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City, county and state officials are still interested in building a regional courthouse in McKeesport, if they can find funding.

"It's not dead yet," said state Sen. Jim Brewster, McKeesport Democrat.

He and Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala Jr. said last week that the volume of court cases in the Mon Valley justifies construction of a facility for family and criminal court offices in the city.

"The Court of Common Pleas just opened an office for Family Division out in the South Hills, and the number of cases there is nowhere near what we have here in the Mon Valley," Zappala told the Almanac Thursday, following a press conference about an ongoing "crime suppression" effort in the city.

Located at 250 Mt. Lebanon Blvd., that Family Division branch office allows parties from communities such as Mt. Lebanon, Dormont, Upper St. Clair, Castle Shannon and neighboring municipalities to file certain complaints, attend hearings and conferences, and make payments.

In 2008, Zappala proposed creation of what he called the "McKeesport Regional Justice Center," a $35 million complex housing courtrooms and county offices. City officials also hoped to include a new public-safety building in the complex that would replace present police and fire facilities located in the former municipal building on Lysle Boulevard.

Designed in part to save police officers and residents from traveling to and from Pittsburgh over surface roads to attend hearings and file paperwork, the courthouse would have served 33 communities with about 200,000 residents, and a groundbreaking was slated for 2009. It would have offered a much broader range of services than a "regional booking center" on Lysle Boulevard that closed in 2005.

But the funds for the regional courthouse never materialized.

Zappala said that ongoing programs such as the crime suppression effort --- a collaboration between the county DANET task force, parole and probation officers, McKeesport police and the state police Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement --- are the first step toward more regional cooperation in the Mon Valley.

If funding can be obtained, a "McKeesport Regional Justice Center" would serve as a base of operations for other public safety functions, Zappala said. He said the shooting of Clairton police Officer James Kuzak Jr. in 2011 demonstrated "the need for a more rapid-response SWAT team" based outside of the city of Pittsburgh.

"We should also be out here providing broader support for (crime scene investigations)," Zappala said, adding that he hopes the crime-suppression details are a "catalyst" for more partnerships between county and Mon Valley public-safety agencies.

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