**The restrooms on the ground floor of the Crawford County Courthouse have been completely remodeled to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act and to address other issues.** Photos by Amy Pieper

A four-month project to update the restrooms on the ground floor of the Crawford County Courthouse was completed in mid-December.

“Probably the greatest need (for the remodeling project) was for disability accessibility and ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliance,” said Crawford County Auditor Terri Martens.

The old courthouse bathrooms consisted of two large rooms with stalls; the rooms were separated by a long corridor leading to the west exit on the ground floor.

After completion of the project, that corridor now has six doors that lead to six individual restrooms.

Three are labeled for women, two are for men and one is a family unit with a diaper changing station.

All six rooms feature a toilet; there are no urinals.

If a decision is made to change the restrooms to unisex or a nondescript label, the only change would be to the signs, Martens said.

Three existing courthouse doors were reused for the project to help the new restrooms blend into the original architecture of the building.

One door each from the old women’s and men’s rooms and a third door found in the courthouse basement were used.

The styles of the toilets and other fixtures were also chosen to match the courthouse design.

**The ground floor hallway and exit before six individual restroom doors were added in the remodeling project.**

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**The sinks, toilets, doors and décor were chosen to fit with the current style of the courthouse.**

“The marble they used on the walls very much resembles the marble that exists around the elevator currently,” Martens said. “Any of the excess marble that came out of the old restrooms was also used to wrap that new closet under the stairwell. Those walls also emulate the old design.”

Ventilation, which was essentially nonexistent in the old restrooms, was updated by hooking into a vent pipe that was located in a vault in the assessor’s office, she said.

The general contractor for the project was L&L Builders Co. of Sioux City.

Brittney Ruba of FEH Design, of Sioux City, designed the new restrooms.

“It was a really good project and it went well,” Martens said. “The general contractor was really good and had meetings every couple weeks. If any contractor had a concern, or if we had a concern, we could always get it handled very promptly.”

Subcontractors on the project included Heiden Concrete, Denison Drywall, MEP Subs, Midwestern Mechanical, Drees Electric, Custom Metal Works, Doors Inc., Blankenship, Jannings Tile, Construction Specialties, and Carroll Glass.