Fred D. Thompson Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse

Overview 

The 275,000-square-foot, six-story Fred D. Thompson Federal Building contains eight courtrooms, 11 judge’s chambers, one basement floor, two 25-foot-tall penthouses and underground parking. The newly constructed chambers partially surround a distinctive rotunda structure, which forms the main entryway. The expanded facility was designed to meet the significant anticipated growth of the city. 

We provided structural design and blast engineering services to Fentress Architects for the courthouse, which is located three blocks south of the Tennessee State Capitol building. The facility houses several tenant agencies including U.S. District Court, Probation, U.S. Marshals Service, Office of the U.S. Attorney, GSA/PBS Field Office, U.S. Senate and Randolph Sheppard Vending Machine Operator. The new courtrooms and administrative space also provide space for the previous tenants of the replaced Kefauver Federal Building. 

Highlights 

• The structural framing system for the building consists of a steel deck supported by wide flange steel beams, girders and columns.
• The lateral resisting system consists of concrete floor diaphragms spanning between steel moment resisting frames at the perimeter of the building and at selected interior bays.
• Photocatalytic cement utilized for the exterior plazas reacts with sunlight and atmospheric humidity to provide passive environmental benefits to the building.
• Our protective design team provided blast resistance design for the façade and structure and implemented preliminary perimeter security measures for the courthouse to meet federal building requirements.
• Project delivery was completed through Bridging Design-Build.