The new courthouse downtown remains dark and lights won’t turn on for court business until a particular person declares it safe.Steve Kowkabany is the special inspector required by the State of Florida to declare a new building safe for occupancy.
He told Action News, “I actually physically do the testing.” The new courthouse over the past few months failed that testing all ten times.
Kowkabany said, "The ones we’ve done so far, there’ve been problems. Yeah, there’s been issues.” The details of which he won’t discuss publicly to protect his clients. But he tells Action News the size and complexity of this project have been the major hurdles.
"We were all expecting it to be challenging," said Kowkabany, "But it’s obviously more challenging than anyone expected.” The delayed opening has also proved challenging for the city financially and politically.
But those are non-factors when it comes to safety according to the inspector who's working on contract basis and said, “I don’t ever get pressured. I don’t get pushed at all to pencil-whip the results or anything like that. Everyone’s handled it really well.”
Everyone involved with courthouse is now waiting for Kowkabany to give the okay.
This special inspector meanwhile awaits a phone call alerting him to when the courthouse is ready for its next test.
