Cuyahoga County Justice Center

Justice Complex Center
Courts Tower (rear) and Jail II (left foreground)
General information
Type	Government office building
Architectural style	Brutalist
Location	1200 Ontario Street, Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.
Address	1200 Ontario Street (Courts Tower); 1300 Ontario Street (Police); 1215 West 3rd Street (Corrections Center)
Coordinates	41°30′06″N 81°41′49″W / 41.501664°N 81.696828°W / 41.501664; -81.696828
Construction started	1972
Completed	1976 (Courts Tower, Corrections Center, Police Headquarters); 1995 (Jail II)
Height
Roof	128.1 m (420 ft) (Court Towers)
Technical details
Floor count	25 (Courts Tower); 11 (Jail II); 10 (Corrections Center); 9 (Police Headquarters)
Design and construction
Architect	Prindle, Patrick and Associates (Court Towers and Correction Center [Jail I]); Richard L. Bowen and Associates (Cleveland Police Headquarters); Robert P. Madison International (Jail II)

The Justice Center Complex is a building complex located in the Civic Center District in Cleveland, Ohio, in the United States. The complex consists of the Cleveland Police Headquarters Building, the Cuyahoga County and Cleveland Municipal Courts Tower, and the Correction Center (Jail I), and Jail II. It occupies a city block bounded by Lakeside Avenue, Ontario Street, West 3rd Street, and St. Clair Avenue. The Lakeside Avenue entrance faces the Cuyahoga County Court House, erected in 1912.

When the Justice Center was proposed in 1969, then-Mayor Carl B. Stokes did not want to be part of the Justice Center project. At the time, the Cleveland Police were at an older headquarters on East 22nd Street. In 1971, voters elected Mayor Ralph Perk, who accepted the police department recommendation to move to the proposed Justice Center. The original cost for the Justice Center was set at $60 million, but infighting between Cuyahoga County and City of Cleveland officials escalated the cost to $128 million. On October 20, 1972, ground was broken for the Justice Center. Construction was complete in 1976.

The Courts Tower component, 26 stories high, was designed by Prindle, Patrick and Associates. Jail I was built in 1976, when the rest of the construction of the complex was completed. It had 956 beds, arranged in pods of 23, and each pod was designed to take extensive advantage of natural light. The Courts Tower has been criticized by Steven Litt in The Plain Dealer as menacing, cold, and distracting.

In 1995, the Robert P. Madison International-designed, $68 million Jail II was erected on the southern corner of the block. A suburban location was considered for the facility, but county officials found it was cheaper to demolish two older structures next to the Justice Center. Jail II added 480 beds. Determined to avoid cost overruns on the structure, Jail II was left without stone cladding—which made it clash with the three buildings beside it. Jail II was harshly criticized by Steven Litt in The Plain Dealer as "straight out of 1984" and for clashing with historic structures in the nearby Warehouse District.