When it opened in 2008, the loftily named Bronx Hall of Justice was billed as the crown jewel of New York’s court system — the biggest courthouse in the state, sheathed in glass and housing enough courtrooms to handle dozens of criminal and civil cases each day.

All these years later, the verdict is that it’s more like a broken-down jalopy. Plagued by cost overruns and in constant need of repair, the building is a testament to architectural overreach followed by a never ending whack-a-mole campaign to tackle endlessly needed repairs.1

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The Hall opened three years past due with total construction costs having risen 30% to $421 million, and it didn’t stop there. By 2016 the city Department of Design and Construction (DDC) had to hire another contractor, Lanmark Group, for “post construction work.” The next year Lanmark got a second contract for “remediation.” The two contracts were budgeted for $31 million, of which $29 million had been paid out as of last week.

The Viñoly firm has never faced legal action over the Bronx Hall of Justice design, but was sued in 2012 over another Dormitory Authority project, the West Quad athletic facility at Brooklyn College.2

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• 1. “We bought a Maserati and we got a Volkswagen — and not even a new one,” said one former official involved in addressing the building’s many woes. “It was supposed to be the jewel of all courthouses in the state and in the nation.”
• 2. In court papers, the Dormitory Authority alleged “numerous design errors and omissions were discovered,” including a poorly designed lawn drainage system, the failure of a curtain wall system during a snowstorm and an electrical system that crashed when it was initially engaged.