Elected officials and community leaders gathered at the new Lauderdale County Government Center on Monday as a ribbon cutting was held officially opening the space.

Supervisor Jonathan Wells said he wanted to thank those in attendance Monday for supporting the Board of Supervisors and the county as it worked to make the new Government Center become a reality.

Monday’s event, he said, is the first time in 117 years a new county courthouse building has opened in Lauderdale County and is, in the Board of Supervisors’ eyes, long overdue.

“This project, in our opinion, had been put off as long as possible,” he said. “For years, grand jury reports made up of registered voters, as well as elected officials and employees, agreed that our citizens and the people who serve them deserved an updated facility.”

The county’s old courthouse, which was first built in 1905, was later remodeled to include a third floor and the jail on top in the 1930s as a Works Progress Administration project. The condition of the aging building has been a source of ongoing criticism from everyone from potential jurors to former state Supreme Court Justice Bill Waller, who, in an address to the Lauderdale County Bar Association in 2015, called it “the worst courthouse in the state.”

After years of kicking the can down the road, the Board of Supervisors in 2019 purchased the old Village Fair Mall, which closed in 1997, at a cost of $1.25 million. Demolition of the mall began in 2020.

Construction of the new government center began in 2022 with extensive renovations also underway on the nearby former LabCorp building, which was transformed into the new sheriff’s department and drug court. LPK Architects designed and oversaw the project with Yates Construction being the lead contractor for the work.

Supervisor Josh Todd said the Board of Supervisors may be the public face of the project, but none of the work would have been possible without the support of other elected officials and members of the community.

Gov. Tate Reeves, who attended Monday’s ribbon cutting, said Meridian and Lauderdale County has undergone a transformation in recent years and he wanted to congratulate all the officials and community leaders who played a part in making that transformation happen.

“I want to congratulate the whole team here in Lauderdale County for this particular building. I know that it’s the culmination of many, many, many years of work,” he said. “It’s a great addition to the county, and it’s going to make a great home for county government.”