Henderson County approves $102 million courthouse financing contract

The Henderson County Board of Commissioners approved a financing contract to borrow up to $102 million for a planned expansion to the County Courthouse in an April 15 meeting.

The county broke ground on the courthouse project April 13.

The new space will house new District Court and Superior Court courtrooms as well as offices for the Clerk of Courts and Register of Deeds, Chair Bill Lapsley said at the groundbreaking.

“We’re looking forward to being in a (new) building in the end of 2028,” Assistant County Manager Christopher Todd told the Times-News after the hearing.

The project is set to be financed by the public nonprofit Henderson County Governmental Financing Corporation, according to county documents.

The public nonprofit will sell up to $102 million in limited obligation bonds to underwriter PNC Capital Markets LLC, documents say.

The plan will next go before the North Carolina Local Government Commission, a state oversight agency, Todd said.

The commission will “make sure that everything is in line with state law and that we’re financially healthy enough,” as is required for any public borrowing in the state, he said.

The financing will be secured by a lien on the existing Henderson County Detention Center, according to county documents.

The construction cost for the new four-story, 90,000-square-foot courthouse building will be $84.2 million, Chris Albro from Jacksonville, Florida, construction company Haskell Cooper told the board March 16.

Architect’s fees, groundwork, furnishings and closing costs make up the other roughly $16 million, county staff said.

Three funding options

The question of what revenue will ultimately pay off the money to be borrowed hasn’t yet been answered.

One option, a potential 5-cent property tax increase, would be about $200 more a year on a $400,000 home, and would generate $12.5 million a year, commissioners and staff said in a March meeting.

Other options include drawing from the county’s fund balance; putting a referendum on the ballot to enact a .25-cent sales tax to generate $5 million a year; or to reallocate as much as the entire $6.9 million yearly Henderson County Public Schools and Blue Ridge Community College Maintenance, Repair, Technology and Security fund, County Manager John Mitchell told the board in March.

The county’s fund balance was just shy of $100 million around the time the county adopted its FY 2026 budget in the summer of 2025, with $82 million restricted or assigned to specific uses and the remaining $18 million appropriated for the operating budget, county spokesperson Mike Morgan told the Times-News in March.

Henderson County’s policy is to keep an amount equal to 12% of the yearly budget in reserve, but if the board lowered that to 10%, it could free up $4 million to $5 million a year to fund the expansion project, Mitchell said.

Once property revaluations are done in 2027, the board will have more clarity about where the funding will come from, Lapsley previously told the Times-News.

“We have a year to determine what we need to do (to pay for the project). My personal preference would be to extend the time of the loan starting out and then refinance later on,” Commissioner Rebecca McCall told the Times-News in March.

Brett Werner, a Hendersonville resident and City Council candidate, vocally opposed the financing plan during public comment, speaking in a personal capacity at the April 15 meeting.

“Capital should be directed towards true community necessities like the library and funding our school child nutrition program,” he said, calling proposed means of funding the project irresponsible and “bad ideas.”

“This is not a new discussion and the board has done the things that they need to do to for us to be … fiscally conservative,” Todd told the Times-News in response to those comments.

“The (Local Government Commission) has always, historically, reviewed and approved out borrowings and feels that we’re financially healthy,” he said.

He said the county has money saved up to pay for next year’s debt service, estimated at around $10 million, the Times-News previously reported.

George Fabe Russell is the Henderson County Reporter for the Hendersonville Times-News. Tips, questions, comments? Email him at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Hendersonville Times-News: Henderson County approves $102 million courthouse financing contract

Reporting by George Fabe Russell, Hendersonville Times-News / Hendersonville Times-News

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