't, and how the facility's limitations were affecting the people who relied on it every day. That firsthand understanding shaped every decision that followed.

Delivering Through COVID

Construction began in fall 2019. Six months later, COVID shut the world down.

A disruption of that scale derailed projects with far less complexity. But the integrated delivery model held. One team, one set of incentives, consistent leadership from start to finish. Keeping the project on track through the pandemic came down to the team, how we worked together, and the collective commitment that each of us brought to the project.

An independent consultant tracked milestone compliance across eight major projects during that period. Of those eight, Howard County was the only project that remained on time and on budget through the pandemic. Every other project experienced significant delays and/or cost overruns. The courthouse was delivered a day early and under budget.

Built to Serve, Long After Opening

The Howard County Circuit Courthouse opened in July 2021, and the impact of the new building was felt immediately. For the first time, a resident or attorney could navigate the full range of legal services — the Circuit Court, State's Attorney, Public Defender, Sheriff, Bar Association, Clerk of the Court, and Register of Wills — under one roof. Bringing those teams together has made everyday work more connected and more efficient.

The new space also gave the county room to expand programs that had outgrown the previous facility. Alternative dispute resolution, interpreter services, a larger bar library and legal clinics, and partnerships with community organizations now offer lower-cost options for court-ordered services at a scale the old courthouse could not support.

The building's impact extended well beyond the site itself. More than 2,000 workers and 100 companies contributed to construction, with $117 million in contracts awarded to Maryland-based firms, $19 million to Howard County–based firms, and $22 million to Equal Business Opportunity firms, representing a deliberate investment in the local economy that built it. On the site itself, no existing trees were removed, 100 new ones were planted, impervious surfaces were reduced by half, and solar arrays were installed on adjacent land, creating a LEED Gold facility designed to serve the county sustainably for decades to come.

The Howard County Circuit Courthouse is the largest civic investment in the county's history, built for a community whose population has grown more than 12% in less than a decade and shows no sign of slowing. It is built to keep pace with that growth and to serve the community well into the future.

What We Learned in Operations

The agreement included a 30-year post-delivery operations and maintenance term, beginning in July of 2021. For the first three years, Edgemoor managed the operations and maintenance of the courthouse facilities directly under a performance-based regime, a component we value because of what it reveals.

Operating a building after delivery gives you a perspective that many developers never get. Which design choices actually hold up in daily use? Which systems perform the way they were supposed to? What do the people working in the building every day actually need and use most?

Howard County deepened that perspective significantly. The scale and complexity of the facility, the range of user groups, and the years spent managing its performance reinforced lessons we carry into every project we take on: if you're not thinking every day about what happens after delivery, you're not doing the job.

Recognition

The Howard County Courthouse received six major industry awards:

• P3 Bulletin — Best Social Infrastructure Project, Gold (2019). 

• P3 Bulletin — Best Financial Structure, Social Infrastructure, Gold (2019). 

• P3 Bulletin — Best Operational Project, Highly Commended (2023). 

• AIA Justice Facilities Award (2021). 

• ACEC Virginia Grand Award for Engineering Excellence (2022). 

• USGBC Maryland Rise to the Challenge Award (2023).

The project also contributed to Edgemoor winning Developer of the Year, and Howard County received Silver for Government Agency of the Year at the P3 Awards — a significant achievement for a county competing on a much larger national stage.

When the Howard County team traveled to New York for the black-tie awards ceremony, they joked they’d need a trophy case. Then they built one. For a while, it held only the awards from this project. That kind of pride from the client said more about the success of a project than any metric ever could.

The Bigger Picture

Every project we take on is high stakes. We don’t have 300 projects to choose from. We may only deliver one or two a year. Every one matters — to our reputation, to our clients, and to the communities they serve.

Howard County proved something that extends well beyond a single courthouse. When you tie payment to performance, you change the incentives. The developer thinks like an owner, maintenance isn't deferred, taxpayers get cost certainty instead of cost surprises, and the community gets a civic building that performs the way it was promised to.

The real question for any public entity isn’t “who can build this?” It’s “who’s willing to stand behind it for the next 20 years?”