The office of the Dallas County Recorder relocated itself last weekend in the first move in a courthouse reorganization that will eventually see county services limited to the first floor of the 116-year-old building and the second, third and fourth floors devoted wholly to the state courts.
Dallas County Recorder Chad Airhart described the weekend move at Tuesday’s meeting of the Dallas County Board of Supervisors. The desks, office equipment and online infrastructure of Airhart and his office’s six employees crossed the second-floor hallway from the southeast to the southwest corner of the courthouse.
The third and fourth floors of the courthouse are already given over to court functions, and all the planned rearrangements will occur on the first and second floors. The recorder’s move to the southwest corner of the second floor leaves the second floor’s east side vacant and ready for reconstruction.
The next steps will see the Dallas County Clerk of Court and the Juvenile Court Services relocated from their first floor offices to the east half of the second floor. The county recorder and county treasurer’s offices will then move to the first floor from their current second-floor locations.
Digitization of many records in the recorder’s office was completed last year, making possible the office’s eventual occupation of a smaller first-floor footprint.
The final step in the reorganization will see the west wing of the second floor converted into an additional large courtroom, bringing the courthouse total to five courtrooms.